History Books

COLUMBUS   Behind him lay the gray Azores,    Behind the Gates of Hercules;  Before him not the ghost of shores,    Before him only shoreless seas.  The good mate said: "Now we must pray,    For, lo! the very stars are gone.  Brave Admiral, speak; what shall I say?"    "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"   "My men grow mutinous day by... more...

WASHINGTON The brilliant historian of the English people [*] has written of Washington, that "no nobler figure ever stood in the fore-front of a nation's life." In any book which undertakes to tell, no matter how slightly, the story of some of the heroic deeds of American history, that noble figure must always stand in the fore-front. But to sketch the life of Washington even in the barest... more...

PONCE DE LEON AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. A golden Easter day was that of the far-away year 1513, when a small fleet of Spanish ships, sailing westward from the green Bahamas, first came in sight of a flower-lined shore, rising above the blue Atlantic waves, and seeming to smile a welcome as the mariners gazed with eyes of joy and hope on the inviting arcades of its verdant forest depths. Never had the... more...

CHAPTER I THE GREAT MIGRATION TO AMERICA The tide of migration that set in toward the shores of North America during the early years of the seventeenth century was but one phase in the restless and eternal movement of mankind upon the surface of the earth. The ancient Greeks flung out their colonies in every direction, westward as far as Gaul, across the Mediterranean, and eastward into Asia Minor,... more...

VINELAND AND THE VIKINGS. The year 1000 A.D. was one of strange history. Its advent threw the people of Europe into a state of mortal terror. Ten centuries had passed since the birth of Christ. The world was about to come to an end. Such was the general belief. How it was to reach its end,—whether by fire, water, or some other agent of ruin,—the prophets of disaster did not say, nor did people... more...

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INTRODUCTION In the year 1864 Mr. Henry C. Murphy, then corresponding secretary of the Long Island Historical Society, had the good fortune to find in an old book-store in Amsterdam a manuscript whose bearings upon the history of the middle group of American colonies made it, when translated and made accessible as a publication in the Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society, an historical... more...

Philadelphia, December 13th, 1781. Dear Sir, My last letter of the 28th of November, sent by the Marquis de Lafayette, must for the most part have been unintelligible to you, owing to an unfortunate mistake of Mr Thompson, who delivered me a cypher sent by Mr Palfrey, which you never received, instead of that sent by Major Franks. The duplicate enclosed is in the last, so that you will no longer be at... more...

Resolution of Congress of March 27th, 1818. Resolution directing the Publication and Distribution of the Journal and Proceedings of the Convention, which formed the present Constitution of the United States. Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the Journal of the Convention, which formed the present Constitution of the United... more...

Philadelphia, September 10th, 1781. Sir, The undersigned, Minister Plenipotentiary of France, has the honor of communicating to Congress the commission of M. Holker, as Consul General of France, in the States of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. He requests Congress to pass an act, or four different acts, in order to procure for this Consul the exequatur in each of the States, to which... more...