History Books

PREFACE. The site now occupied by the two cities of New York and Brooklyn, and over which they continue to spread, is pre-eminently "Revolutionary soil." Very few of our historic places are more closely associated with the actual scenes of that struggle. As at Boston in 1775, so here in 1776, we had the war at our doors and all about us. In what is now the heart of Brooklyn Revolutionary... more...

John Tyler JOHN TYLER, second son of Judge John Tyler, governor of Virginia from 1808 to 1811, and Mary Armistead, was born at Greenway, Charles City County, Va., March 29, 1790. He was graduated at William and Mary College in 1807. At college he showed a strong interest in ancient history; was also fond of poetry and music, and was a skillful performer on the violin. In 1809 he was admitted to the... more...

CHAPTER I. Departure from Montreal.—Arrival in New York.—Description of that City.—Names of the Persons engaged in the Expedition. We remained in Montreal the rest of the spring and a part of the summer. At last, having completed our arrangements for the journey, we received orders to proceed, and on the 26th of July, accompanied by my father and brothers and a few friends, I repaired to the... more...

The Houses of York and Lancaster. A real heroine. Margaret of Anjou was a heroine; not a heroine of romance and fiction, but of stern and terrible reality. Her life was a series of military exploits, attended with dangers, privations, sufferings, and wonderful vicissitudes of fortune, scarcely to be paralleled in the whole history of mankind. Two great quarrels. She was born and lived in a period... more...

June 29th, 1833 I am going, if not too lazy, to note down the everyday nothings of my life, and see what it looks like. We dined yesterday at Greenwich, the dinner given by Sefton, who took the whole party in his omnibus, and his great open carriage; Talleyrand, Madame de Dino, Standish, Neumann, and the Molyneux family; dined in a room called ‘the Apollo’ at the Crown and Sceptre. I thought we... more...

HE Indians were formerly lords of the soil we now occupy, and obtained a subsistence principally by hunting and fishing. They generally lived in villages, containing from fifty to five hundred families. Their houses, called wigwams, were usually constructed of poles, one end being driven into the ground, and the other bent over so as to meet another fastened in like manner; both being joined together... more...

INTRODUCTION There are few people in the world who have more opportunity for getting close to the hot, interesting things of one's time than the special correspondent of a great paper. He is enabled to see "the wheels go round;" has the chance of getting his knowledge at first hand. In stirring times the drama of life is to him like the first night of a play. There are no preconceived... more...

I DESIRE this evening to give you some account of the life and labours of a very noble Englishman—William Harvey. William Harvey was born in the year 1578, and as he lived until the year 1657, he very nearly attained the age of 80. He was the son of a small landowner in Kent, who was sufficiently wealthy to send this, his eldest son, to the University of Cambridge; while he embarked the others in... more...

A PROMISING OFFICER The lengthening shadows lay blue and cool beneath the alders by the waterside, though the cornfields that rolled back up the hill glowed a coppery yellow in the light of the setting sun. It was hot and, for the most part, strangely quiet in the bottom of the valley since the hammers had stopped, but now and then an order was followed by a tramp of feet and the rattle of... more...

AN HISTORY &c. Some account of the derivation of the name of Birmingham. The word Birmingham, is too remote for certain explanation. During the last four centuries it has been variously written Brumwycheham, Bermyngeham, Bromwycham, Burmyngham, Bermyngham, Byrmyngham, and Birmingham; nay, even so late as the seventeenth century it was written Bromicham. Dugdale supposes the name to have been given... more...