United States Books

INTRODUCTION THE established church in the United Netherlands was the Reformed Church. Its polity was that of Geneva or of Presbyterianism. The minister and ruling or lay elders of the local church formed its consistory, corresponding to the Scottish or American kirk session. The next higher power, administrative or judicial, resided in the classis, consisting of all the ministers in a given district... more...

CALIFORNIA'S NAME AND EARLY HISTORY   A Spanish story written four hundred years ago speaks of California as an island rich in pearls and gold. Only black women lived there, the story says, and they had golden spears, and collars and harness of gold for the wild beasts which they had tamed to ride upon. This island was said to be at a ten days' journey from Mexico, and was supposed to lie... more...

CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY—BIRTH—BOYHOOD. My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral. Mathew Grant, the founder of the branch in America, of which I am a descendant, reached Dorchester, Massachusetts, in May, 1630. In 1635 he moved to what is now Windsor, Connecticut, and was the surveyor for that colony for more than forty years. He was also, for many... more...

AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. [Sidenote: Geology and Archaeology.] The sciences of geology and archaeology, working side by side, have made a wonderful progress in the past half a century. The one, seeking for the history and transformations of the physical earth, and the other, aiming to discover the antiquity, differences of race, and social and ethnical development of man, have obtained results which we... more...

APOLOGY. Fifty years ago! Gracious me! It makes me think of my age to talk of it. Yes, just fifty years ago was enacted the greatest tragedy the world ever saw, THE CIVIL WAR. I entered the service at twenty and one-half years of age and served three and one-half years. At different times I have told of some of my experiences, which seemed to interest. Sometimes I have talked to literary men, story... more...

Preface In an Age when man's horizons are constantly being widened to include hitherto little-known or non-existent countries, and even other planets and outer space, there is still much to be said for the oft-neglected study of man in his more immediate environs. Intrigued with the historical tale of the "Fair Play settlers" of the West Branch Valley of the Susquehanna River and... more...

1. REFERENCES BIBLIOGRAPHIES.—R. G. Thwaites, Colonies, §§ 39, 74, 90; notes to Joseph Story, Commentaries, §§ 1-197; notes to H. C. Lodge, Colonies, passim; notes to Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, V. chs. ii.-vi., Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 130-133. HISTORICAL MAPS.—R. G. Thwaites, Colonies, Maps Nos. 1 and 4 (EpochMaps, Nos. 1 and 4); G. P. Fisher Colonial Era, Maps Nos. 1... more...

SPEECH OF JOHN HOSSACK. [At the February term of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, JOHN HOSSACK and JOSEPH STOUT, of Ottawa, were convicted of having aided in rescuing a fugitive slave from the custody of the U.S. Deputy Marshal at Ottawa, Oct. 20, 1859, and sentenced by Judge Drummond to pay a fine of one hundred dollars, and be imprisoned ten days. Mr. HOSSACK is a... more...

INTRODUCTION The number of books on the labor problem is indeed legion. The tragedy of the literature on any dynamic subject is that most of it is written by people who have time to do little else. Perhaps the best books on many subjects will never be written because those folk, who would be most competent to do the writing, through their vital connection with the problem at hand, never find the spare... more...

THE COMING OF THE PILGRIMS The Pilgrims and Puritans, whose migration to the New World marks the beginning of permanent settlement in New England, were children of the same age as the enterprising and adventurous pioneers of England in Virginia, Bermuda, and the Caribbean. It was the age in which the foundations of the British Empire were being laid in the Western Continent. The "spacious times of... more...