American Leaders and Heroes Part 11

VALUABLE WORK OF THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES.

FATHER MARQUETTE GOES DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI.

THE DARING AND TIRELESS LA SALLE.

HIS TWOFOLD PLANS.

HIS VOYAGE TO LAKE MICHIGAN IN THE GRIFFIN.

THE GRIFFIN SAILS BACK TO CANADA WITH A CARGO OF FURS.

LA SALLE LOST IN THE FOREST.

WITH FRIENDLY INDIANS ON THE BANKS OF THE ILLINOIS RIVER.

SAD DAYS FOR LA SALLE.

HE DECIDES TO MAKE AN OVERLAND JOURNEY TO CANADA.

TRAVEL IN THE DEEP FORESTS.

LA SALLE AT LAST REACHES THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

HE GOES TO FRANCE.

HIS COLONY FAILS.

A LONG JOURNEY BEGUN.

LA SALLE MURDERED BY HIS MEN.

HIS CHARACTER AND HIS WORK.

TO THE PUPIL

1. What did Champlain accomplish? When? Why did the Iroquois become bitter enemies of the French and warm friends of the Dutch?

2. What were La Salle's twofold plans? Trace his route through the lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi.

3. Picture him lost in the forest, and spending the night alone.

4. Describe his overland journey to Canada.

5. How did his colony suffer? What do you admire in La Salle's character?

6. What do the following dates mean: 1492, 1541, 1607, 1629, 1676, 1682?

CHAPTER X

George Washington, the Boy Surveyor and Young Soldier

[1732-1799]

[Ill.u.s.tration: George Washington.]

As a pioneer in leading the way along the Ohio and the Mississippi, La Salle did much for France. He hoped to do far more. His cherished dream was to build up in this vast and fertile territory an empire for France.

But the French King foolishly feared that planting colonies in America would take too many of his subjects out of France, and refused to do that which might have made his new possessions secure. The opportunity thus neglected was seized fifty years later by the hardy English settlers who pushed westward across the Alleghany Mountains. This movement brought on a struggle between the two nations, a few events of which are important to mention.

You will remember that two years after the coming of John Smith to Jamestown, Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence and settled Quebec for the French. You will also recall that the French explorers, priests, and traders had been gradually making their way into the heart of the continent, by way of the Great Lakes, until at last La Salle glided down to the mouth of the Mississippi, and took possession of the land in the name of the French King. This was in 1681, the year the Quakers were settling Pennsylvania and fifty-two years before the settlement of Georgia, the youngest of the thirteen original colonies.

Just one year before this last settlement there was born in Westmoreland County, Va., a boy who was to play a large part in the history not only of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, but of the whole country. This boy was George Washington. He was born on February 22, 1732, in an old-fashioned Virginia farm-house, near the Potomac River, on what was known as Bridge's Creek Plantation. The house had four rooms on the ground floor, with an attic of long sloping roofs and an enormous brick chimney at each end.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Washington's Birthplace.]

George's father was a wealthy planter, owning land in four counties, more than 5,000 acres in all. Some of his lands were on the banks of the Rappahannock River, near which he had money invested in iron-mines. To this plantation the family removed when George was seven years old, the new home being nearly opposite Fredericksburg, then a small village.

Here he was sent to a small school and taught by a man named Hobby, a s.e.xton of the church and tenant of George's father. It was a simple sort of training the boy received from such a school-master. He learned a little reading, a little writing, and a little ciphering, but that was about all. Later in life he became a fairly good penman, writing a neat round hand; but he never became a good speller.

When George was eleven years old his father died, leaving to him the home where they lived on the Rappahannock, and to his brother Lawrence the great plantation on the Potomac afterward called Mount Vernon.

Lawrence went to live at Mount Vernon, while George remained with his mother at the house opposite Fredericksburg.

Now left without a father, George received his home training from his mother. Fortunate, indeed, was he to have such a mother to teach him; for she was kind, firm, and had a strong practical sense. She loved her son, and he deeply appreciated her fond care of him. Some of George's youthful letters to his mother are full of interest. After the manner of the time he addressed her formally as "Honored Madam," and signed himself "Your dutiful son."

[Ill.u.s.tration: WASHINGTON CROSSING THE ALLEGHANY RIVER]

Nor was his mother the only strong and wholesome influence over his home life. His eldest brother, Lawrence, played an important part in shaping his character. According to the custom of those days, Lawrence, as the eldest son of a Virginia planter, would inherit the bulk of his father's estate. He was therefore sent to an excellent school in England, to receive the training which would fit him to be a gentleman and a leader in social life. For learning was not held in such high esteem as ability to look after the business of a large plantation and take a leading part in the public life of the county and the colony.

With such a training Lawrence returned from England, a young man of culture and fine manners and well fitted to be a man of affairs. From this time on George, now only seven or eight years old, looked up to his brother, fourteen years his senior, with cordial admiration. Lawrence became George's model of manhood, and returned his younger brother's devotion with a tender love.

Soon after the death of his father, the boy went to live with his brother Augustine on the Bridge's Creek Plantation, in order to have the advantages of a good school there. Many of his copy-books and books of exercises, containing such legal forms as receipts, bills and deeds, as well as pictures of birds and faces, have been preserved. In these books there are, also, his rules of conduct, maxims which he kept before him as aids to good behavior. The following are a few of them:

"Every action in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those present.

"When a man does all he can, though it succeeds not well, blame not him that did it.

"Undertake not what you cannot perform, but be careful to keep your promise.

"Speak not evil of the absent: for it is unjust.

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The English Colonies and the French Claims in 1754.]

In George's school-days he heard many stories about wars with the Indians and about troubles between the English and the French colonies.

Moreover, his brother Lawrence had been a soldier in the West Indies in a war between England and Spain, from which he had returned full of enthusiasm about what he had felt and seen. It was at this time that Lawrence changed the name of his plantation on the Potomac to Mount Vernon, in honor of Admiral Vernon, under whose command he had fought.

Catching his brother's military spirit, George organized his boy friends into little military companies, and, as their commander, drilled them, paraded them, and led them in their sham battles in the school-yard.

Naturally the boys looked to him as leader, for he was strong in mind and body, and fond of athletic sports. It is said that no boy of his age was his match in running, leaping, wrestling, and pitching quoits. His athletic skill expressed itself also in his fearless horsemanship. The story is told that he once mounted a colt that had successfully resisted all attempts to remain on his back. But George held on until the spirited animal, in a frenzy of effort to throw off the persistent young rider, reared, broke a blood-vessel, and fell dead. His keen enjoyment of a spirited horse, and of hunting in the freedom of woods and fields for such game as foxes, deer, and wild-cats, lasted to a late period of his life.

George's good qualities were not confined to out-door sports requiring skill and physical strength alone. He was a manly boy, stout-hearted and truthful. All the boys trusted him because they knew he was fair-minded, and often called upon him to settle their disputes.

But we must not think of him as a perfect boy, finding it easy always to do the right thing. George Washington had his faults, as some of the rest of us have. For instance, he had a quick temper which he found it hard to control. In fact, he found this a harder thing to do than many brave deeds for which he became famous in his manhood.

The humdrum quiet of a Virginia plantation did not satisfy this alert boy longing for a life of action. He had heard from Lawrence about life on a war-vessel, and had also seen, year after year, the annual return to the plantation wharf of the vessel that carried a cargo of tobacco to England and brought back in exchange such goods as the planter needed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The French in the Ohio Valley.]

Eager for a change of surroundings, he made all his plans to go to sea.

The chest containing his clothing had been packed and sent down to the wharf, but at the last moment he yielded to his mother's persuasion, and gave up his cherished plan of becoming a sailor-boy. He was then fourteen years old.