An elderly man entertains children by recounting the history of an old oak chair whose ownership and travels serve as a thread linking sketches of colonial settlement, Puritan origins, Revolutionary-era episodes, and brief biographies of notable historical figures; the narratives combine factual accounts with imaginative detail to render distant events familiar to young readers, mixing scenes of local life and public events and interspersing short lives of artists, scientists, and statesmen, while the framing device of family storytelling emphasizes the domestic and personal dimensions of history.