Colonel Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City, October 27, 1858
Was appointed Police Commissioner of New York City, 1895
Aided in establishing the Independence of Cuba, 1898
Was elected Governor of the State of New York, 1898
Served as President of the United States, 1901-1909
He died, January 6, 1919.
Not in a Log Cabin
Theodore Roosevelt, unlike Abraham Lincoln, was not born in a log cabin. On the contrary, he was born to wealth and position in the City of New York.
He was reared in an elegant home and educated in one of the famous universities of the Country. He read law, but he had no need to practise a profession. His father had retired from business, and there was no occasion for the son to take up a business career.
But Theodore Roosevelt preferred for himself a life of toil—the strenuous life.
Ill-health was the first and greatest of all his disadvantages. “When a boy,” said he, “I was pig-chested and asthmatic.”
From earliest infancy he was called to battle with asthma. It lowered his vitality and threatened his growth. His body was frail, but within was the conquering spirit. He determined to be strong like other boys.
In this, he had the loving help of gentle parents. On the wide back porch of their home in the City of New York, they fitted up a gymnasium, where he strove for bodily vigour with all his might. Although at the start, his pole climbing was very poor, he kept trying until he got to the top. He would carry his gymnastic exercises to the perilous verge of the window ledge, more to the alarm of the neighbours than of his own family.
In the Wide Out-of-Doors
Summer was the season of Roosevelt’s delight. Then he ceased to be a city boy. At his father’s country place on Long Island, he learned to run and ride, row, and swim. And when the long sleepless nights came, the father would take his invalid boy in his arms, wrap him up warmly, and drive with him in the free open air through fifteen or twenty miles of darkness.
The boy had his father’s love of the woods and the fields. He studied and classified the birds of the neighbourhood, until he knew their songs and plumage and nests. He and his young friends could be relied on to find the spot where the violets bloomed the earliest, and the trees on which the walnuts were most plentiful, as well as the pools where the minnows swarmed, and the favourite refuge of the coon.
He was taken to Europe, in the hope that it would benefit his health, “a tall thin lad with bright eyes and legs like pipestems.”
When at last, he was ready to go to college, he had vanquished his enemy, ill-health, and was ready to play a man’s part in life.
“I made my health what it is,” he said later, “I determined to be strong and well, and did everything to make myself so. By the time I entered Harvard, I was able to take part in whatever sports I liked. I wrestled and sparred, and I ran a great deal, and, although I never came in first, I got more out of the exercise than those who did, because I immensely enjoyed it and never injured myself.
Busting Broncos
After leaving college, young Roosevelt entered politics. Finally, between legislative sessions, he surrendered to his impulses and started for the Wild West.
He left the train in North Dakota at the little town of Medora. The young visitor from the East, sought out two hunters and told them that he wished to go buffalo hunting with them. And he did so, though hunting the buffalo then was no fancy pastime.
It was, in truth, a rare chance to see the Wild West in the last glow of its golden age. Soon it was all to vanish and pass into the most romantic chapter of American history.
Before his first visit was at an end, he had become a ranchman.
The young master of Elkhorn Ranch, brave, outspoken, and always ready to bear his full share of toil, and hardship, was not long in winning the respect and hearty good-will of the bluff, honest men of the Bad Lands.
After only a little experience in ranching, he learned to sit in his saddle and ride his horse like a life-long plainsman.
But he never pretended to any special fondness for a bucking bronco; and a story is told of a trick played on him by some friendly persons in Medora.
He was in town, waiting for a train that was to bring a guest from the East. While he was in a store, the jokers placed his saddle on a notoriously vicious beast, which they substituted for his mount.
When he came out, in haste to ride around to the railway station, he did not detect the deception.
Once, he was on the horse’s back, the bronco bucked and whirled to the amusement of the grinning villagers. But to their amazement, the young ranchman succeeded in staying on him and spurring him into a run.
Away they flew to the prairies, and soon back they raced in a cloud of dust and through the town. The friend from the East arrived, and joined the spectators, who waited to see if the young squire of Elkhorn ever would return.
In a little while, he was seen coming along the road at a gentle gait. And when he reached his starting point, he dismounted, with a smile of quiet mastery, from as meek a creature as ever stood on four legs.
He had no use, however, for a horse whose spirit ran altogether to ugliness. When he first went West, he doubted the theory of the natives that any horse was hopelessly bad.
For instance, there was one in the sod-roofed log stable of Elkhorn, who had been labelled The Devil. Roosevelt believed that gentleness would overcome Devil. The boys thought it might, if he should live to be seventy-five.
After much patient wooing, Devil actually let Roosevelt lay his hand on him and pat him. The boys began to think that possibly there was something in this new plan of bronco busting.
One day, however, when his gentle trainer made bold to saddle and mount him, Devil quickly drew his four hoofs together, leaped into the air, and came down with a jerk and a thud. Then he finished with a few fancy curves, that landed his disillusioned rider a good many yards in front of him.
Roosevelt sprang to his feet and on to the back of the animal. Four times he was thrown. Finally, the determined rider manœuvred Devil out on to a quicksand where bucking is impossible. And, when at last, he was driven back to solid earth, he was like a lamb.
In this rough life of the range, the young ranchman conquered for ever the physical weaknesses of his youth, and put on that rude strength which enabled him to stand before the world, a model of vigorous manhood.
James Morgan (Arranged)
Sagamore Hill takes its name from the old Sagamore Mohannis, who, as Chief of his little tribe, signed away his rights to the land, two centuries and a half ago.
The house stands right on the top of the hill, separated by fields and belts of woodland from all other houses, and looks out over the Bay and the Sound.
We see the sun go down beyond long reaches of land and of water. Many birds dwell in the trees round the house or in the pastures and the woods near by. And, of course, in Winter gulls, loons, and wild fowl frequent the waters of the Bay and the Sound.
We love all the seasons; the snows and bare woods of Winter; the rush of growing things and the blossom-spray of Spring; the yellow grain, the ripening fruits, and tasseled corn, and the deep, leafy shades that are heralded by “the green dance of Summer”; and the sharp fall winds that tear the brilliant banners with which the trees greet the dying year.
The Sound is always lovely. In the summer nights, we watch it from the piazza, and see the lights of the tall Fall River boats as they steam steadily by. Now and then we spend a day on it, the two of us together in the light rowing skiff, or perhaps with one of the boys to pull an extra pair of oars. We land for lunch at noon under wind-beaten oaks on the edge of a low bluff, or among the wild plum bushes on a spit of white sand; while the sails of the coasting schooners gleam in the sunlight, and the tolling of the bell-buoy comes landward across the waters....
Early in April, there is one hillside near us which glows like a tender flame with the white of the bloodroot. About the same time, we find the shy mayflower, the trailing arbutus. And although we rarely pick wild flowers, one member of the household always plucks a little bunch of mayflowers to send to a friend working in Panama, whose soul hungers for the northern Spring.
Then there are shadblow and delicate anemones about the time of the cherry blossoms. The brief glory of the apple orchards follows. And then the thronging dogwoods fill the forests with their radiance.
And so flowers follow flowers, until the springtime splendour closes with the laurel and the evanescent honey-sweet locust bloom. The late summer flowers follow, the flaunting lilies, and cardinal flowers, and marshmallows, and pale beach rosemary; and the goldenrod and the asters, when the afternoons shorten and we again begin to think of fires in the wide fireplaces.
Theodore Roosevelt
Mrs. Roosevelt looked after the place itself. She supervised the farming, and the flower gardens were her especial care.
The children were now growing up, and from the time when they could toddle, they took their place—a very large place—in the life of the home. Roosevelt described the intense satisfaction he had in teaching the boys what his father had taught him.
As soon as they were large enough, they rode their horses, they sailed on the Cove and out into the Sound. They played boys’ games, and through him, they learned very young to observe nature.
In his college days, he had intended to be a naturalist, and natural history remained his strongest avocation. And so he taught his children to know the birds and animals, the trees, plants, and flowers of Oyster Bay and its neighbourhood. They had their pets—Kermit, one of the boys, carried a pet rat in his pocket.
Three things Roosevelt required of them all: obedience, manliness, and truthfulness.
William Roscoe Thayer
One April, I went to Yellowstone Park, when the snow was still very deep, and I took John Burroughs with me. I wished to show him the big game of the Park, the wild creatures that have become so astonishingly tame and tolerant of human presence.
In the Yellowstone, the animals seem always to behave as one wishes them to! It is always possible to see the sheep, and deer, and antelope, and also the great herds of elk, which are shyer than the smaller beasts.
In April, we found the elk weak after the short commons and hard living of Winter. Once, without much difficulty, I regularly rounded up a big band of them so that John Burroughs could look at them. I do not think, however, that he cared to see them as much as I did.
The birds interested him more, especially a tiny owl, the size of a robin, which we saw perched on the top of a tree, in mid-afternoon, entirely uninfluenced by the sun, and making a queer noise like a cork being pulled from a bottle.
I was rather ashamed to find how much better his eyes were than mine, in seeing the birds and grasping their differences.
Theodore Roosevelt
I saw in Roosevelt a strong man, who had taken early to heart Hamlet’s maxim, and had steadfastly practised it:—
He himself summed up this part of his philosophy in a phrase which has become a proverb:—
More than once in his later years, he quoted this to me, adding, that it was precisely because this or that Power knew that he carried a big stick, that he was enabled to speak softly with effect.
William Roscoe Thayer (Condensed)
When I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the “big trees,” the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite with John Muir. Of course, of all people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite....
John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days’ trip.
The first night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of the great Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in colour and in symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervour of the Middle Ages.
Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in the evening, and again with a burst of wonderful music at dawn. I was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew little about them. The hermit thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees and the flowers and the cliffs, everything. The only birds he noticed or cared for, were some that were very conspicuous, such as the water-ousels—always particular favourites of mine too.
The second night, we camped in a snow-storm on the edge of the cañon walls, under the spreading limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir. And next day, we went down into the wonderland of the Valley itself.
I shall always be glad that I was in the Yosemite with John Muir, and in the Yellowstone with John Burroughs.
Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed)
When wolf-hunting in Texas, and when bear-hunting in Louisiana and Mississippi, I was not only enthralled by the sport but also by the strange new birds and other creatures, and the trees and flowers I had not known before.
By the way, there was one feast at the White House, which stands above all others in my memory, this was “The Bear Hunters’ Dinner.”
I had been treated so kindly by my friends on these hunts, and they were such fine fellows, men whom I was so proud to think of as Americans, that I set my heart on having them at a hunters’ dinner at the White House.
One December, I succeeded. There were twenty or thirty of them, all told, as good hunters, as daring riders, as first class citizens as could be found anywhere. No finer set of guests ever sat at meat in the White House.
And among other game on the table, was a black bear, itself contributed by one of these same guests.
Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed)
The African buffalo is undoubtedly a dangerous beast, but it happened that the few that I shot did not charge.
A bull elephant, a vicious “rogue” which had been killing people in the native villages, did charge before being shot at. My son Kermit and I stopped it at forty yards.
Another bull elephant, also unwounded, which charged, nearly got me, as I had just fired both cartridges from my heavy double-barreled rifle, in killing the bull I was after—the first wild elephant I had ever seen. The second bull came through the thick brush to my left, like a steam plow through a light snowdrift, everything snapping before his rush, and was so near that he could have hit me with his trunk. I slipped past him behind a tree.
People have asked me how I felt on this occasion. My answer has always been that I suppose I felt as most men of like experience feel on such occasions. At such a moment, a hunter is so very busy that he has no time to get frightened. He wants to get in his cartridges and try another shot.
Rhinoceros are truculent, blustering beasts, much the most stupid of all the dangerous game I know. Generally their attitude is one of mere stupidity and bluff. But on occasions they do charge wickedly, both when wounded and when entirely unprovoked. The first I ever shot, I mortally wounded at a few rods’ distance, and it charged with the utmost determination. Whereat I and my companion both fired, and, more by good luck than anything else, brought it to the ground just thirteen paces from where we stood.
Another rhinoceros may or may not have been meaning to charge me; I have never been certain which. It heard us, and came at us through rather thick brush, snorting and tossing its head. I am by no means sure that it had fixedly hostile intentions. And indeed, with my present experience, I think it likely that if I had not fired, it would have flinched at the last moment, and either retreated or gone by me. But I am not a rhinoceros mind-reader, and its actions were such as to warrant my regarding it as a suspicious character. I stopped it with a couple of bullets, and then followed it up and killed it.
The skins of all these animals which I thus killed are in the National Museum at Washington.
Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed)
Now, let us see what Theodore Roosevelt did to help establish Liberty in this Hemisphere.
It is a far cry from the Very Magnificent Don Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and discoverer of the West Indies and South America, to plain Theodore Roosevelt of Oyster Bay and citizen of the United States of North America.
Yet it was a very direct cry, a ringing call down through four centuries, a never ceasing plea for Liberty and safety.
And it was plain Colonel Theodore Roosevelt who, with his Rough Riders, helped to break the last link of the chain of Spanish domination in America. Its first link was unwittingly forged by Columbus, when he discovered the gold and pearls of the New World.
Through the many years, Cuba, the “Ever Faithful Island,” remained loyal to Spain, while her other American possessions declared their Independence, slipped from her grasp, and set up Republics.
But instead of taking warning from her American losses, Spain continued her policy of repression in Cuba.
Then there arose Cuban Patriots, among them, Gomez, Maceo, and Garcia, who struggled for Cuba’s Freedom. There were rebellions, insurrections, and war. Great and terrible were the sufferings of the People.
It is not possible here to give an account of the Cuban War for Independence. But after a terrific struggle, it was finally won in 1898, with the help of our United States. Thus Spain lost her last foothold in America, and withdrew from this hemisphere.
To-day, the Island of Cuba the “Ever-Faithful Island,” the “Pearl of the Antilles,” is a flourishing Republic with a world commerce. And during the World War, the red, white, and blue, single-bestarred Flag of Cuba, waved over a brave Cuban Army, the ally of the United States.
But as to Theodore Roosevelt’s part in liberating the Island, while he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley, we will let one of his biographers tell about it:—
In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests, which give us the right and the duty to speak and act, the war in Cuba must stop.
President McKinley
Roosevelt had always felt the danger to the United States of maintaining a despicable or an inadequate Navy, and from the moment he entered the Navy Department, he set about pushing the construction of the unfinished vessels and of improving the quality of the personnel.
He was impelled to do this, not merely by his instinct to bring whatever he undertook up to the highest standard, but also because he had a premonition that a crisis was at hand, which might call the Country, at an instant’s notice, to protect itself with all the power it had.
Roosevelt was impressed by the insurrection in Cuba, which kept that Island in perpetual disorder. The cruel means, especially reconcentration and starvation, by which the Spaniards tried to put down the Cubans, stirred the sympathy of the Americans, and the number of those who believed that the United States ought to interfere in behalf of humanity, grew from month to month.
During his first year in office, Assistant Secretary Roosevelt busied himself with all the details of preparation. And all the while he watched the horizon towards Cuba, where the signs grew angrier and angrier.
But the young Secretary had to act with circumspection. President McKinley, desiring to keep the peace up to the very end, would not countenance any move which might seem to the Spaniards either a threat or an insult.
Early in the evening of February 15, 1898, the U. S. battleship Maine, peaceably riding at her moorings in Havana Harbour, was blown up. Two officers and 264 enlisted men were killed by the explosion and in the sinking of the ship.
The next morning, the newspapers carried the report to all parts of the United States, and, indeed, to the whole world. A tidal wave of anger surged over this Country.
“That means war!” was the common utterance.
I doubt whether Roosevelt ever worked with greater relish than during the weeks succeeding the blowing-up of the Maine. The Navy Department arranged in hot haste to victual the ships; to provide them with stores of coal and ammunition; to bring the crews up to their full quota by enlisting; to lay out a plan of campaign; to see to the naval bases and the lines of communication; and to coöperate with the War Department in making ready the land fortifications along the shore.
Having accomplished his duty as Assistant Secretary, Roosevelt resigned. He thought that he had a right to retire from that post, and to gratify his long cherished desire to take part in the actual warfare.
General Alger, the Secretary of War, had a great liking for Roosevelt, offered him a commission in the Army, and even the command of a regiment.
This he prudently declined, having no technical military knowledge. He proposed instead that Dr. Leonard Wood should be made Colonel, and that he should serve under Wood, as Lieutenant Colonel.
While Roosevelt finished his business at the Navy Department, Colonel Wood hurried to San Antonio, Texas, the rendezvous of the First Regiment of Volunteer Cavalry—the Rough Riders!
A call for volunteers, issued by Roosevelt and endorsed by Secretary Alger, spread through the West and Southwest, and it met with a quick response.
Not even in Garibaldi’s famous Thousand, was such a strange crowd gathered. It comprised cow-punchers, ranchmen, hunters, professional gamblers, and rascals of the Border, sportsmen, mingled with the society sports, former football players and oarsmen, polo players, and lovers of adventure from the great eastern cities. They all had one quality in common—courage—and they were all bound together by one common bond—devotion to Theodore Roosevelt.
Nearly every one of them knew him personally. Some of the western men had hunted or ranched with him. Some of the eastern had been with him in college, or had had contact with him in one of the many vicissitudes of his career.
. . . . . . . . . .
I shall not attempt to follow in detail the story of the Rough Riders, but shall touch only on those matters which refer to Roosevelt himself.
Wood having been promoted to Brigadier General, in command of a larger unit, Theodore Roosevelt became Colonel of the regiment of Rough Riders.
On July 1 and 2, he commanded the Rough Riders in their attack on and capture of San Juan Hill, in connection with some coloured troops.
In this engagement, their nearest approach to a battle, the Rough Riders, who had less than five hundred men in action, lost eighty-nine in killed and wounded.
Then followed a dreary life in the trenches, until Santiago surrendered, and then a still more terrible experience, while they waited for Spain to give up the war.
Under a killing tropical sun, receiving irregular and often damaged food, without tent or other protection from the heat or from the rain, the Rough Riders endured for weeks the ravages of fever, climate, and privation.
Finally, because of Roosevelt’s insistence, the Government at Washington, without loss of time, ordered the Army home.
The sick were transported by thousands to Montauk Point, at the eastern end of Long Island, where in spite of the best medical care which could be improvised, large numbers of them died.
But the Army knew, and the American Public knew, that Roosevelt had saved multitudes of lives. At Montauk Point, he was the most popular man in America.
This concluded Roosevelt’s career as a soldier. The experience introduced to the Public those virile qualities of his, with which his friends were familiar.
William Roscoe Thayer (Arranged)
Roosevelt decided to make one more trip for hunting and exploration. As he could not go to the North Pole, he said, because that would be poaching on Peary’s field, he selected South America.
He had long wished to visit the Southern Continent, and invitations to speak at Rio Janeiro and at Buenos Aires, gave him an excuse for setting out.
He started with the distinct purpose of collecting animal and botanical specimens, this time for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which provided two trained naturalists to accompany him. His son Kermit, toughened by the previous adventure, went also.
Having paid his visits and seen the civilized parts of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, he ascended the Paraguay River, and then struck across the plateau which divides its watershed from that of the tributaries of the Amazon. For he proposed to make his way through an unexplored region in Central Brazil, and reach the outposts of civilization on the Great River.
The Brazilian Government had informed him that by the route he had chosen, he would meet a large river—the River of Doubt—by which he could descend to the Amazon.
There were some twenty persons, including a dozen or fifteen native rowers and pack-bearers, in his party. They had canoes and dugouts, supplies of food for about forty days, and a carefully chosen outfit.
With high hopes, they put their craft into the water and moved down stream. But on the fourth day, they found rapids ahead. And from that time on, they were constantly obliged to land and carry their dugouts and stores round a cataract.
The peril of being swept over the falls, was always imminent, and as the trail, which constituted their portages, had to be cut through the matted forest, their labours were increased. In the first eleven days, they progressed only sixty miles. No one knew the distance they would have to traverse, nor how long the river would be broken by falls and cataracts, before it came down into the plain of the Amazon.
Some of their canoes were smashed on the rocks. Two of the natives were drowned. They watched their provisions shrink. Contrary to their expectations, the forest had almost no animals. If they could shoot a monkey or a monster lizard, they rejoiced at having a little fresh meat.
Tropical insects bit them day and night and caused inflammation and even infection. Man-eating fish lived in the river, making it dangerous for the men when they tried to cool their inflamed bodies by a swim.
Most of the party had malaria, and could be kept going only by large doses of quinine. Roosevelt, while in the water, wounded his leg on a rock; inflammation set in, and prevented him from walking, so that he had to be carried across the portages.
The physical strength of the party, sapped by sickness and fatigue, was visibly waning. Still the cataracts continued to impede their progress and to add terribly to their toil. The supply of food had shrunk so much, that the rations were restricted, and amounted to little more than enough to keep the men able to go forward slowly.
Then fever attacked Roosevelt, and they had to wait for a few days, because he was too weak to be moved. He besought them to leave him and hurry along to safety, because every day they delayed consumed their diminishing store of food, and they might all die of starvation.
They refused to leave him, however. A change for the better in his condition came soon. They moved forward. At last they left the rapids behind them, and could drift and paddle on the unobstructed river.
Roosevelt lay in the bottom of a dugout, shaded by a bit of canvas put up over his head, and too weak from sickness even to splash water on his face; for he was almost fainting from the muggy heat and the tropical sunshine.
Forty-eight days, after they began their voyage on the River of Doubt, they saw a peasant, a rubber-gatherer, the first human being they had met. Thenceforward they journeyed without incident.
The River of Doubt flowed into the larger river, Madeira; where they found a steamer which took them to Manaos on the Amazon.
During the homeward voyage, Roosevelt slowly recovered his strength, but he had never again the iron physique with which he had embarked the year before. The Brazilian Wilderness stole away ten years of his life.
He found on his return home that some geographers and South American explorers laughed at his story of the River of Doubt. He laughed, too, at their incredulity; and presently the Brazilian Government, having established the truth of his exploration and named the river after him, Rio Teodoro, his laughter prevailed. He took real satisfaction in having placed on the map of Central Brazil, a river six hundred miles long.
William Roscoe Thayer (Arranged)
The evil men do lives after them; so does the good. With the passing of years, a man’s name and fame either drift into oblivion or they are seen in their lasting proportions.
You must sail fifty miles over the Ionian Sea and look back, before you can fully measure the magnitude and majesty of Mount Ætna. Not otherwise, I believe, will it be with Theodore Roosevelt, when the people of the future look back upon him. The blemishes due to misunderstanding will have faded away. The transient clouds will have vanished. The world will see him as he was....
Those of us who knew him, knew him as the most astonishing human expression of the Creative Spirit we had ever seen. His manifold talents, his protean interests, his tireless energy, his thunderbolts which he did not let loose, as well as those he did, his masterful will sheathed in self-control like a sword in its scabbard, would have rendered him superhuman, had he not possessed other qualities which made him the best of playmates for mortals.
He had humour, which raises every one to the same level. He had loyalty, which bound his friends to him for life. He had sympathy and capacity for strong, deep love. How tender he was with little children! How courteous with women! No matter whether you brought to him important things or trifles, he understood.
I can think of no vicissitude in life in which Roosevelt’s participation would not have been welcome. If it were danger, there could be no more valiant comrade than he. If it were sport, he was a sportsman. If it were mirth, he was a fountain of mirth, crystal pure and sparkling....
But yesterday, he seemed one who embodied Life to the utmost. With the assured step of one whom nothing can frighten or surprise, he walked our earth as on granite. Suddenly, the granite grew more unsubstantial than a bubble, and he dropped beyond sight into the Eternal Silence.
Happy we who had such a friend! Happy the American Republic which bore such a son!
William Roscoe Thayer (Condensed)
I have passed the Rubicon: swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my Country, is my unalterable determination.
John Adams
I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.
It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.
It ought to be solemnized with pomp, and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, tend illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, for ever more.
John Adams
John Adams was born in Braintree, or Quincy, Massachusetts, October 30, 1735
Was a member of the Committee that framed the Declaration of Independence; and he signed the Declaration
Was Commissioner to France, 1778
Was Ambassador to England, 1785
Became Second President of the United States, 1796
He died on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Fourth of July, 1826
There was no loftier genius nor purer Patriot during the struggle for Independence, than John Adams.
He was born at Braintree—now a part of Quincy—Massachusetts. He was descended from Henry Adams who came to America during the reign of Charles the First. On his mother’s side, he was descended from John Alden, the Pilgrim Father who came over in the Mayflower. Thus, from both sides of his house, John Adams inherited staunch, fearless, English blood and love of Independence.
He went to school in Braintree, and later graduated from Harvard University. After which he studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He married Abigail Smith of Weymouth, Massachusetts. They made their home in Boston.
It is not possible here to tell all that John Adams did for America. He was an ardent Patriot, a Son of Liberty, serving the country at the risk of his life. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was a member of the Committee appointed to frame the Declaration of Independence. He signed the Declaration. He was sent abroad on foreign missions. He was elected Vice-President, and afterward called to be second President of the United States. He lived to see his son, John Quincy Adams, made sixth President of the United States.
He died on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, at the great age of ninety-one.
Benson J. Lossing and Other Sources
John Adams was not the only great American Patriot in his Family. His cousin, Samuel Adams, was a popular and fearless leader in the movement for Independence. His activities were so feared by England, that the Government issued orders for his arrest and trial for high treason.
Abigail Adams, John Adams’s wife, was one of the noble American women who helped to win the War for Independence. She kept her husband informed of the movements of the British around Boston, while he was attending the Continental Congress. She wrote him many patriotic letters, which are inspiring reading to-day. She signed some of them “Portia,” so that if they fell into the hands of the enemy, no one could tell who wrote them. She sent many of the letters to her husband by secret messengers.
Their son, John Quincy Adams, became sixth President of the United States.
His son, Charles Francis Adams, and the latter’s two sons, Charles Francis and Henry Adams, served the Country in important offices, at home and abroad. They were historians and statesmen.
John and Abigail Adams, their son and his two sons, kept diaries or wrote letters, memoirs, and biographies, which form a vivid and intimate story of many historical events dating from the War for Independence down nearly to our own time.
Thus America has to thank the Adams Family for historical records of great importance.
It was a clear and frosty night—that night, when the moonbeams fell on the tea thrown overboard by the Boston Tea Party. Paul Revere, all booted and spurred, was ready for a famous ride—not the one to Lexington, but to Philadelphia this time. Soon he was off and away, galloping southward, spreading, as he rode along, the astonishing news that Boston Town had at last defied King George. There were public rejoicings everywhere, as the news was passed along.
“This,” said John Adams exultingly, “is the most magnificent movement of all!... This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible!... What measures will the Ministry take in consequence of this? Will they resent it?—Will they dare to resent it?—Will they punish us?—How?”
. . . . . . . . . .
John Adams did not have to wait long to find out—how. For King George decided to punish the people of brave Boston Town, by starving them into submission. The Boston Port Bill was passed in England. A British Fleet blockaded Boston Harbour. No ship could go in or out; all supplies of food and fuel were cut off. The Boston folk suffered starvation, disease, and death; but they would not submit. Their misery became almost unendurable.
Then it was that Massachusetts’ sister Colonies roused themselves.
Samuel Adams of Boston sent a circular letter to each of the Colonies asking for help. Food, fuel, and money came pouring in.
All that Summer, Boston, suffering, impoverished Boston, lay upon every loyal American heart. Each province, county, city, town, neighbourhood, sent its contribution.
Windham, Connecticut, began the work of relief, and sent in, with a cordial letter of applause and sympathy, “a small flock of sheep.” Two hundred and fifty-eight sheep was Windham’s notion of a small flock!
New Jersey soon wrote that she would be glad to know which would be more acceptable to a suffering sister, cash or produce. “Cash,” replied Boston, “if perfectly convenient.”
Massachusetts farmers supplied grain by the barrel and bushel. The Marblehead fishermen forwarded “two hundred and twenty-four quintels of good eating-fish, one barrel and three-quarters of good olive oil”—with money to boot.
North Carolina promptly sent two sloop-loads of provisions. South Carolina’s first gift was one hundred casks of rice.
And Baltimore Town contributed three thousand bushels of corn, twenty barrels of rye-flour, two barrels of pork, and twenty barrels of bread.
Virginia!—there seemed to be no end to Virginia’s gifts!
And as the cool season approached, the farmers could be more liberal. Flocks of fat sheep and droves of oxen, together with hundreds of cords of wood, grain, and money in plenty, helped to relieve the suffering town. From New York they came, and from Maryland, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, from the three counties on the Delaware, and from every little mountain-town in New Hampshire and Vermont.
As for Canada, from cold and remote Quebec came some wheat, and from Montreal a hundred pounds sterling.
The letters that accompanied the gifts, and the grateful answers from the Boston Committee, would fill a large volume.
“Boston is suffering in the common cause,” said her sister Colonies.
“If need be,” said George Washington of Virginia, “I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head, for the relief of Boston.”
James Parton, and Other Sources (Retold)
September 5, 1774! What a famous date in American history! And in the history of the whole World!
On that day, met for the first time, the Continental Congress of America.
From Colony after Colony, the delegates came riding into Philadelphia. George Washington of Virginia came with fiery Patrick Henry, and Edmund Pendleton, “one of Virginia’s noblest sons.” There came Cæsar Rodney, “burley and big, bold and bluff,” with Thomas McKean and George Read, all from the three counties on the Delaware, and Roger Sherman with Silas Deane of Connecticut, and John Jay and Livingston of New York. From Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina, the eager delegates came riding into the City of Brotherly Love. And, of course, John Adams and Samuel Adams, representing the suffering Colony of Massachusetts Bay, were on hand when Congress opened.
Among its first acts, the First Continental Congress sent a letter to General Gage; an address to the People of Great Britain; one to the People of Quebec; and a Petition to King George, setting forth the grievances of the American Colonists, the violations of their rights as free Englishmen, and asking for justice, but strongly urging a renewal of harmony and union between the Colonies and the Mother Country, England.
American histories tell how King George disregarded that Petition. American histories, also, tell how William Pitt and other great English statesmen, nobly defended America, as you may see if you read the story of William Pitt, on page 93.
When Paul Revere came galloping into Lexington, after warning the countryside that the British were coming to seize the powder and shot, he roused Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were staying with friends.
Paul Revere was come to warn them also; for the British General Gage had given orders for their arrest, and intended to send them to England to be tried for high treason.
The British Government was specially afraid of John Hancock, one of the most daring and active of the Boston Patriots. “The terrible desperado,” he was called by that Government.
While he and Samuel Adams were escaping from Lexington and hurrying across some fields Samuel Adams exclaimed:—
“Oh, what a glorious morning is this!”
It was the morning of the Battle of Lexington, when the shot was fired that was heard round the world.
After the Second Continental Congress opened, John Hancock was chosen to preside, while the Congress discussed how to defend the Country.
New England was in arms. Lexington and Concord had been fought, and Boston was being besieged by the New England Army.
The Congress was discussing the defense of the whole Country. There were some members who wished the Congress to take over the New England Army and appoint a Commander-in-Chief.
It was then that John Adams met his cousin Samuel Adams, in the State House yard. This is the way John Adams tells it:—
“‘What shall we do to get Congress to adopt our Army?’ said Samuel Adams to John Adams.
“‘I will tell you what I am determined to do,’ said John to Samuel. ‘I have taken pains enough to bring you to agree upon something; but you will not agree upon anything. And now I am determined to take my own way, let come what will come!’
“‘Well,’ said Samuel, ‘what is your scheme?’
“Said John to Samuel, ‘I will go to Congress this morning, and move that a day be appointed to take into consideration the adoption of the Army before Boston, the appointment of a General and officers; and I will nominate Washington for Commander-in-Chief!’”
So it happened, that John Adams rose in his seat, and moved that the Congress should adopt the Army of New England men, and appoint a Commander-in-Chief, adding, that he had in mind some one for that high command, “a gentleman from Virginia, who is among us, and very well known to all of us; a gentleman whose skill and experience as an officer, whose independent fortune, great talents and excellent universal character, would command the approbation of all America, and unite the cordial exertions of all the Colonies better than any other person in the Union.”
Every one knew whom John Adams meant. And George Washington, who was sitting near the door, was so overcome by modesty, that he sprang up and darted into the library close by.
But his modesty did not prevent his election. He was unanimously chosen Commander-in-Chief; while the army of New England men was adopted by Congress and named “the Continental Army.”
Later, when Washington’s appointment was announced in the Congress, he rose in his place, and said most earnestly:—
“Since the Congress desire, I will enter upon the momentous duty and exert every power I possess in their service and for the support of the glorious cause.
“But I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honoured with.”
But far-sighted John Adams was delighted. He was enthusiastic. “There is something charming to me in the conduct of Washington,” he wrote to a friend, “a gentleman of one of the first fortunes upon the continent, leaving his delicious retirement, his family and friends, sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the cause of his Country.
“His views are noble and disinterested. He declared, when he accepted the mighty trust, that he would lay before us an exact account of his expenses, and not accept a shilling pay.”
And to Abigail Adams, his wife, far off in Braintree, guarding her children from battle, and murder, and from sudden death, John Adams wrote:—
“I can now inform you, that the Congress have made choice of the modest and virtuous, the amiable, generous, and brave George Washington, Esquire, to be General of the American Army.”
He wrote thus joyously on the 17th day of June,—while on that very day, Abigail Adams and little John Quincy Adams were standing on a hilltop watching Charlestown burn and fall into ashes.
“My head is much too fickle, my thoughts are running after birds’ eggs, play, and trifles, till I get vexed with myself,” wrote little John Quincy Adams, nine years old, to his father John Adams.
Those were terrible times. Little John Quincy’s thoughts were running after other things besides birds’ eggs. He could hear the thunder of British cannon and the answering roar of American guns. There was fighting very near him. From a hilltop, he could see the battle raging. He knew that some of the American boys who were fighting, were from Braintree.
Sometime before, little John Quincy and his mother, Abigail Adams, had escaped from their home in Boston, and had taken refuge in Braintree, which was not far away. Now they were living in constant terror for fear the British should attack Braintree. His father, John Adams, was not there to protect him. He was attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
On the 17th of June, 1775, the British cannonading began in the direction of Charlestown. John Quincy and his mother climbed the hill, and watched the battle. With terror-stricken eyes, the boy saw Charlestown go up in flames and fall in ashes. And as for Abigail Adams, she trembled with fear lest the British should attack Braintree next; and then what would become of John Quincy and the other children?
So John Quincy and his mother watched the famous battle of Bunker Hill. And while they were listening to the cannon and the guns, their beloved friend, Dr. Joseph Warren, the noble Patriot who had joined the American forces as volunteer, fell mortally wounded.
And when the news of his death reached Braintree, John Quincy burst into tears, for Dr. Warren had been the family physician, and had once saved the boy from having a broken finger amputated.
And through those exciting times, John Quincy was a staunch boy-patriot. When he was only nine years old, he became his mother’s post-boy, riding to Boston and back, eleven or more miles each way, to get news for her.
And every morning before he climbed out of bed, he did as his mother had taught him. After he had said the Lord’s Prayer, he recited:—