History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Preface

This volume is divided into historical and biographical matter. For the former I am wholly responsible, but for the latter my responsibility is limited to a few biographical sketches — less than a dozen out of hundreds — the remainder having been prepared under the supervision of the Western Publishing and Engraving Company of Lincoln, Nebraska.

The chief value of the historical part of this book lies in its fidelity to facts. It is not claimed, however, that all has been set down that should have been written for a work of this character nor that the narrative is as complete in every instance as could be desired. Time and the limitations as to volume, imposed by my contract with the publishers, have both combined to set bounds to my work. Whatever faults the critical may discover in the following pages, this much can at least be truthfully said of this History — it constitutes an earnest eflfort to give both to the subscribers and the public, a readable and reliable history of Gage county, something that has not hitherto been attempted.

I am under personal obligations to many for assistance in the preparation of this history. Particularly do I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to A. E. Sheldon, secretary, and Mrs. Clarence S. Paine, librarian of the State Historical Society, Lincoln, Nebraska; William Elsey Connelley, secretary of the State Historical Society of Kansas; Hon. Charles H. Sloan, congressman of the Fourth congressional district of Nebraska; Major A. L. Green, Mrs. Charles F. Gale, Earl Marvin of the Beatrice Daily Sun, Mrs. Anna R. Mumford, William R. Jones, and Mrs. Oliver Townsend, Beatrice; John A. Weaver and J. B. High, of the register of deeds office; Mrs. Mabel Penrod, county clerk, and F. E. Lenhart, clerk of the district court of Gage county; Mrs. Minnie Prey Knotts, Lincoln, Nebraska ; Mentor A. Brown, Kearney; Mrs. Maud Bell, Tecumseh ; A. D. McCandless and Charles M. Murdock, Wymore ; Mrs. Elizabeth Porter, Wilber; Mr. and Mrs. F. M. Graham, William Craig, and Robert A. Wilson, Blue Springs; Homer J. Merrick, Adams; Miss Evelyn Brinton, Pickrell; Theodore Coleman, Pasadena, and Miss Benetta Pike, Los Angeles, California; Mrs. Lilian P. Scoville, San Juan, Porto Rico; Dr. James P. Baker, St. Louis, Missouri; Mrs. Julia Beatrice Metcalf, Portland

6 PREFACE

Oregon; Joel Thomas Mattingley, Condon, Oregon; Louis Laflin, Crab Orchard; Hon. Peter Jansen, Andrew S. Wadsworth, Leonard A. Emmert, Clarence W. Gale, Beatrice; Robert H. Baker, Chicago; W. H. Brodhead, McKay, Idaho; and James H. H. Hewitt, Alliance, Nebraska.

I desire to express my sincere appreciation to the many subscribers to this volume who by letter or otherwise have shown a kindly interest in the work.

Very respectfully,

Hugh J. Dobb?

Beatrice, Nebraska, August 7, 191 8

CHAPTER I — The Discoverers 15

Christopher Columbus — England and France — French Explorers and Missionaries

— Robert Cavalier de La Salle — The New World — L,ouisiana.

CHAPTER n — Territory oe Louisiana 21

As part of New France — Attempted Settlement by La Salle — His Assassination — Effect of Extension of New France to Mississippi Basin — France loses her Colonial Possessions in North America — Retrocession by Charles V — American Opposition

— Jefferson and the Treaty of Ildefonso — Jefferson's Aims concerning Louisiana and the Mississippi — Threat of Alliance with England — Alarm of Napoleon by Threat of War — Livingston Admonishes Talleyrand — Arrival of Monroe — Cession to the United States — Price ^ — Population — Ignorance of America concerning New Purchase — Explorations of Lewis and Clark.

CHAPTER HI — Nebraska up to 1866 29

Early Explorers in Nebraska — Coronado — Mallet Brothers — Lewis and Clark — Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Territory opened for Settlement — Area — Boundaries — Organization — Census — Death of Governor Burt — Governor Cuming — The First Legislature — Statehood.

CHAPTER IV — Gage County 36

Act Defining Boundaries — Name — Area — Seat of Justice — Whitesville — Preparation for Election — Organization — First Meetings of County Commissioners — County Seat.

CRAPTER V — Old Clay County 41

Act Creating — Organization — Austin — Settlements — Partitioning — John P. Cadman — Joint Meeting Commissioners of Gage and Lancaster Counties.

CHAPTER VI — Topography oe Gage County 45

Location — Townships — Area — Hydrographic Features — Stone — Clay — Coal — Water Supply — Climate — Temperature — Soil — The Prairies.

CHAPTER VII — Flora and Fauna 51

Grasses — Flowers — Forest and Stream — Animal Life — The Buffalo — Elk — Antelope — Native Birds — Fish — Insect Life — Grasshoppers — Effect of Settlement.

CHAPTER VIII — The Public Domain 57

Nemaha Land District — Brownville Land Office — Registers and Receivers — Offered and Unoffered Lands — Preemptions — Free Homestead Law — Agricultural College Land Grant Act — Operation of the Act — College Scrip Entries in Townships — Homestead Entries.

CRAPTER IX — The Pioneers 63

First Glimpse of Gage County — Home Building on the Prairies — Food Supplies — Fruits — Fish — Game — The Buffalo — Clothes — Food Substitutes — First Wheat Crop — Spring Wheat — Common Salt — Social Life.

Poem by Edwin Ford Piper, "Have You An Eye" — Early Gage County Markets — Missouri River-Oregon Trail — Insufficiency of Local Markets — High Prices — Missouri River Points Best Purchasing Markets — Oregon Trail Best Selling Market — Its Early History — Great South Pass — John C. Fremont — Origin of Term, "Military Road" — Starting Point — Route — Marcus Whitman — Changes — Statistics of Northern Route — An" Emigrant Route — Freighting — Nebraska City — Overland Stage — Pony Express — Beatrice Route — General Description.

Otoe and Missouri Tribes of Indians — History — Reservation — Relation of Pioneers to Indians — Plans to sell Reservation — Sale — Report of Lewis and Clark — Indian Village — Removal of Indian Tribes.

8 CONTENTS

CHAPTER XII — Narrative o? Major A]:,bert Eamborn Green ... 89

CHAPTER XIII — First White Settlers HI

Indian Agents and Employes — Gideon Bennett — David Palmer — John O. Adams, and the Shaws — The Pethouds — The Kilpatricks and Others — Settlements in Rockford Township — In Grant Township — At Blue Springs.

CHAPTER XIV — Founding OE Beatrice 117

The Hannibal-Nebraska Association — Organization — Members — Locating Committee—Its Report — Selection of Name — First Fourth of July Celebration — Association Meets on Townsite — Selection and Entry of Townsite.

CHAPTER XV — Narrative oe Mrs. Julia Beatrice (Kinney) Metcale . . 123 CHAPTER XVI — Founders oe Beatrice 129

John Fitch Kinney — John McConihe — Albert Towle — Joseph Rutherford Nelson — Obediah Brown Hewett — Gilbert T. Loomis — Oliver Townsend — Harrison F. Cook

— Dr. Bayard T. Wise — Joseph Milligan — Bennett Pike — Jefferson B. Weston — William H. Brodhead — Dr. Herman M. Reynolds.

CHAPTER XVII — A Roll OF Honor 149

Gage County Territorial Pioneers — Biographical Sketches : Nathan Blakely, Charles N. Emery, Joseph Hollingworth, Hiram W. Parker, Charles G. Dorsey, Fordyce Roper, Albert L,- Tinkham, Horace M. Wickham, Isma P. and Elizabeth Mumford, James B. Mattingley, Samuel Jones, Algernon Sidney Paddock.

CHAPTER XVIII — Narrative oe George Gale with Biographical Sketch . 166 CHAPTER XIX — Growth OF Beatrice from Beginning to 1870 ... 181

A Hard Winter — Company Assets — Pap's Cabin — Mumf ord's Cabin — Entry of the Townsite — Population in 1870 — Coming of the Railroads — First School House — First Bridge across the Big Blue — The Government Land Office — Improved Conditions — ■ First United States Mail — The Stage Routes — Beatrice of the Sixties.

CHAPTER XX — Beatrice Continued 189

Incorporation of Towns by County Board — Petition to Incorporate Beatrice — Order Incorporating Beatrice — First Board of Trustees — Incorporation of Beatrice as a City of the Second Class — First City Council — Population of Beatrice — Incorporation of Beatrice as a City of the First Class — ^ Additions to Beatrice — Changed to Commission Government — First County Court House — Location — Old "Public Square" — Description — Cost — Abandoned — Demolished — A New Court House — Court House Bond Litigation — County Jail — ■ The New Jail — First United States Postoffice — Present Postoffice Building — Postmasters — Beatrice City Hall — Fire Department — Lighting Plant — Sewers — Paving — City Water Works.

CHAPTER XXI — Beatrice Continued 208

The Free PubUc Library — First Board of Directors — Carnegie Library Building — First Librarian — Public Parks — The Old Stone Church — The New Methodist Church — The First Presbyterian Church — The Episcopal Church — First Christian Church — United Brethren Church — Trinity Lutheran Church — First Catholic Church

— First Baptist Church — St. John's Lutheran Church — German Methodist Church — ■ LaSelle Street Church — Seventh Day Adventist Church — First Church of Christ Scientist — First Cojigregational Church — Mennontie Church — Beatrice School District— Old Frame School House — First High School Building — Second High School Building — Third High School Building — Grade School Buildings — City Superintendents of Schools.

CHAPTER XXII — Beatrice Concluded

Banks — Factories — Wholesale Houses — Rawlins Post — Hospitals and Sanitariums

— Newspapers and Newspaper Men.

CHAPTER XXIII — Blue Springs

CHAPTER XXIV — Wymore

CHAPTER XXV — Incorporated Villages

Adams — Barneston — Clatonia — Cortland — Filley — Liberty Odell Pickrell

— Virginia.

249 260 272

CONTENTS 9

CHAPTER XXVI — Unincorporated Villages 290

Ellis — Hoag — Kinney — Lanham — Rockford — Holmesville.

CHAPTER XXVn — County Offices and Oeeicials 294

First Election Law — Elections — Two Early Elections — Official Roster of County Commissioners — Adoption of Township Organizations — County Clerks — County Treasurers — Clerks of District Court ^ — County Sheriffs — County Judges — County Superintendents of Schools — County Surveyors — County Coroners — Registers of Deeds — County Attorneys — County Assessors — Territorial Assemblies — House of Representatives — Members of the Council — State Legislatures — Members of the Senate.

CHAPTER XXVni — Hospitals 303

Institute for Feeble Minded Youths — Hepperlin's Hospital — New Lutheran Hospital — Fall's Sanitarium — The Mennonite Deaconess Home and Hospital.

CHAPTER XXIX — Military History OF Gage County 310

Indian Raid on Little Blue River, 1864 — First Military Organization — A Stampede

— Company C, Nebraska Militia — Sioux Indian War, 1891 — Gage County in the Civil War — The Spanish- American War — Roster of Company C, First Regiment

— The World War.

CHAPTER XXX — The Bench AND THE Bar 319

Territorial Supreme Court — Territorial District Courts — Chief Justice Ferguson — Associate Justices — First Session Supreme Court — First Term District Court — First Judicial Legislation — Gage County's First District Judge — First Term District Court in Gage County — Second Term — First Grand Jury — First Embezzlement — First Murder — Third Term District Court — First Petit Jury — First Divorce Case — State Supreme Court — State District Courts — Act Admitting Attorneys— First Lawyers in Gage County — Brief Sketches of Former Members of the Bar — Present Members.

CHAPTER XXXI — People Who have done Their Part in Making Gage

County 338

ILLUSTRATIONS

Meriwbther Lewis 26

Bowi,DER Commemorating first council with the Indians on Nebraska soil . 28

QuivERA Monument 30

Stephen A. Douglas 32

Francis Burt 33

Thomas B. Cuming 34

Rev. William D. Gage 37

Grasshopper Scene, 1874 S3

First Claim Cabin in Nebraska 65

Salt Basin and Salt Works, Lincoln, 1872 69

Mormon Encampment about 1846 73

John C. Fremont 74

Brigham Young 75

Scenes at Ash Hollow 76

Peter J. De Smet, SJ 77

Freighting Scenes Along the Oregon Trail 80

Concord Stage-coach 82

Ar-ka-ke-ta, Head Chief of the Otoes 86

Otoe Indian Village 92

Old Agency Mill, Indian Reservation 95

Old Burial Place and Funeral Trees of the Otoes 99

Medicine Horse's Village 108

Log from John Pethoud's Cabin, 1857 113

Original Cabin on First Homestead 115

Daniel Freeman ... 116

Julia Beatrice Kinney, 1860 120

Julia Beatrice (Kinney) Metcalf, 1909 . . 124

Julia Beatrice (Kinney) Metcalf, 1878 124

John Fitch Kinney 131

Hannah D. (Hall) Kinney 131

General John McConihe ... 132

Albert Towle 133

Katie Towle 134

Joseph Rutherford Nelson .... .... . 135

Oliver Townsend 137

Harrison F. Cook ... 138

Bennett Pike . .141

William H. Brodhead 144

Herman M. Reynolds 146

Margaret Constance Blakely ... 155

Hiram W. Parker 157

12 ILLUSTRATIONS

EUZABETH MUMFORD 161

PioNijER Residsnci; op Samuel Jones 164

Mr. and Mrs. George Gaee 167

Court Street, Beatrice, in 1870 185

BiRDSEYE View oe Beatrice, 1874 192

First Court House at Beatrice 195

Federal Building at Beatrice 197

Gage County Court House 197

Old County Jail . 199

New County Jail . . 200

Carnegie Library, Beatrice 203

City Water Works, Beatrice . . 203

Beatrice City Hall 203

Volunteer Fire Station, Beatrice 203

Athletic Park, Beatrice 210

Views in and about Beatrice 211

Beatrice Churches . . 215

New Congregational Church, Beatrice 221

First High School Building, Beatrice 224

Beatrice School Buildings 225

Beatrice National Bank Building 232

Beatrice Banking Institutions 233

Beatrice Steel Tank Manufacturing Company 234

Beatrice Iron Works 234

John H. von Steen Company 236

F. D. Kees Manufacturing Company 236

Beatrice Cold S'torage Company 237

Swift & Company 237

Beatrice Creamery Company 237

Residence Streets in Beatrice 238

Business Streets in Beatrice 240

Beautiful Homes in Beatrice 241

Theodore Coleman 244

Court Street, Beatrice, in 1908 248

Bridge and Mill at Blue Springs 251

Blue Springs High School 252

William B. Tyler . . • 254

Mrs. Rebecca Tyler 254

Robert A. Wilson 255

Mrs. Amelia Wilson 255

Solon M. Hazen 256

Dr. Levi Anthony . 257

Francis M. Graham 258

Mrs. Hannah Retta Graham . . 258

Niagara Avenue, Wymore 263

St. Mary's Catholic Church and Rectory Wymore 266

First Baptist Church, Wymore 267

First Methodist Episcopal Church, Wymore .... . 268

Two Rural Churches near Wymore 269

ILLUSTRATIONS

High S'chooi,, Wymorb

Main Street, Cortland .

Public School, Cortland

Views in Odell

High School, Holmesville

Cottages at Institute for Feeble Minded Youths

Girls' Second Cottage, Institute eor Feeble Minded Youths

Hospital Building, Institute eor FeeblE Minded Youths

Mennonite Hospital

Dr. Fall's Sanitarium

Lutheran Hospital ....

Institute eor Feeble Minded Youth

New Lutheran Hospital

Colonel John M. Stotsenberg

Fenner Ferguson ....

James Bradley

Edward Randolph Harden

Oliver P. Mason ....

Zion's Lutheran Church

KiLPATRicK Mausoleum .

Pioneer Residence oe Fidillo Hunter Dobbs

CHAPTER I

THE DISCOVERERS

Christopher Coi<umbus — England and France — French Explorers and Missionaries — Robert Cavalier de La SallE — The New World — Louisiana

Nothing in human history exceeds in romantic interest the discovery and settlement of the New World. The first voyage of Columbus from the shores of Spain across the unknown waters of the Atlantic ocean, which the superstition of the times invested with every sort of mystery and danger, must always appeal to the imagination as an act of superlative daring — an event of first importance in the progress and happiness of mankind — for he, by adventuring where others dared not venture, by a single act revealed to the astonished gaze of Europe the existence of new lands of wonderful beauty and promise, where none were believed to exist; and, at a blow, dispelled forever the ignorance and fear which hithertb had enslaved the mind and paralyzed the endeavor of the most favored and most intelligent portion of the globe.

Columbus set sail from the port of Palos on the 3d day of August,. 1492, with a fleet of three small vessels, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, and the Nina. He was accompanied by the tears and lamentations of the entire population of that small port, most of whom had relatives abroad the ships, and who, as the winding. of the shore hid the little fleet from sight, abandoned all hope of ever again seeing the adventurous mariners alive. On board those small caravels the crews themselves, as the distance from the shores of Spain daily incrrased, were seized with fear and unrest, which greatly endangered the success of the expedition. But the confident Admiral held firmly to his course and pointed the prow of his flag ship steadily toward the west. The sea was smooth, the air soft and refreshing, nature herself seemed unusually propitious toward this momentous and daring enterprise. Soon the frail vessels came within the course of the trade winds and, with a constant and favoring breeze, the little squadron made rapid headway. Occasionally the crews sighted floating weeds and other objects which seemed to indicate the near presence of land and which served to cheer their spirits and invigorate their flagging zeal. On, on, on they sailed, day and night, always toward the west. Uneventful weeks passed without sight of land, but on the night of October 11, 1492, Columbus, who was stationed on the high cabin of the Santa Maria, saw at a distance across the water a faintly gleaming, uncertain light. Few of his crew were encouraged by this sign, though Columbus himself regarded it as a certain proof of the vicinity of land. At two o'clock on the morning of the 12th day of October, 1492, the little Pinta, which from her superior sailing ability was leading the other vessels, fired a gun, the agreed signal in case any of the ships should in the night time discover certain indications of land. The. little squadron instantly lay to, eagerly awaiting the dawn. At last daylight slowly broke, and at a short distance the voyagers beheld a green and marvelously beautiful island, lying in a sapphire sea. It was San Salvador, the outpost of a newly discovered world. To their intense surprise, the Spaniards found this island densely populated by perfectly naked savages,' so kindly disposed and unsuspicious as to regard the

IS newcomers as gods whom they were indined to worship. Accompanied by the principal persons of his expedition, Columbus, richly attired, was rowed to the shore. Falling upon their faces, the party kissed the earth and gave thanks to Almighty God. Then unfurling the banner of Spain over this patch of land, Columbus took possession in the name of his sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. A few days were spent in sailing the waters about this island, and having gathered from the natives that, toward the southwest, gold was to be found in lands of yet more surpassing beauty, Columbus, on the 24th day of October, 1492, turned his prows in that direction. On the fourth day of his voyage he beheld the noble shores of Hispaniola, now Cuba, rising out of the ocean before him. Charmed to ecstacy by the mildness of the climate, the beauty of the scenery, the gorgeous plumage of birds, the docility and intelligence of the natives, and the sunlit sea in which Cuba rests, queen of the waves, the soul of the great Admiral glowed with pride and satisfied ambition. He gave Up his days to the luxury of his surroundings and to exploring the northern coast of the island, and on the 5th day of December, 1492, having passed the eastern extremity of Cuba, he saw toward the southeast, looming out of the ocean, a new island — high and mountainous, Hayti, the most beautiful and most unfortunate of all the West Indian islands. Here, freed by the softness of the climate and the wonderful fertility of the soil, from toilsome labor, he found a native population that passed its days in indolence and repose. Having lost the Santa Maria by an accident of the sea and being deserted by the Pinta, commanded by Pinzon, Columbus now resolved to begin his homeward voyage. Departing from Hayti January 4, 1493, after a most perilous voyage, guided by the hand of Providence, on the ISth day of March following, he again cast anchor in the little harbor of Palos. He left Spain poor and unknown, he returned rich with honors, having gained the right to have his name forever first on the roll of discoverers, as well as that of those who by greatly daring, greatly achieve.

Columbus carried with him to Spain several natives of the islands, together with products of the soils of these new lands, notably tobacco, coffee, and potatoes, with fruits and spices, as evidence of his discoveries. The great and unusual honors bestowed upon him by the proudest and most powerful court of the world, with the graphic report which he was able to make to his sovereigns of his wonderful voyage and the marvelous possibilities suggested by his discoveries, electrified every portion of the globe where civilization had obtained the slightest foothold. Fired partly by religious zeal, partly by love of adventure and thirst for fame, and partly by the commercial incentive to discover and open an all-water route for trade between Europe and the East Indies, the maritime nations of western Europe joined enthusiastically in voyages of discovery to the western hemisphere.

Columbus himself continued in the great work of discovery till he had added to the memorable voyage of 1492 three others to the New World. Island after island rose out of the depths of the ocean before him. But in none of his voyages did the great discoverer touch either of the American continents. Ignorant of the vast extent of the ocean, he imagined that he had reached only the threshold of India and that he was upon the point of realizing his lifelong dream of an open, all-water i-oute to Cathay — land of jewels and spices. With feverish energy he sought the one factor which alone, as he supposed, could give value to his priceless discoveries. But gold was rare in those islands, fanned by the great trade winds, and yielding only bloom and fruitage, heaped as by magic upon the bosom of the Atlantic.

On his third voyage, in 1498, Columbus came upon the large island of Trinidad, which lies ofi- the coast of South America, near the mouth of the Orinoco river. Cruising about this island, he found to his surprise that the waters of the narrow strait that separates it from the main land were sweet and fresh, and gazing westward he beheld what he conceived to be the low-lying lands of a yet larger island extending twenty leagues or more along the coast. Never dreaming that these fresh, sweet waters were those of a mighty river that drained a continent and tlie low-lying lands the eastern edge of that continent, he sailed away to Hayti to visit a colony which he had founded there on his second voyage, in 1496. From this visit he was sent to Spain a prisoner in chains, and he died at Valladolid, May 20, 1516, poor and neglected, old and broken, at sixty years of age, already robbed by Americus Vespucci, an obscure adventurer, of the honor due to his memory, of bestowing his own name on the great New World which his genius and faith had disclosed to mankind.

In a material sense, the net result of his four voyages of discovery was to add to the known portions of the earth those groups of archipelagoes in the western Atlantic which are collectively known as the West Indies, and which, sweeping in a wide curve from Florida to the mouth of the Orinoco, screen the Caribbean sea from the gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic ocean — islands of ravishing beauty, marvelous fertility, delightful climate, teeming with the products of nature.

But who shall ever be able rightly to weigh the tremendous influence of this simple-hearted man upon the physical and mental horizon of the world? The people of all western Europe by the middle of the fifteenth century had so far emerged from the "Dark Ages" as to be measurably free from the forms of government which had characterized the feudal system, and for the first time since modern Europe had arisen from the fragments of the Roman empire its governments were in the hands of able rulers, while national policies had displaced government by individual whim or caprice. It was the age of the Renaissance and the revival of learning. The world was undergoing the process of a new birth. The foolish superstitions and practices which had prevailed for centuries under the forms and guise of religion were rapidly passing away. A universal activity and zeal for the cause of learning had aroused mankind to a sense of its needs. France, England, Spain, Portugal, were rapidly assuming the dignity and self-importance of empire. In the very midst of this tremendous activity and of these vague longings and dreams of national aggrandizement, came Columbus home from the voyage into the unknown, with almost incredible tales of golden islands beyond the furthest rim of the western sea. The vast evolution which was rapidly bringing freedom to mankind throughout western Europe had already prepared maritime nations to a large extent for the discovery of a new world, and, as if by the intervention of Providence itself, this great event was made to serve as an outlet for their highest ambitions.

It is foreign to the aim and purpose of this history to narrate in detail the great work of discovery, exploration, and colonization of America which followed its discovery by Columbus. We know that for years Spain led the other nations in the number, extent, and value of her enterprises. In less than forty years after the death o£ the great Admiral, she had established her hold on the West Indies by right of discovery, and had grasped by the bloody hand of conquest Mexico, Central America, the isthmus of Panama, the isthmus of Darien, and the continent of South America — a domain which in natural resources rivalled continental Europe, and which for unbroken centuries poured a golden stream into her national treasury. In addition to all this, she claimed Florida by right of its discovery, on Easter Day, 1512, by the aged cavalier, Juan Ponce de Leon. saihng in search of the fountain of perpetual youth, and she laid claim also to the basin of the Mississippi, on account of the discovery of that historic stream by Hernando de Soto, in 1541, and its exploration in part by him and the wandering remnant of his followers after he had sunk to rest in its mighty flood. With more or less definiteness, Spain asserted for centuries proprietary rights in the whole of North America, on account of the achievements of Columbus and those Spanish navigators who followed him.

But her rivals, and particularly England and France, were quick to perceive the tremendous possibilities involved in the possession of lands in the western hemisphere, where, at almost a single bound and at a trifling cost in money and life, national wealth, national resources, and territorial dominion might be immeasurably increased.

Thus it came about that in 1498, when Columbus, looking westward from the island of Trinidad, saw the shores of South America, Sebastian Cabot, sailing under a commission from Henry VII of England, discovered and explored the eastern portion of North America from Labrador to Cape Hatteras, thereby affording ground for England's claim to all portions of the continent of North America from the middle shore of the Atlantic ocean to the crest of the Alleghany mountains.

Francis I, King of France, early in the sixteenth century, turned his attention to discovery, exploration, and colonization in the New World. In 1524 John Varrazani, a Florentine, in the service of France, sailed from the shores of Europe with four vessels, in search of an all-water route to Asia. Directing his course nearly to the west, on the 7th of March he discovered the main land of the continent, in the latitude of Wilmington, North Carolina. He explored this coast from one hundred and fifty miles south of Wilmington to the remotest point of New England, reaching Newfoundland in the latter part of May. In July he returned to France and published an account of his wonderful voyage, which attracted wide attention, but ten years were suffered to elapse before another effort was made to repeat his experiment. Beginning with 1534, French navigators, aided by their government, flocked across the Atlantic, explored the eastern coast of the great northern continent, ciixumnavigated Newfoundland, entered the gulf of St. Lawrence and ascended the noble St. Lawrence river. They founded scores of towns, including Port Royal (now Annapolis, Nova Scotia), Quebec, and Montreal. French adventurers, trappers, hunters, penetrated the wilderness to the Great Lakes ; black-robed French missionaries preached the gospel over wide areas to savage tribes by lake and stream far into the interior. No fairer pages of history can be found than those which record the exploration and settlement of New France, as the French possessions in North America came to be known. From the early part of the sixteenth century to the latter part of the seventeenth century, this work went continually forward. It was closed by the rediscovery of the Mississippi river by Joliet and his companian, the heroic Jesuit missionary. Father Marqette, in 1673. and by the exploration of that mighty stream from the Illinois to its mouth by La Salle, in 1682.

The name of Robert Cavalier de La Salle will be forever spoken with respect by every man who is at all conversant with his daring and adventurous achievements. No more conspicuous name adorns the annals of colonial history in North America. Amidst the vacillating and shifting policy of Louis XIV and his ministers with respect to the French possessions in the New World, where much was promised and little done, La Salle, with the prevision of genius and great statesmanship, saw more clearly than any other man of his race that the road to empire for France lay in the lakes, rivers, savannahs, and wildernesses of North America. Not only was the prevision of empire his but he possessed also the imagination to conceive and the power and will to put into execution the plans which should have been the colonial policy of France from the first. La Salle was a Norman, bom at Rouen in 1643 ; he was educated by the Jesuits, with whom he spent ten years as a student and from whom he acquired a habit of rigorous abstraction. Abnormally reticent about himself and his work, he made few close friends and many bitter enemies. He was persistent, active, determined, and brave to a fault. In 1660 he left France for Canada. By that time the French possessions in North America had become known to the world as New France and comprised the entire basin of the St. Lawrence river, the Great Lakes region, Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and that part of Maine lying in the basin of the St. Lawrence. To the vain and licentious Louis XIV New France offered but a small and unpromising field for the display of- his glory and power and the gratification of his ambitions. It cost money to colonize, defend, and develop the distant province, and Louis was wasting his resources and exhausting the nation in desolating wars with England and the Holy Alliance. He had at last been prevailed upon to send to New France, in 1672, the ablest and most disinterestedly patriotic of all French governors. Count Louis de Frontenac, who, like La Salle, foresaw the approaching struggle for the continent between Protestant England and Catholic France, and was, like him, gifted with the prevision of empire in the New World.