Noted Pennsylvanians

Front matter

Class ^£i5^ Book_ hLj^

COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT.

BY

Preface

This book contains the life-stories of twenty Pennsylvanians who are or were famous throughout the nation. We need to know our great citizens better. New England has steeped her people in love of their history until tourists flock to the hallowed ground. Other sections of the country might well follow New England's example.

The aim of the book is to strike a mean between the prolix volume consulted by few and the brief account which leaves a reader unsatisfied as to the connection of events. Nothing more bewilders the mind than to be confronted with a figure who apparently has sprung to greatness in a moment — nothing could be more untrue than such a semblance. These accounts strive to present the steps, from childhood on, by which the persons described made their way.

These life-stories cannot fail to bring out strongly the power of hard, persistent work toward definite ends. If the young people who read them absorb that idea, the author will be repaid for his labor.

The book supplements the usual course in United States history. There is no better way of teaching history to the young than to impart it through the medium of biography. ''These our actors" have left

4 PREFACE

behind more than "the baseless fabric of a vision." Their lives span the whole existence of organized Pennsylvania. To suit the narrations to children, literary style has been made secondary to conciseness of statement.

Two distinguished persons have been intentionally omitted from our list. The lives of Penn and Franklin have been already so well and often described that no school-child has excuse for ignorance concerning them. James G. Blaine is also excluded, because, although a Pennsylvanian by birth, he in a special sense represented Maine throughout his career. Exception may be taken to the inclusion of Audubon, but it was in our State that his life-work began.

The thanks of the author are due to J. B. Lippincott Company for permission to use selections from the works of Thomas Buchanan Read.

W. L.

Philadelphia, March, 1913

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Francis Daniel Pastorius, Founder of Germantown.. . 9

II. James Logan, Penn's Right-hand Man 17