. P. Putnam's Sons for their kindness in allowing
quotations from their work, "Historic Towns of New England"; Small,
Maynard & Co., for the use of the anecdote credited to their Beacon
Biography of Samuel F. B. Morse; Little, Brown & Co., for their marked
courtesy in the extension of quotation privileges, and Mr. Samuel T.
Pickard, Whittier's literary executor, for the new Whittier material
here given.

M. C. C.

_Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1902._

* * * * *

"All houses wherein men have lived and died are haunted houses."

_Longfellow._

"So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth
of anything by history."

_Plutarch._

"... Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever."

_Shelley._

"... I discern
Infinite passion and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn."

_Browning._

"'Tis an old tale and often told."

_Scott._

* * * * *

Contents

_Page_

Foreword iii

The Heir of Swift's Vanessa 11

The Maid of Marblehead 37

An American-Born Baronet 59

Molly Stark's Gentleman-Son 74

A Soldier of Fortune 90

The Message of the Lanterns 104

Hancock's Dorothy Q. 117

Baroness Riedesel and Her Tory Friends 130

Doctor Church: First Traitor to the American Cause 147

A Victim of Two Revolutions 159

The Woman Veteran of the Continental Army 170

The Redeemed Captive