ttractive to writers as to readers. They have dwelt upon
them lovingly, embellished them with the charms of rhetoric
and occasionally with the inventions of fancy, until what
began as fact has often entered far into the domains of
legend and fiction. It may well be that some of the
narratives in the present work have gone through this
process. If so, it is simply indicative of the interest
they have awakened in generations of readers and writers.
But the bulk of them are fact, so far as history in general
can be called fact, it having been our design to cull from
the annals of the nations some of their more stirring and
romantic incidents, and present them as a gallery of
pictures that might serve to adorn the entrance to the
temple of history, of which this work is offered as in some
sense an illuminated ante-chamber. As such, it is hoped that
some pilgrims from the world of readers may find it a
pleasant halting-place on their way into the far-extending
aisles of the great temple beyond.

CONTENTS

VINELAND AND THE VIKINGS 9
FROBISHER AND THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 26
CHAMPLAIN AND THE IROQUOIS 34
SIR WILLIAM PHIPS AND THE SILVER-SHIP 53
THE STORY OF THE REGICIDES 69
HOW THE CHARTER WAS SAVED 80
HOW FRANKLIN CAME TO PHILADELPHIA 90
THE PERILS OF THE WILDERNESS 98
SOME ADVENTURES OF MAJOR PUTNAM 111
A GALLANT DEFENCE 128
DANIEL BOONE, THE PIONEER OF KENTUCKY 138
PAUL'S REVERE'S RIDE 157
THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS 172
THE BRITISH AT NEW YORK 180
A QUAKERESS PATRIOT 189
THE SIEGE OF FORT SCHUYLER 195
ON THE TRACK OF A TRAITOR 211
MARION, THE SWAMP-FOX 223
THE FATE OF THE PHILADELPHIA 237
THE VICTIM OF A TRAITOR 249
HOW THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH WAS INVENTED 259
THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC 275
STEALING A LOCOMOTIVE 285
AN ESCAPE FROM LIBBY PRISON