were always made at home. To be called a "good butter-hand " was a great honor. For lights, the first settlers had pine-knots. There was no tallow in the earliest days, so candles were made of the beautiful and sweet-smelling pale green

bayberry wax.

The men bore their part in these home manu- The Yankee factures. In farming implements wood was used jack-knife wherever it could be employed, and in the long evenings the jack-knives of the masculine part of the family were kept busy whittling out teeth for rakes, handles for hoes, reels for winding yarn, wooden spoons and dishes, tubs, pails, buckets, yokes, flails, snowshoes, skimmers, and handles for axes, and numberless other things. The men made the brooms, sometimes of birch twigs and sometimes of hemlock branches. A Yankee with his jack-knife could almost furnish a house and a barn.

FLAX WHEEL

of children

The children did their part of the work of the house. The girls helped their mother, and the boys helped their father. If Self-reliance the boys wished for playthings, they made them. If a boy must have a basket, he made it of birch bark; while for paint he used elderberry or pigeon berry juice. A boy who grew up in this way learned to depend upon himself, and to know what to do if he found himself in any difficulty.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, these boys had become men who were not afraid to try to do things they had never done before. They knew little about military drill, but they could invent new ways of making their attacks, and they could capture forts in ways not laid down in the books. In some of the little hamlets away from city life, the old customs lingered far into this century. Many a man, not yet fifty years old, ate in his

WOOL SPINNING WHEEL

Effect of this boyhood dinners that were cooked in a brick oven, prepared training "quills," or pieces of the hollow elder stem, to be wound on the little "quilling wheel" with yarn for use in the shuttle of his mother's loom, and set off for college in a suit of his mother's spinning and weaving. These were the kind of boys who knew an unearned diploma was not worth the parchment it was written on, the kind of boys that the college and the country were proud to possess.

SUMMARY.

The New England colonists lived in log houses, cooked before open fires,
had simple furniture and wooden or pewter dishes.

They manufactured most of their clothes, tools, and household utensils.
The children learned to be self-reliant, and their training showed in the
Revolutionary War.

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITTEN WORK.

Describe an evening in a colonial kitchen. Tell what each member of the family was doing.

Describe a cold day in a colonial house.

son

X

NEW YORK, DELAWARE, AND NEW JERSEY

ABOUT the time when the Pilgrims were planning to leave EngHenry Hud- land and go to Holland, a company of English merchants were making ready to send a ship to search, not for a Northwest Passage, but for a Northeast. They thought there might be a way to sail north of Russia, and then south to eastern Asia. They chose for the captain of their vessel a friend of John Smith, a

brave English sailor named Henry Hudson. He set out on the voyage, but he had to come back and report that the ice kept him from going to Asia. He had been "farthest north," how

ever, and he found himself famous.

A Dutch company then induced him to command one of their ships. Again the ice prevented him from sailing farther to the northeast, but he made up his mind to go in search of the Northwest Passage instead of returning to Holland. He had with him a letter from John Smith saying that he believed the Passage might be not far north of Chesapeake Bay. One bright September morning Hudson sailed into the mouth of the river that is named for him, though he spoke of it as the "River of Mountains." Up the stream went the little vessel, the Half-Moon, but the water was more and more fresh. Still he kept on, until just beyond where Albany now stands the stream began to grow shallow. This was no Northwest Passage.

Hudson made another voyage to Hudson Bay and Hudson Strait, this time for an English company. His crew rebelled, and Hudson's last voyage finally turned him and a few others adrift in a small boat, and no one knows his fate.

66

Hudson had called the country about the "River of Mountains" as fair a land as can be trodden by the foot of man"; but the Dutch were more interested in the thought that the

Dutch traders in America

North River- as they called the stream, since the Delaware was known as the South River was convenient for the Indians to float down with canoes full of furs. Furs could be bought for beads, jack-knives, red cloth, and trinkets of various kinds, and could be sold in Europe at a high price. It is no wonder that Dutch traders hastened to send ships to America.

There must be forts to protect the traders, and in 1614 a fort Beginnings was built on Manhattan Island. That was the beginning of the of New York city of New York. Another name for Holland was the Nether

Settlers on
Manhattan
Island

lands, or the lower lands; and the Dutch called their possessions in America New Netherland, just as John Smith called the land north of them New England, and the French named the land that they claimed New France. More forts were built, and

one stood where Albany now is. One of the early writers called it "a miserable little fort, built of logs."

Even if the settlers were protected by "miserable little forts," many of them were making fortunes by trading in furs. This was a good thing for the traders, but the Dutch West India Company wished to have permanent settlements, and they began to think of sending colonists to the Hudson. The Indians were delighted to sell Manhattan Island for twenty-four dollars' worth of beads, brass buttons, ribbons, and red cloth. The settlement around the little fort was named New Amsterdam. The settlers lived in log houses, one story high, with roofs made of bark.

People came from most of the countries of Europe. To buy furs for beads and sell them for a generous amount of gold was an easy way to make a fortune, and after making a fortune, the next thing was to go back to Europe to spend it. The Company discussed the matter, and concluded that farmers who had been forbidden to deal in furs would be the best settlers. There was rich land all along the North River, but it paid so much better to trade in furs than to manage a farm that the Company knew they must make especially good offers to induce people to remain farmers. They formed a plan that was entirely different from anything that had been attempted in America.

Albany

ORK

Hudson.

CONN

DUTCH FLAG

tem

Long before this time it had been the custom in various countries of Europe for one Patroon sys man to hold a large amount of land, and to allow other men to use such parts of it as he chose. These men must work for him so many days every year, and they could not leave one man's land to work for some one else. This custom had gone out of use in Europe, but the Dutch Company thought it might be introduced into America. They offered to give sixteen miles of the Hudson River shore with an indefinite amount of land behind it to any member of the Company who SETTLEMENTS ABOUT Would bring fifty settlers to America.

MANHATTAN ID

NEW

JER S

LONG

Amsterdam (New York)

THE HUDSON RIVER

The owner of this land was called a patroon, or protector. He must clear the land, build houses and barns, and provide cattle and tools. He was to receive as rent a part of each crop. The colonists were to be free from paying taxes for ten years, but they must agree to remain on his land for