News Hunting on Three Continents (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from News Hunting on Three ContinentsAn Irish gentleman, possessed of some money and influence at home, voyaged from County Antrim in 1726 to Pennsylvania and located a Crown grant of land in the Cumberland Valley, a wilderness stretching south-west from the Susquehanna to the vast domain of Lord Baltimore. Around this pioneer rallied a sturdy band of colonists, chiefly from the North of Ireland and Scotland, who made clearings in the forest primeval and created farms. For two generations, they endured forays from the native savages. Their homes were burned, their men murdered, their women and children carried off. Thrown entirely on their own resources, harassed and harried by the Indians, they kept steadily to their determination to build up an orderly, civilized community in the wilds.That colony at Falling Spring was a typical nursery of American freedom.By common consent, Benjamin Chambers was captain of the pioneers. He administered justice and arbitrated disputes. He was a prayerful man; but his musket-flints were picked afresh every morning. He preferred peace, but was ever ready for war. He constructed a stone fort, armed it with two four-pounder field-pieces, and made the walls of the inclosure the ramparts of the settlement not only against the savages, but against the royal troops themselves.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.