



Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Keren Vergon, Julie Barkley and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





MY NATIVE LAND.



The United States: its Wonders, its Beauties, and its People; with
Descriptive Notes, Character Sketches, Folk Lore, Traditions, Legends
and History, for the Amusement of the Old and the Instruction of the
Young.


BY


JAMES COX,


Author of "Our Own Country," "Missouri at the World's Fair," "Old and
New St. Louis," "An Arkansas Eden," "Oklahoma Revisited," Etc.


  "Breathes there a man with soul so dead
   Who never to himself has said,
      This is my own, my native land."


PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED.


1903





CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.

OUR NATION'S BIRTH.

The Story of Liberty Bell--Impartial Opinions on the Revolutionary
War--The Shot that was Heard Around the World--The First Committee of
Safety--A Defeat which Equaled a Victory--Washington's Earnestness--To
Congress on Horseback--The First 4th of July Celebration.


CHAPTER II.

THE WITCH OF SALEM.

A Relic of Religious Bigotry--Parson Lawson's Tirade against
Witchcraft--Extraordinary Court Records of Old Puritan Days--Alleged
Supernatural Conjuring--A Man and his Wife both put to Death--Crushed
for Refusing to Plead--A Romance of the Old Days of Witch Persecution.


CHAPTER III.

IN PICTURESQUE NEW YORK.

Some Local Errors Corrected--A Trip Down the Hudson River--The Last of
the Mohicans--The Home of Rip Van Winkle--The Ladies of Vassar and their
Home--West Point and its History--Sing Sing Prison--The Falls of
Niagara--Indians in New York State.


CHAPTER IV.

IN THE CENTER OF THE COUNTRY.

The Geographical