eral Green and

and the cotton gin, but above all they had

a Christian Republic of freemen!

But now a hundred years of Republic has been completed. The national ledger is made up; a balance sheet is presented for inspection.

The little narrow strip of territory lying along the small portion of the Atlantic coast about as large as the State of Texas, has been added to from year to year.

A century after the discovery of America this continent was under the jurisdiction of three distinct ownerships, the English, French and Spanish.

The French dominion, through the Jesuit mission trading posts and forts, slowly but efficaciously threw out the tendrils of this sturdy vine until they had enveloped in their grasp a chain of forts, sixty in number, between Montreal and New Orleans. At one time the Spanish owned California, New Mexico, Louisiana, Florida, Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippines. But westward the course of empire took its way.

The same pioneer spirit that took our people over the Alleghenies into Kentucky and Tennessee and up into the great northwest urged them on to the Mississippi River. Accesions of territory took them across the Mississippi into the Louisiana. purchase, in itself equal to the former area of the United States.

Brave hearted out into the great American deserts they went, and the waste places have been made to blossom like the rose-on, on to the Rocky Mountains and over them the tide of empire swept and down into the green valleys of the Pacific slope, until the shores of the Pacific were made the western boundary of this national domain.

By right of conquest and the treaty of Paris, 1783, we had an area of 27,844 square miles. Six other accessions have been by right of purchase.

The Louisiana purchase from Napoleon was 1,171,931 square miles in the heart of this continent for $15,000,000, quite likely for fear of its going into Great Britain's hands.

Sixteen years after the Louisiana purchase Florida was purchased from Spain, 59.268 square miles, for $6,500,000.

William H. Seward brought about the Alaska purchase from the Czar of Russia for $7,200,000, greatly through friendship

and probably out of a desire to hurt England on this continent. Our next acquisition was Texas, with 376,133 square miles. It was annexed and our Government issued its own bonds for $10,000,000 to liquidate the public debt of the country. Out of this came the Mexican War, which ended by our securing 591,318 square miles, for which the Government allowed $15,000,000. Ten millions was afterward paid for another slice, making $25,000,000. All this was during the Polk and Pierce administrations, which had really been acquired by conquest.

Beginning with 1803 and ending in 1867 our total expenditure was $69,700,000, and how is it to-day? The course of empire is still to the westward.

Before any of the acquisitions of the last war our possessions had grown until they were fifty times greater than that of the original thirteen States. It seems a little late in the century to raise the cry against expansion.

Josiah Quincy, a prototype of some men of to-day, once thought that the people of the Atlantic and Northern States ought not to look on in patience and see representatives and senators from the Red River and Missouri pouring themselves upon the floor of Congress, managing the affairs of the seaboard. Even Daniel Webster had a vague idea of the west in those days. A proposition was before the Senate to establish a mail route from Independence, Missouri, to the mouth of Columbia River, three thousand miles long. In closing a speech against the measure he said: "What do we want with this vast, worthless area? This region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts and shifting sands, and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we put these great deserts, those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to the base with eternal snows; what can we hope to do with the western coast of three thousand miles-rock-bound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbor on it? What use have we for such a country?"

Has there ever been a forward movement in our history that some Josiah Quincy, or some college professor was not in need of a bracing of their wavering faith in this Republic?

Out of the whirl and rush of these tremulous forces which

have not yet done their march across the continent, whose wilderness they have peopled and subdued, they have caught from time to time the echoes of-still westward, ho!

And after a century of expansion, the Constitution is stronger than ever to-day. The Government has a standing at home and abroad that it never had before. As our freedom expands and righteousness reigns men grow strong and upright. The national growth in institutions of learning has been amazing. The Colonies from their first straitened beginnings all the way on have done generous things for education. The agricultural progress, the increase of manufactures and foreign commerce, the wealth of the United States, its net work of railroads extending over the country, its wonderful advance in science, discovery and invention have made the world stand aghast.

The actual increase in many of these and other important industries since 1860 has been equal to the total accumulation of all previous years in the same developments since the foundation of the Government which must indicate good statesmanship, good legislation and a prudent administration of public affairs.

Through all this hundred years the sun has sent its morning kiss on the crest of the waves of the old Atlantic to the shores of this Christian Republic, and for half a century when it has sunk behind the sunset sea its rays have tipped its good night, through our golden gate of the great Pacific. At the end of this one hundred years, with the Antilles in the East and the Golden Gate, the Hawaiis, and OUR Philippines in the West we have reached the hour when the sun never sets in our domain and it is always morning in our Republic!

MARY S. LOCKWOOD.

CATHARINE SCHUYLER.

BY MRS. WILLIAM F. JONES.

ON June 17th, 1897, a Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution for Allegany County was organized at

Belmont, with a charter membership of twenty-two ladies, Miss Forsyth, the State Regent, being present to perfect the organization. No name was selected.

At the July meeting, held in Wellsville, at the residence of the First Vice-Regent, Mrs. William F. Jones, the name of "Catharine Schuyler," was selected and chosen because she represented the pioneer family of Allegany County, being an ancestor of revolutionary fame of Judge Philip Church.

The name was presented to the Chapter by the hostess, in the following highly interesting historical paper:

Catharine Van Rensellaer Schuyler, beloved and only daughter of John Rensellaer, patron of Green Bush, was par excellence the gentlewoman among the New York representatives of the Republican Court and camp during the War of the American Revolution. The elegant hospitality and lavish bounty of her father's house (thought by many to have caused the anti-rent struggles later) prepared and equipped her for the high position she held as the wife of a major general, United States Senator and large landholder.

When the accomplished daughter of affluence, mistress of several languages besides her own, (who remained we are told, quite unspoiled by the affection and indulgence that surrounded her youth), was united in marriage with the noble young officer, Philip Schuyler, who had served already in the French War, their home became the center of all that was best, as well as most refined in the city of Albany, near which the Schuyler family had lived for a hundred years.

The family wealth fell to Philip by right of primogeniture, but true American that he was at that early day, he had at once shared it with his brothers and sisters. Mrs. Schuyler also was the heiress of large estates and she and her husband planned a fine house of the Dutch type in Albany.

While this house was building, in 1760, General Schuyler had imperative calls to go to Europe, but the refined and courteous lady proved also the competent woman of affairs, and the house was found completed on the return of General

Schuyler.

In it at one time fourteen captive French officers were entertained and so graciously as to win their warm regard and sin

cere admiration. In this house several children were born and received most loving nurture from the good mother to whom home and family were ever first.

General and Mrs. Schuyler also owned a handsome country seat near Saratoga, and there occurred an example of patriotic devotion of property to the cause of American Independence, which retains the place in history.

Mrs. Schuyler was at this place when she received word from her husband that he wished the standing grain on it to be destroyed to prevent it from falling into the hands of the British.

Mrs. Schuyler fired the wheat with her own hands and then she asked the tenants to do likewise, which it is pleasant to know that they did. The house itself was afterward burned to the ground by Burgoyne.

Malice and detraction, like grim death, love shining marks, and some New England men and General Gates did not acquiesce in the position high in influence attained by General Schuyler. Their thoughts prevailed for a time and General Schuyler was relieved of his command. He demanded an investigation, was acquitted of fault, and re-instated, but only for a short time. Again General Gates was placed in the position of General Schuyler.

Just here is where the influence of a noble woman helped to hold a man steady in the line of duty, when tempted to leave it by unjust treatment. Under like provocation General Benedict Arnold, brilliant soldier and ardent patriot up to such a time of strain of principle, fell to a depth of infamy that time and history have done nothing to lighten.

Contrast these names, as they have come down to us, Schuyler and Arnold.

General Washington remained firm in his confidence in the ability and integrity of General Schuyler and all the events of Schuyler's life proved the justice of that trust.

In the winter of 1780, General Schuyler and his family spent several weeks at Morristown in a house assigned them by Washington. During this time a courtship of Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of Catharine Schuyler, was ardently pressed by the young secretary and aide-de-camp of the Commander-in-Chief, Alexander Hamilton. So engrossed was young