Bancroft, George

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

George (1800-1891), an eminent American historian. Born at Worcester, 1800. Died at Washington, D. C., 1891. His father was a Unitarian clergyman. Bancroft was educated at Phillips Academy, Exeter, and at Harvard University . He was sent abroad to study, and to make the acquaintance of eminent European professors. He received the degree of Ph. D. at Gottingen in 1818. Among the acquaintances formed were Humboldt, Goethe, Hegel, and Wolf. After his return he held various educational positions, but became interested in political life, being an ardent supporter of the Democratic party . President Van Buren appointed him collector of customs at Boston; under Polk he was secretary of the navy, and was instrumental in establishing the naval academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He favored the annexation of Texas. At other times he represented his country at the courts of Great Britain , Russia, and Germany. During all these years Bancroft was ransacking dusty archives at home and abroad and reading faded documents. He was collecting material for the great work by which he is known, a History of the United States , from the discovery of America to the formation of the Constitution. Other historians have had access to information not at his command, but his history will always be regarded as a monument of American scholarship. We make room for a short passage: Darkness closed upon the country and upon the town; but it was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift relays of horses transmitted the war message from hand to hand, till village repeated it to village; the sea to the backwoods; the plains to the highlands. The Alleghanies, as they listened, opened their barriers that the "loud call" might pass through to the hardy riflemen... Ever renewing its strength, powerful enough even to create a commonwealth, it breathed its inspiring word to the first settlers of Kentucky; so that hunters who made their halt in the matchless valley of the Elkhorn commemorated the nineteenth day of April by naming their encampment Lexington.