Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln

Four great Americans come vividly to life in this inspiring book for young readers: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln. Their stories begin in a raw and unfinished America, where colonial Virginia was shaped by plantations, slavery, scarce money, and few schools, and where character often mattered more than comfort or learning. Washington's boyhood follows him from Bridge's Creek to Mount Vernon and into the wilderness, where he studies surveying, endures loss, and learns self-discipline, courage, and loyalty when he turns back from a dream of going to sea. His early work in the backcountry leads into the struggle for the Ohio Country and the hard lessons of frontier warfare. Franklin's life rises from practical public service to national greatness as he improves the mail, proposes colonial union, defends American rights in England, and becomes a celebrated scientist whose kite experiment proves lightning is electrical. He helps shape independence, wins France's support, and serves the new nation with humor, wisdom, and humility. The book then turns to Daniel Webster's beginnings, rooted in the brave, patriotic life of his father, Ebenezer Webster, a poor New Hampshire farmer and soldier whose honor left a lasting example. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.