CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE. LONG usage has established a custom that cannot be broken at this late day. In biographical writing the author must give dates and facts so elaborately and so accurately that no possibility of dispute can arise. A great man's birth, his early life, his struggles with wealth or poverty, his final triumph-all must be laid open to the public. It is not always the poor who have their trials in early life. It was said ages ago that human existence was merely a world of compensations. What money can buy, the poor lad often needs; but he often possesses traits of character, independent thought and stalwart energy that no money can pay for. As a general proposition it is as hard to struggle against great wealth as against close poverty. A thoughtful observer of human life and human frailties will say that the carefully reared poor boy has the advantage in the life fight over the boy who can always have whatever money can buy. Necessity is the great teacher and the great example. It is harder for the rich boy to rise in honest endeavor than the poor boy, for with the poor boy it is necessity, while with the rich boy it is a sort of amusement. To his mind his future is secure; he knows he need not work for his living; he feels no anxiety, and his future in ease and luxury is established beyond a question. And so we pass to the life of the candidate of the Republican party in the great election of 1884, and in his life is illustrated the principle suggested in the brief remarks above. James Gillespie Blaine, who was nominated by the Republican party assembled in convention at Chicago, June 3d, for President of the United States, was born on the 31st of January, 1830. Good, solid Americans, the men who till the soil, who contribute to the material prosperity of the country in other walks of life, who add to the glory of our institutions and have made us respected as a nation, have very little regard for what is known as "blood." As a people, we are inclined to take a man as we find him. A nobleman may be found behind a homespun jacket, and a noble intellect may be covered by a rusty hat. On the other hand, broadcloth may cover a dishonest heart, a silk hat may crown an empty head, and a great name may belong to one who has never done anything praiseworthy, and who is incapable of a noble aspiration. In Mr. Blaine is represented both a great and honorable ancestry, and the career of a boy of the people. He is proud of his ancestors, as he has reason to be, but at the same time he likes to dwell upon the different phases of the struggles which brought him to his present eminence. His ancestors, both on the side of his father and his mother, were of high and honorable standing. His mother's name was Gillespie, and her family was distinguished in Pennsylvania for many generations, even ante-dating the Revolution. Neal Gillespie, Mr. Blaine's maternal grandfather, was a man of large property, and was honored, respected and liked by the people of the whole surrounding country. Mr. Blaine's father (Ephraim L. Blaine) was born and reared in Carlisle, Cumberland county, a beautiful village nestling in one of the most picturesque valleys that the hand of nature ever glorified. The father, after an extended tour in Europe, South America and the West Indies, returned to spend the greater portion of his life in the beautiful county of Washington, where he died before his son was fully grown. He went to this section about 1818, having the largest landed possessions of any man of his age in Western Pennsylvania, owning an estate which, had it been preserved, would have amounted to-day to many millions. As a single item in that estate, it may be interesting to mention that, in 1825, Mr. Blaine's father deeded to the Economites the splendid tract of land on which their town, with all its improvements and all its wealth, now stands. The price was $25,000 for a property whose value to-day, even if unimproved, would be a princely fortune. There were also timber tracts on the Allegheny and coal tracts on the Monongahela, at that day of no special value, which now represent large fortunes in the hands of those lucky enough to hold them. Very near the large tracts owned by his father and grandfather, Mr. Blaine is now the possessor of one of the most valuable coal properties in the Monongahela valley. In area it is but a fraction of that which he might have hoped to inherit, but in value it is much greater than the whole landed estate of his father fifty years ago. Mr. Blaine's paternal great-grandfather was a colonel in the Pennsylvania line in the Revolutionary war. He was the intimate friend of General Washington, and was commissary general of the northern department of Washington's army. He was a man of large means, and from his own purse, and from contributions obtained from friends, he advanced large sums of money toward purchasing supplies for the army during that memorable winter at Valley Forge. Washington himself attributed the preservation of his troops from absolute starvation to the heroic and self-sacrificing efforts of Colonel Blaine. The birth-place of the great Maine statesman was Indian Hill Farm, Washington County, Pa., opposite the little town of Brownsville, on the Monongahela river. The home in which he first |