BOOK REVIEWS
The Tree of Liberty. By Elizabeth Page. (Farrar & Rinehart,
Inc., 1939. 985p. $3.00.)
On the best seller list since its
publication in the spring,
this historic novel offers an unusual
combination of entertainment
and enlightenment. The story is that of
Matthew Howard and
Jane Peyton, the former a frontiersman
from the Shenandoah Valley,
the latter the daughter of a tidewater
planter. In their married life
is dramatized the bitter conflict of the
two main traditions which
underlie the American way of life:
Hamiltonian aristocracy and Jef-
fersonian democracy.
The book is large in scope and minute in
detail. The scene
is early America from the Atlantic
seaboard across the mountains
and into the wilderness beyond; the action
encompasses the half
century from Braddock's Defeat to the
Lewis and Clark Expedition;
and the book introduces almost every
important public character
of the period and many of the relatively
unimportant ones, pre-
senting them in most of the dramatic
episodes occurring in those
stirring and significant years. Its
packed pages tell of the growth
of the United States, before there were
states, through the Revo-
lution, the Articles of Confederation,
the establishment of the
Constitution, and the administrations of
Washington and John
Adams, with some years of Jefferson's
Presidency.
It is asking a good deal of any novel to
bear such a heavy
weight of history, and sometimes the
story sags beneath its burden.
On the whole, however, the family
chronicle is in itself absorbing,
and the book's characters, while
vehicles for the historical argu-
ment, do achieve individuality and
authenticity.
When Jane Peyton married Matthew Howard
she refused to
concede the soundness of his democratic
political views, and this
feud was continued by their children.
Peyton married the daughter
of a French philosopher and was closely
identified with Jefferson;
James, Hamilton's aide during the
Revolution, married into the
New York merchant aristocracy and became
one of the founders
of New England industrialism; while
Mary, whose lot was the hard
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OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
one of the pioneer farmer's wife, left a
daughter who by marrying
one of her aristocratic cousins,
reunited the family.
Throughout the book the symbolism is
sustained; from gener-
ation to generation there is continued
the conflict between the
ideals of the old order and of the new,
until finally The Tree of
Liberty (the product of five years of writing and many more of
research) becomes the story of the
growth of liberty, of democracy,
of the American way.
The author's sympathies are unfailingly
with the liberals, and
her portraits of them are much more
convincing than are those of
the conservatives. Especially realistic is her
presentation of
Thomas Jefferson, who, as here pictured,
makes a bid for classifica-
tion as this interesting book's leading
figure.
L. R. H.
Owatonna, the Social Development of a
Minnesota Community.
By Edgar Bruce Wesley. (Minneapolis,
University of Minne-
sota Press, 1938. 168p. $2.00.)
Something far from the ordinary is a
local history which can
be read with interest by someone whose
name is not mentioned in
the book or whose ancestors are not
allotted two pages and a por-
trait therein. Such a history is Edgar
Bruce Wesley's Owatonna.
It is a book which could be recommended
for Sunday reading to a
person who had never heard of Owatonna,
Minnesota.
Owatonna had its beginnings in the
decade before the Civil
War. This fact made it possible for the
author to use the re-
miniscences of old residents for even
his earliest chapters. This
fact also detracts from the value of the
volume as a model for
histories of older communities.
It would be satisfying to be able to
say, "Now it can be done.
Mr. Wesley has proven it. Good local
histories can now be ex-
pected to issue from the presses of the
country in large quantities."
Unfortunately all of the
"problems" confronting the publication of
local histories are not solved. Mr.
Wesley by example and in a
recent paper before the Minnesota
Historical Society has shown
what a local history should be. Mr.
Robert C. Binkley in a paper
delivered before the same society in
1937 pointed out the value of
local history, the new methods of
reproduction to solve the problem
BOOK
REVIEWS 343
of small editions at low cost, and the
groups from which the local
historians might be drawn.
The one problem to which a solution is
not even in sight is
how to make the public want to read and
use the right kind of
local histories. Mr. Wesley states (p.
157) that "communities are
even less disposed than individuals to
be introspective." If a com-
munity does not want to know how its
personality was developed
how are local histories to be supported
and how are they to become
useful if they are published? Perhaps it
will be found that Mr.
Wesley was wrong. Perhaps Owatonna will
be found to be in-
trospective. It will be interesting to
see if the book pays for itself.
But regardless of whether Owatonna is
a solution to the
"problems" it is still a fine
example of a local history. The re-
viewer, when he had finished reading the
book, felt a friendship
for the town akin to his feeling toward
the hero of one of his
favorite books of fiction. K. W. McK.
George Croghan's Journal of His Trip
to Detroit in 1767 with His
Correspondence Relating thereto: Now
Published for the First
Time from the Papers of General
Thomas Gage in the William
L. Clements Library. Edited by Howard H. Peckham. (Ann
Arbor, Mich., University of Michigan
Press, 1939. 61p. $1.25.)
On October 16, 1767, George Croghan
arrived at Fort Pitt on
his way to Detroit to look into
complaints of injustice in the man-
agement of Indian affairs. He got to
Detroit on November 15.
Completing his business at that place by
November 24 he returned
to Fort Pitt, arriving there on December
9. At Fort Pitt he found
representatives of the Delawares,
Senecas, Creeks and Shawnees,
with whom he held council on December 14
and 15.
The journal of this trip and the
correspondence concerning
Croghan's mission have been carefully
edited by Mr. Howard H.
Peckham and published in handsome style
by the University of
Michigan Press. The volume also contains
a list of George Croghan
manuscripts in the Clements Library.
Although there may be few who will agree
with the first state-
ment in Mr. Peckham's introductory
biography of George Croghan1
1 "English penetration of
the vast wilderness west of the Alleghanies before the
American Revolution was owing largely to
the vision and the energy of a Pennsylvania
trader possessed of a restless foot,
remarkable courage, and a faculty for getting along with
Indians."--p. 3.
344
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
scholars will be grateful to the William
L. Clements Library for
making available this important
document. K. W. McK.
Roster of Soldiers and Patriots of
the American Revolution Buried
in Indiana. Compiled and Edited by Mrs. Roscoe C. O'Byrne.
(Brookville, Ind., Indiana Daughters of
the American Revo-
lution, 1938. 407p. $2.00.)
The American Revolution, in addition to
reducing the number
of British colonies, gave the world,
among other things, a large
group of frontiersmen and the D. A. R.
We are interested, here, in
the frontiersmen who went as far as
Indiana to spend their last days
and in the Indiana members of the
Daughters of the American
Revolution who have collected brief
outlines of the lives of some
1394 of these soldiers of the
Revolution. Because of the tendency
of the restless pioneer to move on west
and leave the more conser-
vative members of his family in the more
settled regions a volume
giving vital records of Indianans will
be of interest to descendants
of their conservative relatives to the
eastward. In other words the
Roster of Soldiers and Patriots of
the American Revolution
Buried in Indiana will be of value to libraries and genealogists of
Ohio as well as to those of Indiana.
Two volumes of a similar nature have
been published for
Ohio. The method of tabulation in the
Indiana volume seems to
be an improvement over the Ohio
volumes--it is easier to use.
The editors realize that the list is
incomplete and hope that the
publishing of this first volume will
bring forth many additions and
corrections. It is to be hoped that the
D. A. R. in other states
will see the worth of this project and
copy it. K. W. McK.
Some European Architectural
Libraries, Their Methods, Equip-
ment, and Administration. By Talbot F. Hamlin. Columbia
University, Studies in Library
Service, No. 5. (New York, Co-
lumbia University Press, 1939. 110p.
Illus. $3.00.)
Talbot Hamlin, librarian of the Avery
Library, Columbia
University, has made a survey of the
more important European
architectural and archaeological
libraries in order to help American
architectural libraries solve their many
special problems. He dis-
cusses problems of organization and
administration, catalogs and
BOOK REVIEWS 345
cataloging, classification and
arrangement, physical equipment,
and the function and place in culture of
the large architectural
library. The most significant European methods, equipment,
and administration are presented with
the idea of giving American
libraries an opportunity to study the
world's experience to their
advantage. There is a foreword by Dr. C.
C. Williamson, director
of libraries and dean of the School of
Library Science, Columbia
University. H. L.