New England is the home of American local history, for, of the works devoted to the annals of cities, counties, and towns, there are more relating to New England than to all other parts of the United States; and outside of New England limits the cultivation of local history is, in many cases, due to natives of that division.
Miss Hemenway has done good service by her gazetteer, which is really a general local history of the Green Mountain State. Known favorably already, she has succeeded in obtaining the hearty co-operation of gentlemen and ladies in all parts of the state, and she thus gives the history of each county in turn. The history of each church is given by some one connected with it, and full justice done to all. In some local histories, the prejudice of the author sometimes leads him to ignore all but his own church, or give only such notices as he cannot avoid. We have in our eye a History of Elizabeth, New Jersey, by the Rev. Mr. Hatfield, in which other denominations than his own are very slightingly treated. There are three Catholic churches, a Benedictine convent, a House of Sisters of Charity, and an orphan asylum in the place, yet the reverend author sums up their history in five lines, and quotes as his authority for their annals the City Directory.
If any institution, church, or author fails to receive due space in the Vermont Historical Gazetteer, it is not the fault of Miss Hemenway, who has labored most indefatigably to extract their history, and given them wherein to lay it before the world, impartially allowing each to give their own version of affairs. Her work is, of course, not of equal merit; but it contains many articles of far more than local interest and value. Her state owes her a debt of thanks; and in her plan and scheme of the work, as well as in her untiring industry, she sets an example that may well be imitated in other states.
History of Florida, from its Discovery by Ponce de Leon, in 1512, to the Close of the Florida War, in 1842. By George R. Fairbanks. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1871.
Mr. Fairbanks is not unknown as an author, and this little volume, handsomely issued by an eminent publishing-house, would seem to be a welcome addition, as furnishing, in a compendious form, the romantic annals of the oldest settled, though not the oldest, state in the Union. We regret to say that we regret the appearance of the work. There is such abundance of material accessible to the ordinary student, even without entering upon the vast manuscript material which the late Buckingham Smith spent his life in delving, that exactness is of the utmost necessity.
Mr. Fairbanks evidently quotes his Spanish authors at second-hand, and must be unfamiliar with the Spanish language. No one at all conversant with it would quote Cabeza de Vaca, as he repeatedly does, under the name of De Vaca. Cabeza de Vaca is the family name, meaning Head of Cow—an odd name, but with its analogy in our Whitehead, Mulford (mule-ford), Armstrong, etc. To quote him as "Of Cow" is like citing one of the English names as Head, Ford, or Strong. Quoting Garcelasso as L'Inca also betrays ignorance. The Spanish article is El, while the elevation of Menendez Marques to the Marquis de Menendez is equal to Puss in Boots, who made marquises offhand.
It is not surprising, then, to find the period from 1568 to 1722 embraced in 34 pages, and in those only four references to Barcia, and these not all correct, though in the 228 pages given by the Spanish historian of Florida to that period much interesting matter might have been found.
Nor is his acquaintance with the works that have appeared in English such as we should expect.
The later portion of the history seems more within his grasp; but without entering into too great detail, we miss any reference to Farmer's account of the siege of Pensacola.
Much of the space in the earlier portion is devoted to the French colony and its bloody extinction by Menendez, and to Gourgues's attack. In this matter he does not treat the matter as Sparks did years ago, or Parkman recently. By all these writers, moreover, some points are overlooked. The piratical character of the French cruisers, who, after the Reformation, made religion a cloak for their murders and piracy; the object in selecting Florida, which was to form a base for operations against Spanish commerce; the long-settled determination of the Spanish crown to root out any colony planted in Florida, upon the most plausible pretext the occasion would give; the overt acts of piracy of the new French colony in Florida; and, finally, the critical position of both parties, neither of whom, in case of victory, would have dared to keep any of the enemy as prisoners.