Word: ancestors
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...appears that the ancestor of all bicycles and velocipedes dates from the year 1818; an invention of a Frenchman, a certain Baron du Brais. The Baron's machine was a very simple contrivance, consisting of two wooden wheels, one behind the other, connected by a curved plank, on which sat the driver, propelling himself by pushing with his feet on the ground. This machine, which was described as one "by which you can ride at your ease, and are obliged to walk in the mud at the same time," received the name of the "hobby horse." It was introduced into...
...result was the improved "hobby horse" which in 1869 jumped so suddenly into favor both in this country and in Europe, under the cognomen of the "velocipede." Clumsy as this machine was in make, it is certain that, if the "hobby horse" of 1818 can be termed the ancestor, this of 1869 is entitled to be called the father, of the perfected bicycle...
...thought sufficiently interesting for a word of notice, that our friend's first American ancestor, Major Robert Sedgwick, Governor of Jamaica under Cromwell, was one of the early benefactors of Harvard College...
...classic times, the hardy barbarian, who finally overcame the civilization of the antique world, is easily distinguished from his elegant enemies, in the bas-reliefs of imperial Rome, by the loose and baggy garment which hangs about and yet separates the lower limbs, and which is unquestionably the direct ancestor of the modern trousers. When the artist of the days of the Antonines desired to represent a wretched being, born and bred without the pale of a civilized existence, he accomplished his end, at once with ease and with certainty, by his treatment of the legs of his subject...
...Americans marched down; where the American fort bombarded the British fleet, and the British fleet bombarded the American fort; and where many other memorable things occurred (all of which are related in the guide-book), my feelings make ample amends for the defection of my red-coated ancestor. My enthusiasm for everything revolutionary or colonial is something extraordinary. I know the stories and gossip about those stately old houses that were the residences of the governor "in the good old colony times." I know how the "Indian lover" used to leave off "wooing his dusky mate" and fire bullets through...