130 The Winning of the West 



wise came, 15 and a few Hollanders 16 and even 

 Swedes, 17 from the banks of the Delaware, or per- 

 haps from further off still. 



A single generation, passed under the hard con- 

 ditions of life in the wilderness, was enough to weld 

 together into one people the representatives of these 

 numerous and widely different races; and the chil- 

 dren of the next generation became indistinguish- 

 able from one another. Long before the first Con- 

 tinental Congress assembled, the backwoodsmen, 

 whatever their blood, had become Americans, one 

 in speech, thought, and character, clutching firmly 

 the land in which their fathers and grandfathers had 

 lived before them. They had lost all remembrance 

 of Europe and all sympathy with things European; 



15 Giving to the backwoods society such families as the 

 Seviers and Lenoirs. The Huguenots, like the Germans, 

 frequently had their names Anglicized. The best known 

 and most often quoted example is that of the Blancpied 

 family, part of whom have become Whitefoots, while the 

 others, living on the coast, have suffered a marvelous sea- 

 change, the name reappearing as "Blumpy." 



16 To the Western American, who was not given to nice 

 ethnic distinctions, both German and Hollander were simply 

 Dutchmen ; but occasionally we find names like Van Meter, 

 Van Buskirk, Van Swearingen, which carry their origin on 

 their faces (De Haas, 317, 319; Doddridge, 307). 



17 The Scandinavian names, in an unlettered community, 

 soon become indistinguishable from those of the surrounding 

 Americans Jansen, Petersen, etc., being readily American- 

 ized. It is therefore rarely that they show their parentage. 

 Still we now and then come across one that is unmistakable, 

 as Erickson, for instance (see p. 51 of Col. Reuben T. Dur- 

 rett's admirable "Life and Writings of John Filson," Louis- 

 ville and Cincinnati, 1884). 



