This man was one of the most remarkable persons connected with the early history of the United States, and the foremost individual in the colonial period of the chief State. He was Captain John Smith, whose great services won him the name of the “Father of Virginia,” and there can be no question that he deserved the honor. That he was a great boaster cannot be denied. Some of the stories he told of his adventures in France, Egypt, Hungary, Turkey, and other countries were true only in his imagination, recent researches having proved this to be the fact. None the less, he was one of the bravest of men, unselfish, enterprising, frank, and far-seeing; and it may as well be said at this point, that the first English colony in America would have perished from the earth but for the wisdom, energy, and self-sacrificing labors of this famous native of Lincolnshire.