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296 was thus reversed, it is necessary to study the growth of the history project and to enter into the steps through which it was evolved.

Hubert Howe Bancroft, with whose name these works are linked, and who has been widely credited as their author, is a native of Granville, Ohio, where he was born May 5, 1832, a descendent of old New England families through both the paternal and maternal lines. In his own account of his life (Literary Industries, 47-244), he tells us that when but three years old he could read the New Testament without having to spell many of the words. At the school age, however, he found it difficult to learn, and after a winter at the brick schoolhouse under the tutelage of a brother of his mother, the latter became satisfied that he was not treated judiciously and fairly took him out of school.

A sister had married George H. Derby, a bookseller of Geneva, New York, subsequently of Buffalo, and at about the age of fifteen, the boy was offered the choice of preparing for college or entering the Buffalo bookstore. He at first chose the former course and spent a year in the academy of his town, but becoming discouraged in his study, entered the employ of Derby in August, 1848. Discharged from the store in six months, he returned to Ohio and acted as a sales agent for his brother-in-law's goods with such success that he was invited back to the store and became a clerk with the beginning of the year 1850. His father, influenced by the gold excitement, decided to go to California in February of that year, and with George L. Kenny, his closest friend, he was sent by Derby to handle books in the land of gold, setting out in December, 1851.

After their arrival in San Francisco, Sacramento was determined upon as a place of business, and young Bancroft worked in the mines until arrangements could be