"Blockhouse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gathered to torture their captive, put out the fire, and drove them to a sheltered part of the lodge, where they consoled themselves as best they could by beating him till midnight, and promising him that he should be burned the next day. He was then carried to the blockhouse and left bound with two guards, who entertained themselves, but did not amuse Slover, by talking over his probable behavior under the torture that awaited him. They fell asleep, worn out, about daybreak, when Slover made a desperate effort to free himself, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... fights on the hills which fringe the borders of the River Tugela, its long and weary marches across the rolling uplands of the Transvaal, and its subsequent monotonous life of constant vigil in fort and blockhouse, and ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... persuaded my companions to survey. We found it a rock somewhat troublesome to climb, about a mile long, and half a mile broad; in the middle were the ruins of an old fort, which had, on one of the stones,—"Maria Re. 1564." It had been only a blockhouse, one story high. I measured two apartments, of which the walls were entire, and found them twenty-seven feet long, and twenty-three broad. The rock had some grass and many thistles; both cows and sheep were grazing. There was a spring of water. The ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... Brooklyn by now," I said, "at 600 Abingdon Avenue, laying out Chapter One. What do you mean by following me this way? You nearly frightened me to death last night. I felt like one of Fenimore Cooper's heroines, shut up in the blockhouse ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... about repairing the fortifications. He had hardly completed his work, when, on the night of the 4th of September, an alarm shot from one of his sentinels aroused him from a bed of fever, to meet the attack of a large force of Miami Indians. Every man was at once ordered to his post. A contiguous blockhouse was fired by the enemy, and a thick discharge of bullets and arrows was opened upon the fort. The darkness of the night, the howlings of the savages, the shrieks of the women and children, the fast approaching flames, and the panic of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... had planted larkspur and marigolds. Here, on a May morning, he rang the bell, then waited patiently until the last free-born imp elected to leave the delights of a minnow-filled pool, a newly discovered redbird's nest, and a blockhouse in process of construction against imaginary Indians. At last all were seated upon the rude benches in the dusky room,—small tow-headed Jacks and Jills, heirs to a field of wheat or oats, a diminutive tobacco patch, a log cabin, a piece of uncleared forest, or perhaps the blacksmith's forge, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... however, to make short work of my meal, for the 'assembly' just then sounded; and, after our usual parade again on deck, according to the routine, a part of our division went ashore to a large field between Blockhouse Fort and Haslar on the Gosport side of the water, belonging to the Saint Vincent, and which is used for drilling the boys ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... prose fiction, historical essays, and political pamphlets, and amazed his publishers by his speed in composition. His best work is The Yemassee (1835), a story of the uprising of the Indians in Carolina. The midnight massacre, the fight at the blockhouse, and the blood-curdling description of the dishonoring of the Indian chief's son are told with infectious vigor and rapidity. The Partisan (1835), Katherine Walton (1851), and The Sword and Distaff (1852), afterwards called Woodcraft, also show his ability to tell ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... watching, however, no Iroquois appeared, and the inhabitants began to breathe freely again. The more courageous returned to their deserted homes and farms, but the timid still clung to the blockhouse. The panic had also spread to Ville Marie,[5] and the imminence of this danger produced one of the most brilliant exploits which Canadian history records—a feat of daring closely resembling, and not surpassed by, the achievement of Leonidas in the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the Channel, summoned the men of Rye and Winchelsea to vail their bonnets—to take in sail, mark you: no trumpery dipping of a flag would satisfy us—and when they stiff-neckedly refused, had silenced the one town and carried off the other's chain to hang across our harbour from blockhouse to blockhouse. Also, was it not a gallant of Troy that assailed and carried the great French pirate, Jean Doree, and clapped him ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was away, and the little maid-servant ran at the first outcry. I was alone with the woman, who could not leave her bed. I cut my hair roughly, put on a suit of her husband's clothing, and took a musket. It was a blockhouse, and I hoped that I might hold the Indians off for a time if they thought me ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... by Commodore Hazlewood and silenced; but the following night a detachment crossed over Webb's Ferry into Province Island, and constructed a slight work opposite Fort Mifflin, within two musket shots of the blockhouse, from which they were enabled to throw shot and shells into the barracks. When daylight discovered this work three galleys and a floating battery were ordered to attack it and the garrison surrendered. While the boats were ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... with the Evil One. The community must be "purged" of such wickedness, either by repentance or by punishment. The ministers felt that God would hold the community responsible for Gorton and visit calamities upon them unless he were silenced. [20] The arbitration was refused, Gorton's blockhouse was besieged and captured, and the agitator was carried with nine of his followers to Boston, where they were speedily convicted of heresy and sedition. Before passing judgment the General Court as usual ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... the border blockhouse, which the black gypsy thought unpassable, but the Serbs were rather pleased to be inspected, telephoned through to Uzhitza, and I rode on. An amusing sidelight was the surprise of the gypsy at finding the same language ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... mark of feudalism was the castle, [10] where the lord resided and from which he ruled his fief. In its earliest form the castle was simply a wooden blockhouse placed on a mound and surrounded by a stockade. About the beginning of the twelfth century the nobles began to build in stone, which would better resist fire and the assaults of besiegers. A stone castle consisted at first of a single tower, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... fort-alice; lines. loophole, machicolation^; sally port. hold, stronghold, fastness; asylum &c (refuge) 666; keep, donjon, dungeon, fortress, citadel, capitol, castle; tower of strength, tower of strength; fort, barracoon^, pah^, sconce, martello tower^, peelhouse^, blockhouse, rath^; wooden walls. [body armor] bulletproof vest, armored vest, buffer, corner stone, fender, apron, mask, gauntlet, thimble, carapace, armor, shield, buckler, aegis, breastplate, backplate^, cowcatcher, face guard, scutum^, cuirass, habergeon^, mail, coat of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... most formidable thing to look at from a distance, but a wretched mud-built place in reality. To the Arabs, however, it is a terrible bulwark of strength, and for them impregnable. Everything in the shape of a fort or a blockhouse, be it ever so untenable or miserable, terrifies the Arabs. It is repeatedly asserted that the Arabs of Algeria never took a blockhouse. An authentic anecdote was recently related to me of a French civilian keeping a whole tribe in check for two days, by fortifying ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Branch had lagged far behind, and now, as if to cap his fantastic performances, had dismounted and was descending the river-bank to a place where a large washing had been spread upon the stones to dry. He was quite exposed, and a spiteful crackle from the nearest blockhouse showed that the Spaniards were determined to bring him down. Mauser bullets ricocheted among the rocks—even from this distance their sharp explosions were audible—others broke the surface of the stream into little geysers, as if a ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... cries that arose immediately after the discharge, it seemed that he had taught the savage natives a sharp and wholesome lesson. At any rate, they retreated in confusion; and soon afterward Frobisher was fortunate enough to discover a spot that would serve admirably as a site for a sort of blockhouse or fort. There was a spring of good water sufficient in quantity to supply the needs of his whole force, an open space of ground on which the structure could be built, and an abundance of small timber that could easily be ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the sea and blockhouse were swallowed up in a black fog, and his body touched the canvas cot again with a sense of home-coming and relief and rest. He wondered how he could have cared to escape from it. He found it so good to be back again that for a long time he wept quite happily, until the fiery pillow ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... the blockhouse a strong force of our troops, having marched out that morning from Murfreesboro, also appeared on the ground. Gen. Rousseau had learned that we were attacked, and had sent these troops to our assistance, but they were too late. He had also sent a detachment to this point the ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... our decline during the past ten months, I must say that the enemy has in that time learnt to fight better against us, and to do our people more damage. Ten months ago there was not a single blockhouse in my division; now lines of blockhouses intersect the entire division. You can cross these lines only at night, and then only with difficulty. The whole division is cut up into large areas. We are now obliged ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... seventh day they rested at a point but a few miles from the mouth of the Richelieu River, where a large blockhouse, Fort Richelieu, had been built by M. de Saurel. Once past this they had no great distance to go to reach the seigneury of De Catinat's friend of the noblesse who would help them upon their way. They had spent the night upon a little island in midstream, ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gone for half an hour. He secreted Landley, inspected the defenses, gathered the women and children in the blockhouse, and ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... with an apron on one or both sides, inclined at an angle of about 45 deg., as indicated in Figs. 13 and 14. This form was much used in South Africa for connecting lines between blockhouses. When used in this way the lines of fence may be 300 to 600 yds. long, in plan like a worm fence, with the blockhouse at the reentrant angles. Fixed rests for rifles, giving them the proper aim to enfilade the fence, were prepared at the blockhouses for ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... were four rooms on the main floor and in the basement were kitchens and pantries. Other buildings were also included within the fort. The storehouse of the commissary department was located near the southern blockhouse; and on either side of the gate were two buildings, shunned by all—the guardhouse ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... nation with which they had no connection but that of hostility. The first species of national baronial architecture to which they resorted was a very simple one, characteristic of an impoverished people. It consisted of little more than four stone walls, forming what in fortification is called a blockhouse. The walls were extremely thick, with few apertures, and these suspiciously small. But these old towers or keeps were not without some scientific preparations for defence. In the more ancient baronial castles, the large ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... history of the ruin and quite an extended account of the Pima traditions concerning it. He considered the Casa Grande a stronghold or fortress, a place of last resort, the counterpart, functionally, of the blockhouse of the early settlers of eastern ...
— Casa Grande Ruin • Cosmos Mindeleff
... former ally of the Pilgrims, settled with a motley crew of rude fellows at Wessagusset (Quincy) and there established a trading post in 1622. Of this settlement, which came to an untimely end after causing the Pilgrims a great deal of trouble, only a blockhouse and stockade remained. Another irregular trader, Captain Wollaston, with some thirty or forty people, chiefly servants, established himself in 1625 two miles north of Wessagusset, calling the place Mount Wollaston. With him came that wit, versifier, and prince of roysterers, Thomas Morton, who, ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... counterattacks in front of Ridge 196, northeast of Mesnil, and extended their position in that sector. In the region of Bagatelle in the Argonne two German counterattacks were repulsed. The French demolished a blockhouse there, and established themselves on the site of it. Between Four-de-Paris and Bolante the Germans attempted two counterattacks which failed. At Vauquois the French infantry delivered an attack which gave it ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... the vicinity of Pittsburg after a weary journey, and there built a boat which they named the Mayflower, and in it floated down the river, until they reached the mouth of the Muskingum. On April 17, 1788, they began the erection of a blockhouse, which was to be the nucleus of the new settlement, and a place of defense in case of Indian attack. The settlement was named Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France; it prospered from the first, and in a few years was a lively ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... fields, studded with the stumps of felled trees, and hedged about with a grim border of forests. Near the strand, by the mouth of the Onondaga, were the houses of some of the traders; and on the higher ground behind them stood a huge blockhouse with a projecting upper story. This building was surrounded by a rough wall of stone, with flankers at the angles, forming what was called the fort.[40] Piquet reconnoitred it from his canoe with ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... to my cost, as it turned out, that I was the only officer fit to make the journey, and I was accordingly ordered to proceed to Blockhouse No. 3 and make the required arrangements. I started alone just after dusk the next night, and during the darkness succeeded in getting within three miles of my destination. At this time I found that I had lost my way, and, although ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... little suited was the climate for Europeans to labour in; and yet there had been, I was told, no positive sickness. The hospital, however, had been enlarged, and rendered a very substantial building. Captain Macarthur had built a strong and well-contrived blockhouse, of the excellent kind of wood, a species of teak, before alluded to. A new garden also had been laid out, in which the banana and pine, besides many other tropical fruits, were flourishing. The arrow-root and sugar-cane grown ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... in 1902 had kidnapped Miss Ellen M. Stone, an American missionary, and held her for a ransom of $65,000 to procure funds for his campaign. At the head of a band of 2,500 Bulgarians he crossed the frontier and burned the Turkish blockhouse at Oschumava, afterwards occupying a strategic position ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... At the blockhouse, awaiting the moment when the symbol of freedom should rise like a star over old Vincennes the crowd had picturesquely broken into scattered groups. Alice entered through a rent in the stockade, as that happened to be a shorter route than through the gate, and ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... party went over Schenley Park with thoroughness, investigated several of the "inclines" which carried passengers from the river level to the top of the heights above, motored among the handsome residences and ended, on the way to the station, with a flying visit to the old blockhouse which is all that is ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... soldiers entered upon one of the most arduous tasks of the war, to build a fort, which was even more trying to them than battle. Arms and backs ached as Colden, Wilton and Carson, advised by Willet, drove them hard. A strong log blockhouse was erected, and then a stout palisade, enclosing the house and about an acre of ground, including the precious spring which spouted from under a ledge of stone at the very wall of the blockhouse itself. Behind the building they raised a shed in which the horses ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on the accompanying map). Facing these was a strong Spanish line, consisting of a stone fort, San Antonio de Abad, near the beach, intrenchments of sandbags and earth about seven feet high and 10 feet thick, extending in a curved direction for about 1,200 yards and terminating in a fortified blockhouse, known as No 14, beyond our right on the Pasay road. It faced our front and enveloped ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... affection have joined hands in a charmed circle, we shall have new ideas of working-places, as well as of praying-places, and of living-places! It is not enough that a factory should be situated, as the best factories now are, in the open country, with sunshine and fresh air. The blockhouse parallelograms and squares should be replaced by something that has intrinsic beauty and the haunting completeness of memory and association, so that the place where a man works shall no more be to him a nightmare, but the atmosphere and inspiration ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... western end of the island, a little beyond Yarmouth; whence a vessel conveyed them, over the little strip of intervening sea, to Hurst Castle that same afternoon (Dec. 1). The so-called Castle was a strong, solitary, stone blockhouse, which had been built, in the time of Henry VIII., at the extremity of a long narrow spit of sand and shingle projecting from the Hampshire coast towards the Isle of Wight. It was a rather dismal place; and the King's heart sank ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... and our men had soon landed tents and the necessary implements with which to make an encampment. The site chosen was the hill where the blockhouse had been, as this high spot was considered the most ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 24, June 16, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... true to themselves, the Carlists, with no better artillery than they possessed, might as well think of taking the moon as of entering San Sebastian. They would have a formidable fire from well-planted cannon to face; stockades, and strong earthworks, and more than one blockhouse cunningly pierced with loopholes, to carry. Even if San Sebastian was entered, the configuration of the streets was such as to give every aid to disciplined men as opposed to mere guerrilleros. The city is built in blocks, on the American system; the wide ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... scrambling over the loose round stones at the bottom, and bracing stoutly against the stream. All landed safely at last; we crossed a little plain, descended a hollow, and riding up a steep bank found ourselves before the gateway of Fort Laramie, under the impending blockhouse erected above it to defend ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... 31, at 11 p.m., the Spaniards opened a furious infantry and artillery fire upon the American lines and kept it up for two hours. Fort San Antonio Abad (Malate) with five guns, Blockhouse No. 14 with two guns, and connecting infantry trenches, concentrated fire upon the American breastworks, which caused considerable annoyance to the Americans. The night was pitch-dark, it rained in torrents, there was mud and ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... raised a small blockhouse, which served as a school-house and church. At first our progress in clearing the land was slow, for we had to buy experience, and many and great were the disappointments and privations that befel us during the first few years. One ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... and many years afterwards, a military guard seems to have done duty at the 'Palais' and adjoining premises, east of St. Nicholas street, known as the Royal Dock Yard, King's Wharf, Stores, &c. This latter property extended eastward as far as La Canoterie, in front of a blockhouse, the site of the present Nunnery Bastion, and lying between what is now known as St. Charles street, or the foot of the cliff, and the high water mark on the north side, corresponding pretty nearly with the line of St. ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... accustomed unquestioning obedience she turned towards the rocks, and after another interval of painful toil they found themselves in a sort of rocky chamber, a natural blockhouse, of which the sheer cliff formed one wall and boulders of varying ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston |
