Sentence:  Visiting these famous localities, and a great many others, I hope that I do not compromise my American patriotism by acknowledging that I was often conscious of a fervent hereditary attachment to the native soil of our forefathers, and felt it to be our own Old <WSD>Home</WSD>. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  One's native land; the place or country in which one dwells; the place where one's ancestors dwell or dwelt.