Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/400

 been born May 22, 1826, in the low one-storeyed house of a small farm on the poorest soil of the town of New Boston, just west of Manchester, New Hampshire. From his father, John Langdell, he could trace through three generations of hard times on that farm, back to a great-grandfather who came to Beverly, Massachusetts, from the old country, bringing with him a bride from Londonderry.

His mother, Lydia Beard, was of the canny, hardy Scotch-Irish stock that bred our best New England blood. It was from her that the boy inherited his intellectual capacity and his indomitable ambition. Had she lived to mould and foster his genius, who can say to what heights he might have attained? But she died when he was only seven, leaving him to the care of a devoted elder sister. Three years later the poor home was entirely broken up, and young Christopher fell upon harder times than ever. From the age of ten the child, but one remove from a pauper, “lived out” with various kind-hearted neighbors for years, working on their farms “for his keep.”

Yet through those dark hours he cherished a secret purpose, which gradually became a passionate obsession—he must get an education. Every winter he greedily devoured the scanty intellectual pabulum offered by the district school. It is related that he sawed wood with