Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/66

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about six miles distant, where he resided till his death, in April, 1831. When about eight years old I was sent for a short time to a country school near home, where I learned the alphabet and began to spell and read. Soon after my father's death my mother returned with her six children to her father's in Mercer county, Kentucky. My brother John Adair and myself were soon after sent to the house of Charles Buford (who had married my mother's youngest sister) in Scott county, Kentucky, and remained there about a year, attending a country school taught by a Mr. Phillips. This was in 1831-' 2. In 1833 I returned to my grandfather's and went to school to a young man named Van Dyke who taught in the neighborhood, afterwards to Mr. Tyler, and still later to a Mr. Boutwell, who were successively principal of Cave Run Acadamy in Mercer county. I was then sent to the house of Judge Thomas B. Monroe, in Frank- furt. Mrs. Monroe was also a sister of my mother. Here I remained about a year or perhaps more, attending a select school taught by B. B. Sayre. About this time my mother was married to Dr. J. N. Bybee, of Harrodsburg, Kentucky. I was taken to his house and went to school in the village to a Mr. Rice, and afterwards to a Mr. Smith. In October, 1836, I was sent to Jefferson College, at Can- nonsburg, Pennsylvania. I remained there a year, when pecu- niary misfortunes compelled my stepfather to withdraw me. In the winter of 1838 I kept up my studies with a young man named Terry, then teaching in Harrodsburg. During this winter I boarded at the house of my uncle John Adair, three miles in the country. In the spring of 1838 I was sent up to Three Forks of the Kentucky river, in Estill county, where my stepfather had established a saw-mill and had opened a coal mine. During this year, too, I made a trip with my mother to Winchester, Tenn., on horseback, where she went to close up some of the unsettled business of my father's estate. In the fall of 1838 my stepfather determined to remove to north Missis- sippi, then beirfg rapidly settled, the Indians having been removed west of the Mississippi river. I accompanied him on horseback from Harrodsburg, Ky., to Hernando, in De Soto county, Miss. I re- mained here during the winter' of i838-'9 assisting in building cabins, clearing land, &c., for the comfort of the family. In April, 1839, I was sent back to Jefferson College. I entered the junior class and graduated in 1840. I returned to De Soto county, Miss., and began the study of law in the office of Buckner & Delafield, and was admitted to the bar by Judge Howry in 1843.

Having no money with which to support myself, and the bar being