Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/244

 2i6 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

to save otft of the scant rewards of frontier toil the means of giving children a higher than rudimentary education. And they so imbued their sons with the love of liberty, that five, if not six of them, volunteered in the war by which it was won.

A solitary letter, written by the mother to Henry, has escaped oblivion. The date is May lo, 1804. The place of writing is not named, but probably Schoharie County, New York. It is a long letter, chiefly occupied with accounts of her sons and their families in that county, and recent intelligence from those " in the Jersies " and " in the Genesee Country." The introduction is of special interest as evincing the deep religious element in her character. She recalls her indebtedness to God for his manifold mercies to her ; expresses her consciousness that she is very near eternity ; assures her son that she does not forget him and his family in her prayers, '' late and early," that she earnestly prays that " he may have grace according to knowledge " for setting an exam- ple which his children may safely follow, and that she is thankful to God " for the sentiments and way of speech very pleasing to your aged mother " in his last letter to her. She concludes her religious preface thus : "My dear Henry, I once more beg that you be earnest at the throne of grace for yourself and your family and your mother." It seems a patriotic duty to perpetuate in some enduring record, this voice of a mother crying in a distant wilderness to her posterity in New Hajnpshire, to prepare the way of the Lord and make straight a highway for the God of their fathers, on whose favor the purity and perpe- tuity of the family, the church, and the State depend.

Henry was graduated at Princeton, in 1764. His class was larger than any previous one. It was eminent for scholarship and patriotism. The valedicto- rian, Ebenezer Pemberton, ll. d., had " patriotism " for his theme; Jacob Rush, LL. D., late Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, had '"liberty" for his. Among other classmates were the younger Jonathan Edwards, d. d. ; Theodore Dirck Romeyn, d. d., principal founder of Union College ; Samuel Kirkland, strongly endorsed by Washington for patriotism, and founder of the academy which grew into Hamilton College ; Joel Benedict, d. d., of Connecticut ; William Davies, Revolutionary officer of Virginia, and intimate friend of Wash- ington ; John Bacon, pastor of the Old South in Boston, m. c, and a leader in founding Williams College ; and Richard Hutson, m. c, and David Ramsey, M. c, of South Carolina — the latter the distinguished author of the History of the Revolution.

Several of Henry's brothers were students, though not graduates, at Prince- ton. A grand-daughter of Reuben, who had her home with him in youth and remembers him well, states that "he was educated at Princeton College, his oldest brother, Henry, being tutor (as he always called him) in the college;" and that, owing to a decrease in his father's finances, he left five years before the war ; at the beginning of which, he enlisted in New York city, and served to the end. He spent his subsequent long life as a teacher in New York State.

Henry is not recorded as tutor in the Triennial ; but, that subsequent to his graduation, he was connected with the college, is implied in a family tradition, that while at Princeton he became attached to President Withers- poon (inaugurated 1768), with whom in subsequent life he had friendly corre- spondence. Three of his brothers are recorded as having enlisted in the Con- tinental army from Somerset county, New Jersey ; Aaron, Jonathan, and Sylvanus. Whether the only other brother, William, was in the service is not yet learned.

In the Spring of 1775, Henry was at Londonderry. Parker's history of that town states : " Soon after the news of the battle of Lexington had been re- ceived, Capt. George Reid marched with a company of nearly one hundred

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