of the two towns thirty years ago, producing no surplus but
of rye, which was readily transmuted into whiskey, and drank
at home to no profit; but the more recent development of
her natural wealth in slate, with the erection of mills for saw-
ing the marble abundantly found a few miles farther east, has
given her a pretty rapid and quite substantial growth. Though
limited in area, and nowise inviting in soil, Fahhaven now
takes rank with the more prosperous townships of Vermont ;
a considerable accession of inhabitants, — mainly Welsh min-
ers and Irish laborers, — with the erection of new dwellings
and other structiu-es, evincing the thrift which every\vhere
attends or follows the opening of a new field for productive
industry. Fairhaven might to-day be mistaken, at a hasty
glance, for a growing township of Pennsylvania or Ohio;
while Westhaven — having no pursuit but Agriculture — lies
petrified and lifeless as though located in Nova Scotia or
Lower Canada. Clearly, Man was not intended to live by
bread alone, — whether the eating or the growing of it.
VIII
MY APPRENTICESHIP.
HAVING loved and devoured newspapers — indeed, every
form of periodical — from childhood, I early resolved
to be a printer if I could. ^'Vllen but eleven years old, hear-
ing that an apprentice was wanted in the newspaper office at
Whitehall, I accompanied my father to that office, and tried
hard to find favor in the printer's eyes ; but he promptly and
properly rejected me as too young, and would not relent ; so
I went home downcast and sorrowful. No new opportunity
was presented till the Spring of 1826, when an apprentice was
advertised for by the publishers of The Northern Spectator, at
East Poultney, Vt. That paper had just been purchased by
an association of the leading citizens of the place from its
foimders, Messrs. Smith and Shute, who had started it as The
Poultney Gazette three or four years before. The village,
though larger and more active then than now, was not ade-
quate to the support of a newspaper ; but the citizens thought
otherwise, and resolved to maintain one, under the manage-
ment of a committee. So they hired from New York an
editor, — Mr. E, G. Stone, brother of the more distinguished
editor of The Commercial Advertiser, — paid handsomely for
the printing-office and good-wiU, and went ahead. Much of
the old force having left with the retiring publishers, there
was room for a new apprentice, and I wanted the place. My
father was about starting for the wide West in quest of a
future home ; so, not needing at the moment my services, he
readily acceded to my wishes. I walked over to Poultney,
saw the publishers, came to an understanding with them, and
62 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
returned; and a few days afterward — April 18, 1826 —
my father took me down, and verbally agreed with them for
my services. I was to remain till twenty years of age, be
allowed my board only for six months, and thereafter $ 40 per
annum in addition for my clothing. So I stopped, and went
to work ; while he returned to Westhaven, and soon left in
quest of a more inviting region. He made his way to the
town of Wayne, Erie County, Pennsylvania, on the State line
opposite Clymer, Chautauqua County, N". Y., — a spot where
his brothers Benjamin and Leonard had, three or four years
earlier, made holes in the tall, dense forest, which then
covered nearly all that region for twenty to fifty miles in
every direction. He bought out first one, then another
pioneer, until he had at length two or three hundred acres of
good land, but covered with a heavy growth of Beech, Maple,
Elm, Hemlock, &c. Having made his first purchase, — which
included a log hut, and four acres of clearing, — he returned
for his family ; and I walked over from Poultney to spend a
Sabbath with and bid them farewell.
It was a sad parting. We had seen hard times together,
and were very fondly attached to each other. I was urged
by some of my kindred to give up Poultney, — where there
were some things in the office not exactly to my mind, — and
accompany them to their new home ; whence, they urged, I
could easily find, in its vicinity, another and better chance to
learn my chosen trade. I was strongly tempted to comply ;
but it would have been bad faith to do so ; and I turned my
face once more toward Poultney with dry eyes but a heoxj
heart. A word from my mother, at the critical moment,
might have overcome my resolution ; but she did not speak
it, and I went my way; leaving the family soon to travel
much farther, and in an opposite direction. After the parting
was over, and I well on my way, I was strongly tempted to
return ; and my walk back to Poultney (twelve miles) was
one of the slowest and saddest of my life.
I have ever since been thankful that I did not yield to the
temptation of the hour. Poultney was a capital place to
MY APPRENTICESHIP. 63
serve an apprenticeship. Essentially a rural community, her
people are at once intelligent and moral ; and there are few
villages wherein the incitements to dissipation and vice are
fewer or less obtrusive. The organization and management
of our establishment were vicious ; for an apprentice should
have one master ; while I had a series of them, and often two
or three at once. First, our editor left us ; next, the company
broke up or broke down, as any one might have known it
would ; and a mercantile firm in the village became owners
and managers of the concern ; and so we had a succession of
editors and of printers. These changes enabled me to demand
and receive a more liberal allowance for the later years of my
apprenticeship ; but the office was too laxly ruled for the
most part, and, as to instruction, every one had perfect liberty
to learn whatever he could. In fact, as but two, or at most
three, persons were employed in the printing department, it
would have puzzled an apprentice to avoid a practical knowl-
edge of whatever was done there. I had not been there a
year before my hands were blistered and my back lamed by
working off the very considerable edition of the paper on an
old-fashioned, two-puU Eamage (wooden) press, — a task be-
yond my boyish strength, — and I can scarcely recall a day
wherein we were not hurried by our work. I would not
imply that I worked too hard ; yet I think few apprentices
work more steadily and faithfully than I did throughout the
four years and over of my stay in Poultney. AÂ¥liile I lived
at home, I had always been allowed a day's fishing, at least
once a month in Spring and Summer, and I once went hunt-
ing ; but I never fished, nor hunted, nor attended a dance, nor
any sort of party or fandango, in Poultney. I doubt that I
even played a game of ball.
Yet I was ever considerately and even kindly treated by
those in authority over me ; and I believe I generally merited
and enjoyed their confidence and good-will. Very seldom
was a word of reproach or dissatisfaction addressed to me by
one of them. Though I worked dihgently, I found much
time for reading, and might have had more, had every leisure
64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
hour been carefully improved. I had been generously loaned
books from the Minot house while in Westhaven ; I found
good ones abundant and accessible in Poultney, where I first
made the acquaintance of a public library. I have never
since found at once books, and opportunity to enjoy them, so
ample as while there ; I do not think I ever before or since
read to so much profit. They say that apprenticeship is dis-
tasteful to, and out of fashion with, the boys of our day : if so,
I regret it for their sakes. To the youth who asks, " How
shall I obtain an education ? " I would answer, " Learn a
trade of a good master." I hold firmly that most boys may
thus better acquire the knowledge they need than by spending
four years in college.
I was kindly allowed to visit my father's family in their
new Western home twice during my apprenticeship ; having
a furlough of a month in either instance. I made either jour-
ney by way of the Erie Canal, on those hne-boats whose " cent
and a half a mile, mile and a half an liour," so many yet
remember. Eailroads, as yet, were not ; the days passed
slowly yet smoothly on those gliding arks, being enhvened
by various sedentary games ; but the nights were tedious
beyond any sleeping-car experience. At daybreak, you were
routed out of your shabby, shelf-like berth, and driven on
deck to swallow fog while the cabin was cleared of its beds
and made ready for breakfast. I say nothing as to " the good
old times " ; but, if any one would recall the good old line-
boats, I object. And the wretched little tubs that then did
duty for steamboats on Lake Erie were scarcely less conducive
to the increase and diffusion of human misery. I have suf-
fered in them to the extent of mortal endurance ; I have left
one at Dunkirk, and walked twenty miles to Westfield, instead
of keeping on by boat at a trifling charge, simply because
flesh and blood could bear the torture no longer. I trust I
have due respect for " the good old ways " we often hear of ;
yet I feel that this earthly life has been practically lengthened
and sweetened by the invention and construction of railroads.
Among the incidents of my sojourn in Poultney that made
AfY APPRENTICESHIP. 65
most impression on my mind is^fugitive slave-chase. New
York had professed to abolish slavery years before, but had
ordained that certain born slaves should remain such till
twenty-eight years old ; and the year of jubilee for certain of
these had not yet come. A young negro, who must have been
uninstructed in the sacredness of constitutional guaranties,
the rights of property, &c., &c., &c., feloniously abstracted him-
self from his master in a neighboring New York to"svn, and
conveyed the chattel-personal to our village ; where he was
at work when said master, with due process and following,
came over to reclaim and recover the goods. I never saw so
large a muster of men and boys so suddenly on our village-
green as his advent incited ; and the result was a speedy dis-
appearance of the chattel, and the return of his master, dis-
consolate and niggerless, to the place whence he came. Every-
thing on our side was impromptu and instinctive ; and nobody
suggested that en\'y or hate of " the South," or of New York,
or of the master, had impelled the rescue. Our people hated
injustice and oppression, and acted as if they could n't help it.
Another fresh recollection of those far-off days concerns
our Poultney celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Ameri-
can Independence. I know we still celebrate tlie Fourth of
July ; but it does seem to me that the glory has departed.
In those times, we had always from twenty to fifty Eevolu-
tionary soldiers on the platform, — veterans of seventy to
ninety years, in whose eyes the recurrence of the nation's an-
niversary seemed to rekindle " the light of other days." The
semi-centennial celebration brought out these in full force, —
the gatherings were unusually large, and the services impres-
sive ; since few of those present, and none of the veterans, coidd
rationally hope to see its repetition. The Declaration of In-
dependence sounded far less antediluvian than it now does ;
the quarrel of the colonists with King George, if not recent,
was yet real ; and the old soldiers forgot for a day their rheu-
matism, their decrepitude, and their poverty, and were proud
of their bygone perils and hardships, and their abiding scars.
I doubt that Poultney has since been so thrilled with patriotic
5
66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
emotion as on that 4th of July, 1826 ; and when we learned,
a few days later, that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the
author and the great champion, respectively, of the Declara-
tion, had both died on that day, and that the messengers
bearing South and North, respectively, the tidings of their
decease, had met in Philadelphia, under the shadow of that
Hall in which our Independence was declared, it seemed that
a Divine attestation had solemnly hallowed and sanctified the
great anniversary by the impressive ministration of Death.
Time works changes, even where a hasty glance discerns
but immobility and virtual stagnation. A railroad from Troy
to Eutland {via Eagle Bridge and Salem, N. Y.) now runs
through West Poultney ; increasing the decided advantage
which that village had already achieved over its rival by the
establishment within its limits of a great Methodist seminary
and of certain manufactures. East Poultney has fewer stores,
fewer mechanics' shops, less business, and fewer inhabi-
tants, than when I first saw it, forty-odd years ago ; while
scarcely a house has meantime been built within its limits.
It is still a pleasant place to visit, however ; and I live in
hopes of spendmg a quiet week there ere I die.
Our paper was intensely Adams and Clay before, and in the
Presidential struggle of 1828, and our whole community sym-
pathized with its preference. The defection of our State's fore-
most politician, Governor Cornelius P. Van ISTess, after he had
vainly tried, while professing to be an Adams man, to vault from
the Governor's chair into the United States Senate, created
a passing ripple on the face of the current, but did not begin
to stem it. A few active yet unpopular politicians went over
with him ; but the masses stood firm, especially in our section,
where the influence of Hon. EoUin C. Mallary, our represent-
ative in Congress, was unrivalled. The Jackson party nomi-
nated him for Congress ; but that did not affect his position,
nor much affect his vote, which in any case would have been
nearly imanimous. We Vermonters were all Protectionists ;
MY APPRENTICESHIP. 67
and Mr. Mallaiy was the foremost champion of our cause in
the House. He made a speech in Poultney the evening before
the election, when, though the omens were sinister, we still
hoped that Adams might be reelected. The Jackson paper
nearest us headed its Electoral Ticket, " For General Jackson
and a Protective Tariff" ; and Jackson men all over the
North and West protested that their party was as decidedly
for Protection as ours ; pointing to the attitude of Pennsyl-
vania, at once the leading Protectionist and the strongest
Jackson State ; but we could not heilp seeing that all the
Free Traders were for Jackson ; that Callioun was running
•with him for Vice-President ; and that South Carolina was
threatening nullification and forcible resistance if the Protec-
tive policy were not abandoned ; and we concluded that either
Pennsylvania or Carolina must be cheated, and that the latter
would take good care not to be. So Mr. IMallary urged us to
stand fast by those whom we hieio to be devoted to our cher-
ished policy, rather than try those whose professions were
discredited by notorious facts ; and the response in our section
was enthusiastic. Poultney gave next day 33-i votes for
Adams to 4 for Jackson. I doubt that her vote has ever
since been so unanimous or so strong. And, though the gen-
eral result was heavily adverse to our desperate hopes, — only
New England, not quite half of New York, New Jersey, Dela-
ware, and part of Maryland, giving Mr. Adams their votes ;
while Pennsylvania, the rest of New York, and all the South
and West, went against him, — we had the poor consolation,
that, for whatever disaster the political revolution might
involve, no shadow of responsibility could rest on our own
Vermont.
IX.
MY FAITH.
I MUST have been about ten years old, when, in some
school-book, whereof I have forgotten the name, I first
read an account of the treatment of the Athenians by Deme-
trius, called Poliorcetes (Destroyer of Cities), one of the suc-
cessors of " Macedonia's madman." I cannot rediscover that
account ; so I must be content with the far tamer and less
vivid narration of the French historian Eollin : —
" Demetrius had withdrawn himself to Ephesus after the Battle
of Ipsus, [wherein he was routed,] and thence embarked for Greece ;
his whole resources being trusted to the affection of the Athenians,
with whom he had left his fleet, money, and wife, Deidamia. But
he was strangely surprised and offended when he was met on his
way by ambassadors from the Athenians, who came to apprise him
that he could not be admitted into their city, because the people
had, by a decree, prohibited the reception of any of the kings ;
they also informed him that his consort, Deidamia, had been con-
diicted to Megara with all the honors and attendance due to her
dignity. Demetrius was then sensible of the value of honors and
homages extorted by fear, and which did not proceed fi'om the wiU.
The posture of his affairs not permitting him to revenge the perfidy
of that people, he contented himself with intimating his complaints
to them in a moderate manner, and demanded his galley's ; with
which, as soon as he had received them, he sailed toward the
Chersonesus."
Not many months elapsed before, through one of those
strange and sudden mutations which were frequent tlirough-
out his career, the fortunes of Demetrius were completely
MY FAITH. 69
restored, and he was enabled to settle his running account
vnth. those who had proved so treacherous in his adversity.
I return here to the narration of Eollin : —
" Athens, as we have already observed, had revolted from Deme-
trius, and shut her gates against him. But, when that prince
thought he had sufficiently provided for the secui'ity of his terri-
tories in Asia, he moved against that rebellious and ungrateful
city, with a resolution to punish her as she deserved. The first
year was devoted to the conquest of the Messenians, and of some
other cities which had quitted his party ; but he returned the next
season to Athens, which he closed, blocked up, and reduced to the
last extremity, by cutting off" all influx of provisions. A fleet of a
hundred and fifty sail, sent by King Ptolemy to succor the Athen-
ians, and which appeared off" the coast of yEgina, afforded them but
a transient joy ; for, when this naval force saw a strong fleet arrive
from Peloponnesus to the assistance of Demetrius, besides a great
niunber of other vessels from Cyprus, and that the whole amounted
to three hundred, they weighed anchor and fled.
" Although the Athenians had issued a decree by which they
made it a capital offence for any person even to mention a peace
with Demetrius, the extremity to which they were reduced obliged
them to open their gates to him. "VVlien he entered the city, he
commanded the inhabitants to assemble in the theatre, which he
suiTounded with armed troops, and posted his guards on either
side of the stage where the dramatic pieces were wont to be per-
formed ; and then, descending from the iipper part of the theatre,
in the manner usual with actors, he showed himself to the multi-
tude, who seemed more dead than alive, and awaited the event in
inexpressible terror, expecting it would prove their sentence to
destruction ; but he dissipated their apprehensions by the first
words he uttered : for he did not raise his voice like a man enraged,
nor deliver himself in any passionate or insidting terms ; but
softened the tones of his voice, and only addressed to them gentle
complaints and amicable expostidations. He pardoned their offence
and restored them to his favor, — presenting them, at the same
time, with 100,000 measures of corn [wheat], and reinstating such
magistrates as were most agi-eeable to them. The joy of this
people may be easily conceived from the terrors with which they
were previously affected ; and how glorious must that prince be
who could always support so admirable a character ! "
70 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
Eeflecting with admiration on this exhibition of a magna-
nimity too rare in human annals, I was moved to inquire if a
spirit so nobly, so wisely, transcending the mean and savage
impulse which man too often disguises as justice, when it is
in essence revenge, might not be reverently termed Divine ;
and the firm conclusion to which I was finally led, imported
that the old Greek's treatment of vanquished rebels or pros-
trate enemies must forcibly image and body forth that of the
" King immortal, invisible, and only wise God."
When I reached this conclusion, I had never seen one who
was called, or who called himself, a Universalist ; and I neither
saw one, nor read a page of any one's writings, for years there-
after. I had only heard that there were a few graceless repro-
bates and scurvy outcasts, who pretended to believe that all
men would be saved, and to wrench the Scriptures into some
sort of conformity to their mockery of a creed. I had read
the Bible through, much of it repeatedly, but when quite
too infantile to form any coherent, definite synopsis of the
doctrines I presumed to be taught therein. But, soon after
entering a printing-office, I procured exchanges with several
Universalist periodicals, and was thenceforth familiar with
their methods of interpretation and of argument ; though I
first heard a sermon preached by one of this school while
passing through Buffalo, about 1830 ; and I was acquainted
with no society, and no preacher, of this faith, prior to my
arrival in New York in August, 1831 ; when I made my way,
on the first Sunday morning of my sojourn, to the little chapel
in Grand Street, near Pitt, — about the size of an average
country school-house, — where Eev. Thomas J. Sawyer, then
quite young, ministered to a congregation of, perhaps, a
hundred souls ; to which congregation I soon afterward
attached myself: remainmg a member of it until he left
the city.
I am not, therefore, to be classed with those who claim to
have been converted from one creed to another by studying
tlie Bible alone. Certainly, upon re-reading that book in the
light of my new convictions, \ found therein abundant proof
ilY FAITH. 71
of their correctness in the averments of patriarchs,* prophets,!
apostles, J and of the Messiah § himself. But not so much in
particular passages, however pertinent and decisive, as in the
spmt and general scope of the Gospel, — so happily blending
inexorable punishment for every offence with imfailing pity
and ultimate forgiveness for the chastened transgressor, — thus
saving sinners from sin by leading them, through suffering, to
loathe and forsake it ; and in laying down its Golden Eule,
which, if of miiversal application, (and why not ?) must be
utterly inconsistent with the infliction of infinite and unending
torture as the penalty of transient, and often ignorant, offend-
ing, did I find ample warrant for my hope and trust that all
suffering is disciplinary and transitional, and shall ultimately
result in imiversal holiness and consequent happiness.
In the light of this faith, the dark problem of Evil is irra-
diated, and -virtually solved. "Perfect through suffering"
was the way traced out for the great Captain of our salvation :
then why not for all the children of Adam ? To say that
temporary aifliction is as difficult to reconcile with Divine
goodness as eternal agony is to defy reason and insult common
sense. The history of Joseph's pei'fidious sale into slavery by
his brethren, and the Divine oven"uling|| of that crime into a
means of vast and permanent blessing to the entire family of
Jacob, is directly in point. Once conceive that an Omniscient
Beneficence presides over and directs the entire course of
human affairs, leading ever onward and upward to universal
pmdty and bliss, and all evil becomes phenomenal and pre-
parative, — a mere curtain or passing cloud, which hides for a
moment the Hght of the celestial and eternal day.
I am not wise enough, even in my own conceit, to assume
to say where and when the deliverance of our race from evil
and suffering shall be consummated. Perceiving that many
* Gen. iii. 15; xii. 3.
t Isa. XXV. 8 ; xlv. 23-25.
t Rom. V. 12-21; \'iii. 19-21; 1 Cor. xv. 42 - 54 ; Eph. i. 8-10; Col. i.
19-21 ; 1 Tim. ii. 3-6.
§ Matt. XV. 13 ; John xii. 32.
II Gen. xlv. 5-8.
72 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.
leave this stage of being depraved and impenitent, I cannot
believe that they will be transformed into angels of purity by
the intervention of a circumstance so purely physical and
involuntary as death. Holding that the government of God
is everywhere and always perfect (however inadequate may
be our comprehension of it), I infer that, alike in all worlds,
men will be chastised whenever they shall need to be, and