-nail
maker by trade, and the father of six children--four sons and two
daughters. I was the fourth child.

In January, 1797, he moved from Canaan to the town of Plymouth, in the
same County, and in the following spring built a blacksmith shop, which
was large enough for three or four men to work at the nail making
business, besides carrying on the blacksmithing. At that time all the
nails used in the country were hammered by hand out of iron rods, which
practice has almost entirely been done away by the introduction of cut
nails.

My advantages for education were very poor. When large enough to handle
a hoe, or a bundle of rye, I was kept at work on the farm. The only
opportunity I had for attending school was in the winter season, and
then only about three months in the year, and at a very poor school.
When I was nine years old, my father took me into the shop to work,
where I soon learned to make nails, and worked with him in this way
until his death, which occurred on the fifth of October, 1804. For two
or three days before he died, he suffered the most excruciating pains
from the disease known as the black colic. The day of his death was a
sad one to me, for I knew that I should lose my happy home, and be
obliged to leave it to seek work for my support. There being no
manufacturing of any account in the country, the poor boys were obliged
to let themselves to the farmers, and it was extremely difficult to find
a place to live where they would treat a poor boy like a human being.
Never shall I forget the Monday morning that I took my little bundle of
clothes, and with a bursting heart bid my poor mother good bye.

I knew that the rest of the family had got to leave soon, and I perhaps
never to see any of them again. Being but a boy and naturally very
sympathizing, it really seemed as if my heart would break to think of
leaving my dear old home for good, but stern necessity compelled me, and
I was forced to obey.

The first year after leaving home I was at work on a farm, and almost
every day when alone in the fields would burst into tears--not because I
had to work, but because my father was dead whom I loved, and our happy
family separated and broken up never to live together again. In my new
place I was kept at work very hard, and at the age of fourteen did
almost the work of a man. It was a very lonely place where we lived, and
nothing to interest a child of my age. The people I lived with seemed to
me as ve