On the mother’s side the selection was somewhat different. While we find no more sterling qualities, there is in this line a higher social position, more culture, a broader training in public affairs, both civil and military, and what with some may appear of still greater importance, a coat-of-arms given as a special mark of royal gratitude. Roxana Foote had gentle blood in her veins. She could trace her genealogy on the father’s side back through Nathaniel Foote, who came into Connecticut with Hooker’s company in 1636, to James Foote, an officer in the English army, who aided King Charles to conceal himself in the “Royal Oak” and was knighted for his loyalty. As the old primer has it: “It was the tree, the old oak-tree, Which saved his royal majesty.” The tree stood in a field of clover, and the Foote coat-of-arms still bears an oak for its crest and a clover-leaf in its quarterings, with the motto “Loyalty and Truth.” Her mother, Roxana Ward Foote, was descended from Andrew Ward, who came over with Sir Richard Saltonstall and settled in Watertown, Mass., in 1630. He afterwards moved to Wethersfield, and was a member of the first General Court, or Legislature, held at Hartford in 1636. Later he moved to Stamford, and represented that colony in the higher branch of the General Court at New Haven. From him descended Colonel Andrew Ward, who took part in the old French and Indian war and aided in the capture of Louisburg in 1745. Of him it is told that, being a stanch cold-water man, he took money in lieu of his daily rations of grog. With this he bought six silver spoons, on which he had engraved the name “Louisburg.” Some of these spoons are still preserved in the family, witnesses to the virtue and valor of one of its honored ancestors. His son was General Andrew Ward, of Revolutionary fame, who, at the close of the war, went back to his native town, Guilford, and took up his residence upon a farm of about two hundred acres, called Nutplains. For many years he represented the town in the State Legislature, being nominated, it is said, year after year by some one of the town worthies in this primitive manner: “The meeting is now open, and you will proceed to vote for General Ward and Deacon Burgess for representatives.” When his daughter, an only child, who had married Eli Foote, was left a widow, he took her with her ten children to his home at Nutplains, and cared for them as if they were his own. Being a great reader, and always bringing home with him from the Legislature his saddle-bags full of books, which were read aloud and discussed in the family, this home became a school that afforded superior advantages for gaining acquaintance with literature, for acquiring such knowledge of science as was accessible at that time, and for exciting thought and interest. In that school Roxana, the second-born of the family, is represented to have been easily first both in intellect and goodness.