“Next to the merchant marine was the Navy-Yard. We stole over to Charlestown almost every week. With what awe we walked past the long rows of unmounted cannon! With what exhilaration we looked forth from the mounted sea-battery that looked down the harbor, and just waited for some Britisher to dare to come in sight! We have torn any number of ships to pieces with those cannon, with imagination for our commodore and patriotism for our cannoneer. There have been great battles in Boston harbor that nobody knows anything about but ourself!” Other experiences there were of a different nature. The peaceful life of the quiet New England village, where each one took his place mostly by the position of the family and held it largely undisturbed, had given way to that of a city full of antagonisms and strife. It was a life not exactly in accordance with the instructions of a well-regulated Christian family, but its rough experiences were undoubtedly adapted to bring out some qualities that were useful in an after-career in which battle was to have so prominent a place. “It was with some slight contempt that we beheld our first companions. Our first home was in Sheafe Street, far down at the North End, next door to Mr. Gay, the landlord. The boys thereabouts were smart and lively, but few of them could wrestle, and none of them often held out with us in a downright race. I was always long-winded, even before I began public speaking. “In those days no boy was a good boy among his fellows who had not the courage of battle. It was the duty of all living in certain districts, upon proper occasion, to fight the boys of other streets or districts. The Salem-Streeters included all the small streets adjacent—Sheafe Street, Bennett Street, etc. When nothing else was on hand small scrimmages were gotten up between ourselves—Sheafe Street vs. Bennett Street, etc.; but we all united against Prince Street. Prince-Streeters were the natural enemies of all the surrounding streets. Yet, when the West-Enders came over in battle array, yelling, throwing stones, and driving in the timid lads caught out of bounds, all the North-Enders rose, forgot their local feuds, and went forth in awful array to chastise the wretches that lived at the West End. And if one were to believe all the feats of which we boasted for a month thereafter, he would be sure that since the days that Homer sang no such fighting had ever taken place. “But what were all these things to that implacable and ineradical hatred which all true Boston boys entertained against Charlestown Pigs? For by such a title did we expose the meanness, the degradation, the cowardice, the utter despicableness of a boy born the other side of the ‘draw’ of the Charlestown Bridge!” While the father was coming to leadership in the pulpit his son Henry was reaching the same point in his set by the only way opened to him at that time.