Mr. Stewart is now sixty-eight years old, but looks much younger, being still as vigorous and active, both mentally and physically, as most men of forty-five. He is of the medium size, has light-brown hair and beard, which are closely trimmed. His features are sharp, well cut, his eye bright, and his general expression calm and thoughtful. His manner is reserved, and to all but his intimate friends cold. He dresses with great simplicity, but with taste, and in the style of the day. His habits are simple, and he avoids publicity in all things. Standing as he does at the head of the mercantile interests of the country, he affords a fine example of the calm and dignified manner in which a man of true merit may enjoy his legitimate success, and of the good use he may make of its fruits. CHAPTER IV. AMOS LAWRENCE. Amos Lawrence was born at Groton, Massachusetts, on the 22d of April, 1786. His ancestor came of a good English family, and was one of the company which sailed from England for the New World under Governor Winthrop, in 1630, and which, according to Grahame, contained "several wealthy and high-born persons, both men and women, who expressed their determination to follow truth and liberty into a desert, rather than to enjoy all the pleasures of the world under the dominion of superstition and slavery." This Lawrence settled in Watertown, and was one of the original proprietors of the town of Groton, which was founded in 1655. Samuel Lawrence, the father of the subject of this memoir, was the fifth in descent from the founder of the family, and was himself a gallant officer of the American army in the War of the Revolution, the close of which found him the possessor of a small farm, which yielded a modest support for his family. Young Amos was brought up on the farm, with none of the advantages of wealth, and with but a limited education, which he gained at the village schools, and which was seriously interfered with by his delicate health. He received his final training at the Groton Academy, to which, in after life, he became a liberal patron. "As we children came forward," he wrote, late in life, "we were carefully looked after, but were taught to use the talents intrusted to us; and every nerve was strained to provide for us the academy which is now doing so much there." Toward the close of the year 1799, when but a little over thirteen years of age, he took his final departure from school, and entered a store in the village of Dunstable, as clerk.