Her situation was peculiarly beset with difficulties. The death of two brothers, with whom she had come to this country, followed by the loss of her husband, left her without any other relatives in America than her two children. But happily for them, she was a woman of great energy of character, of singular prudence, and of devoted piety. It immediately became a leading object of her life to train up her son to usefulness and honor. We may be well assured from its results, that her course of discipline was eminently judicious. Indeed, the Judge has been heard to declare that whatever success and distinction he had attained in life he owed to her counsels and her admirable management, and that but for her he might have been a vagabond. He was first sent to school in his native town, and while there he was represented as having been "very quick, and apt to learn; of an affectionate temper, and yet volatile and irritable. His mother used every means to correct his infirmities of disposition, and to give an aim to his pursuits--sometimes employing kindness, or mild but solemn admonition, and occasionally still stricter discipline." She kept him under her own immediate supervision and control until the fall of the year 1791, when she sent him to the Roman Catholic college at Georgetown. After remaining at this institution about eighteen months, his failing health compelled him to return home. Soon afterwards his health was reestablished, and he resumed his studies under the tuition of the Rev. Thomas P. Irving, who then had charge of the academy at New Bern. Here he was prepared for admission into the junior class of Princeton College, which he entered in the fall of 1794; and in 1796 was graduated, at the early age of eighteen, with the first honors of the institution.