There lived in my youth on the lower corner of Summer and Spring streets an elderly gentleman of kind words and gentle speech, who, though living a distance from my home, early attracted me and found a lasting place in my memory. From 1806 to 1819, he had been treasurer of the town, and was some years a teacher in what was later called the high school. His name was Benjamin Drew, and he was the father of my long time friend, Benjamin Drew, who died in 1903. He was something of a poet, and his son told the story that one time when asked to contribute an inscription to be placed on the gravestone of his brother-in-law, Barnabas Holmes, he composed the following: By temperance taught, a few advancing slow, To distant fate by easy journeys go; Calmly they lie them down like evening sheep,— On their own woolly fleeces softly sleep. Objection was made to the inscription by the family of Mr. Holmes, it appearing too personal, as Mr. Holmes had been a dealer in mutton. Like most emasculated poetry the substitute adopted was tame—as follows: By temperance governed, and by reason taught, The paths of peace and pleasantness he sought; With competence and length of days was blest, And cheered with hopes of everlasting rest. He married in 1797 Sophia, daughter of Sylvanus and Martha (Wait) Bartlett. His son, Benjamin, of whom I especially speak in this notice, was born in Plymouth, November 28, 1812. He was educated at the public schools, leaving the high school about four years before I entered it. After leaving school he entered the office of the _Old Colony Memorial_ to learn the printer’s trade, and there laid the foundation of his reputation as an expert in typography. About the year 1835 he began his career as teacher, and during a period of twenty-five years taught in the Phillips, Otis, Mayhew and Glover schools in Boston. While living in Boston his companionship was prized by scholarly men, and he was one of a group of social fellows already referred to who met at a saloon in Cornhill square, called the Shades, kept by General Bates, a Scotchman. There the group would frequently meet in Bohemian fashion to exchange witticisms and criticisms and enjoy a mug of ale. These occasional opportunities to give vent to his sense of humor were not sufficient to exhaust his flow of wit and under the cognomen of Ensign Stebbins he often wrote for the “carpet bag,” and was always a welcome contributor to the humorous columns of the _Boston Post_, I remember reading a squib of his in the _Post_ sixty years ago, representing a showman explaining and describing to his audience the various features of his exhibition, as for instance: “This, ladies and gentlemen, is the zebra, it measures ten feet from head to tail, and eleven feet from tail to head, has twelve stripes along its back and nary one alike.” “This is the hippopotamus, an amphibious animal, what dies in the water and can’t live on the land.”