The records of the college show that he held respectable rank as a student; and as soon as he had graduated, he received an appointment which proves that he was held in high estimation in his native village. We find him at nineteen master of the Roxbury Grammar School, at a salary of forty-four pounds and sixteen shillings per annum, payable to his mother. A receipt for part of this amount, signed by his mother and in her handwriting, is now among the archives of that ancient and famous institution. He taught one year, at the end of which he entered the office of a Boston physician, under whom he pursued the usual medical studies and was admitted to practice. The young doctor, tall, handsome, alert, graceful, full of energy and fire, was formed to succeed in such a community as that of Boston. His friends, when he was twenty-three years of age, had the pleasure of reading in the Boston newspaper the following notice: "Last Thursday evening was married Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the physicians of this town, to Miss Elizabeth Hooton, only daughter of the late Mr. Richard Hooton, merchant, deceased, an accomplished young lady with a handsome fortune." Thus launched in life and gifted as he was, it is not surprising that he should soon have attained a considerable practice. But for one circumstance he would have advanced in his profession even more rapidly than he did. When he had been but a few months married, the Stamp Act was passed, which began the long series of agitating events that ended in severing the colonies from the mother country. The wealthy society of Boston, from the earliest period down to the present hour, has always been on what is called the conservative side in politics; and it was eminently so during the troubles preceding the revolutionary war. The whole story is told in a remark made by a Boston Tory doctor in those times: "If Warren were not a Whig," said he, "he might soon be independent and ride in his chariot." There were, however, in Boston Whig families enough to give him plenty of business, and he was for many years their favorite physician. He attended the family of John Adams, and saved John Quincy, his son, from losing one of his fore-fingers when it was very badly fractured. Samuel Adams, who was the prime mover of the Opposition, old enough to be his father, inspired and consulted him. Gradually, as the quarrel grew warmer, Dr. Warren was drawn into the councils of the leading Whigs, and became at last almost wholly a public man. Without being rash or imprudent, he was one of the first to be ready to meet force with force, and he was always in favor of the measures which were boldest and most decisive. At his house Colonel Putnam was a guest on an interesting occasion, when he was only known for his exploits in the French war. "The old hero, Putnam," says a Boston letter of 1774, "arrived in town on Monday, bringing with him one hundred and thirty sheep from the little parish of Brooklyn."