CORNELIUS VAN NESS DEARBORN, the son of Samuel and Fanny Dearborn, was born in Corinth, Vt., May 14, 1832. His name was in compliment to the then ablest statesman of the state, who had filled the offices of governor and minister to Spain. Cornelius was the youngest but one of seven children. His childhood was passed in a strictly agricultural community. Corinth, lying among the foothills of the Green Mountains, is one of the best farming towns in eastern Vermont. Without railway facilities, with scanty water power, its inhabitants depend for a livelihood upon the products of the soil, from which by industry they gain a substantial income. Few in Corinth have ever accumulated more than what is now regarded as a fair competency, and very few have encountered extreme poverty. A more industrious, law-abiding, practically sensible people would be difficult to find. When four years old, young Dearborn met with the saddest loss of childhood--a mother whose intelligence, forethought, and womanly virtues had been the life and light of the household. He early joined his older brothers in the labors of the farm, attending the district school for a few weeks in summer, and ten or twelve weeks each winter. When fifteen years old, he attended the spring term of the Corinth Academy, and continued at intervals for several terms later. In the winter of 1848-49, his seventeenth year not yet completed, he taught the school of a neighboring district. His success warranted his continuance as teacher in the vicinity for the five following winters. Continuing his farm labors in summer, he in the meantime developed a mechanical capacity in the making of farm implements and the designing of buildings,--a natural aptitude which has been of great service in maturer years. Soon after attaining the age of eighteen, Mr. Dearborn determined to enter upon a course of study preparatory to a professional life. Before leaving Corinth he commenced the reading of law with Rodney Lund, a young man who had commenced practice in the vicinity. In March, 1854, at the suggestion of his maternal uncle, Dr. W. W. Brown, he came to Manchester, and renewed his law studies in the office of Hon. Isaac W. Smith, with whom he remained till his admission to the bar in the fall of 1855. In December, 1855, he opened an office at Francestown. The town afforded a safe opening for a young practitioner, but not one for large profits. There was a time, after the close of the war of 1812, when the trade of Francestown village exceeded that of any other locality in Hillsborough county. But the opening of the railroad to Nashua, and soon after to Manchester, entirely changed the centers of trade and business, and left Francestown to become a respectable and very quiet village.