Muscle and intellect and the heroic virtues can have no better nursery than the rugged farm-life of New England, and the Warner homestead was a challenge and stimulus to the qualities that were needed in the future man of affairs. This child of the third generation that had occupied the same house and tilled the same soil, grew up with a stalwart physical organization and a fine loyalty to his native town, a deep interest in its rude history and traditions, and a sympathy with the common people, which in turn made him a favorite with all. To this day there is to him no spot, save his present home, to be compared with his birthplace, and there are no people so interesting and endeared as his old neighbors in the rugged hill-town. He has recently written a history of Warner, which is regarded as "one of the most systematic, comprehensive, and generally interesting works of the kind yet given to the public in the state." The Harriman home still remains in the possession of the family, and, though the ex-governor now resides in Concord, he spends many a day in every year amidst the old familiar scenes. His "schooling" was obtained at the Harriman district school, and at the academy in the adjoining town of Hopkinton. [Illustration: Walter Harriman] When hardly more than a boy, he made a successful trial of the excellent self-discipline of school-teaching, and at different times taught in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. While in the latter state, at the age of twenty-two, he became deeply interested in the principles of Liberal Christianity (the form of religious faith which he has steadfastly held to this day), and occasionally wrote sermons, which were well received from the pulpit, and some of which found their way into print. It was certain from his early youth that nature designed him for a public speaker, the rare oratorical gifts which afterwards distinguished him having shown themselves gradually and prophetically in the district school-house and the village academy. This tentative experience in preaching, undertaken of his own motion and without conferring with flesh and blood, resulted in his settlement, in 1841, over the Universalist church in Harvard, Mass., where he remained in active service four years. Returning now to Warner, and soon leaving the pulpit altogether, he became the senior partner in trade with John S. Pillsbury, late governor of Minnesota,--probably the only instance in our history where two young business partners in a retired country town have afterwards become the chief executives of different states.