In the month of August, 1825, my maternal grandmother met with an accident in stepping on the point of a rusty nail, and, though the matter was at first considered trivial, it resulted in her death. Alarming symptoms soon made her sensible that she was on her death-bed; and while she was in full possession of her faculties, the day before she died she sent for her grandchildren to take final leave of them. I shall never forget the sensations I experienced when she took me by the hand and besought me to lead a religious life, and especially to remember that I could in no way so effectually prove my love to God as by loving all my fellow-beings. The impressions of that death-bed scene have ever been among my most vivid recollections, and I trust they have proved in some degree salutary. A more exemplary woman, or a more sincere Christian than my grandmother, I have never known. My father, for his time and locality, was a man of much enterprise. He could, and actually did, “keep a hotel”; he had a livery stable and ran, in a small way, what in our day would be called a Norwalk Express; and he also kept a country store. With greater opportunities and a larger field for his efforts and energies, he might have been a man of mark and means. Not that he was successful, for he never did a profitable business; but I, who saw him in his various pursuits, and acted as his clerk, caught something of his enterprising spirit, and, perhaps without egotism, I may say I inherited that characteristic. My business education was as good as the limited field afforded, and I soon put it to account and service. On the 7th of September, 1825, my father, who had been sick since the month of March, died at the age of forty-eight years. My mother was left with five children, of whom I, at fifteen years of age, was the eldest, while the youngest was but seven. It was soon apparent that my father had provided nothing for the support of his family; his estate was insolvent, and it did not pay fifty cents on the dollar. My mother, by economy, industry, and perseverance, succeeded in a few years afterwards in redeeming the homestead and becoming its sole possessor; but, at the date of the death of my father, the world looked gloomy indeed; the few dollars I had accumulated and loaned to my father, holding his note therefor, were decided to be the property of a minor, belonging to the father and so to the estate, and my small claim was ruled out. I was obliged to get trusted for the pair of shoes I wore to my father’s funeral. I literally began the world with nothing, and was barefooted at that.