Autobiography of Benjamin Hallowell

Front matter

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Chapter I

Parentage and birth — Family separated — Lives with his grandfather — First recollections — Goes to school — First mathematical reasoning — Notices the stars — Death of his brother Joseph — Feeble health — Anxiety of his mother for his education — Aversion to school — Anecdote of hiding his hat — First experience in teaching — Visit to Philadelphia — Hearing the "watchman "cry the hour" — Attending market — Anecdote of the cow. Page 1.

CHAPTER 11.

Death of his grandfather — Assists his mother — Anecdotes of early times, related by his grandfather — Family again separated — Uncertainty as to his future — Goes to live with his uncle Comly Shoemaker — Quickness at calculations — Begins the study of geometry — Solves the problem of "The Three Steeples "~ Constructs a quadrant ^ — Lesson learned from an accidental picture ^^— Sorrow at the sudden death of a schoolmate — Alarmed by a soldier — Love of nature — Raccoon supper — Childish faith — Conscientiousness — No Young Comj)anions. Page IL

VI CONTENTS.

Chapter III

Desires to learn a trade — Goes to Nathan Lukens's to learn carpentering and cabinet-making — First impressions discouraging — Finds himself useful and is reconciled — Pleased with the business — Articles made by himself — Eeflections — First chemical experiment — Fall from ladder and consequent suffering — Old colored woman's advice — Anecdote of colored clergyman — Unable to continue his trade — At his uncle Comly's — Concludes to qualify himself for a teacher — Goes to the village school — Solves difficult problem in geometry — 1817, goes to John Gummere's — Enraptured \^ith chemical experiments — Delightful experiences at Burlington — Favorite sermon by George Dillwyn — Leaves Burlington. Page 27.

Chapter IV

Takes the Westfield school — Pleasant winter — Efforts to improve his hnndwriting — Applies for position of teacher at Fair Hill Boarding School — Meets school commissioners in Baltimore — Receives the appointment — Difficulties of journey to Fair Hill — Attends Sandy Spring meeting for first time — Duties and responsibilities — Lonely walks and poetical address to the Cedar — Death of Anna Thomas — Meets Margaret E. Farquhar for the first time — Eeminiscences of Samuel Thomas — Sickness of Samuel Thomas — Goes home on a visit — Sad experiences — Death of his brother James — His sister Mary returns with him to Fair Hill — Death of Samuel Thomas — Trying times for the school — Deborah Stabler' s assistance — Mournful thoughts — Poem.

CONTENTS. Vll

Chapter V

The wren's nest — Books read at Fair Hill — Resignation as teacher — Eeturn to Pleasant Valley — Anecdote of Fair Hill — Visit to John Gunimere, where congenial occupation is found — Applies for situation at Westtown and is accepted — Visit to relatives — Reflections — Introduced to future scholars — A stroke of diplomacy — Successful management of unruly student — Anecdote of the key — Reading Addison's Spectator — A small legacy and the use made of it. Page 60.

Chapter VI

First lecture at Westtown — Two requests granted — "The Circle" — Conundrum — Grammatical discussions — Social Suppers — Extending his mathematical knowledge — Accumulating works on mathematics — Revising Bonnycastle's Mensuration and preparing a key to it — School committee very accommodating — Boys' parlor established and matron appointed — Offers his library for use of the hoys — Begins to study French and Botany — Conscientious scruples — His sister Mary enters on duty as teacher at Westtown — Plans to leave Westtown — Resignation regretfully accepted — Three happy and profitable years. Page 77.

Chapter VII

Preparations for opening school in Alexandria — Difficulties in getting a house — Kindness of friends — Marriage — La Fayette — School fills slowly — Lectures — Confidence of ultimate

VIU CONTENTS.

success — Unhealthy location — Change of residence — Temporary financial anxieties — Girls' school — Private lessons — Prospects brighten — A benevolent society — Mathematical correspondence. Page 95.

Chapter VIII

Death of his valued friend Edward Stabler — Eclipse of the Sun — Family bereavement — Northern tour — "Celestial phenomena " — Surveying — Calculating an almanac — Eevising Blair's Philosophy — Cholera — Meteoric shower — A move which begins in difificulty but ends well. Page 110.

Chapter IX

Scientific use of cannon balls — Touching the right spring — Increase of school — Heavy responsibility — A Lyceum established -^ Wearing cases — Need of rest — Giving up the scliool. Page 123.

Chapter X

Removal to the country — Farming — Lecturing — Minor trials — "Aunt Kittie's" sermon — Practical mathematics — Accepts a professorship — Chemical investigations.

Chapter XI. 1845

Call to Philadelphia — Mental conflict — I^ecture class — Pleasant

CONTENTS. IX

friends — ''Berzelius" — Lectures on Geology — Visitors from home — Interesting excursions — A profitable mistake — Dr. Bartram's inscription — Philosophical ideas on the art of writing — Farewell to Philadelphia and return home — Pleasant occupations and resources Page 140.

Chapter XII

Interrupted plans ^Resumes the charge of the Alexandria boarding-school — A well-spent vacation — Fitting up a laboratory — Lectures at Smithsonian Institute — Pleasant prospects interrupted by failing health — Disposes of his school property — Favorite ideas on education — Consulted in regard to establishing the Agricultural College — Elected President — Enters upon duty in 1859 — Arduous duties — Health breaks down — Eesigns the presidency — Successful experiments at the college. Page 154.

Chapter XIII

Eeturn to Alexandria — Trip to Canada — Finally removes to Eockland — Journey to the west — Indian affairs — Visiting tribes in Nebraska — Literary work — Reflections.

Chapter XIV

Effects of inhaling Nitrous Oxide — A mysterious package — "Citizen Granville" — Story of a ten-dollar note — Experiences with an original character — An incident of travel — Visit to a Normal School — Verses for a May-day picnic — Management of domestics. Page 171.

X CONTENTS.

Chapter XV

ConTention of the friends of Education — Difference between work and play — Letter on the subject of the Alexandria water- works — A kind intention — Closing reflections.

CONTENTS OF PART II.

PAGE

Reminiscences of various subjects.

Introductory note, 209

Goods seized for militia fines, 210

Anecdote of a graduate of West Point, 212

Incidents of the war, 1861 - 1865, 213

Taking of his horse "Ande," 215

Interview with a Eomau Catholic priest, 219

Adventure with an Alderney bull, 221

Lectures, 224

Extract from a lecture on Canada, 226

Conclusion of an article on the Science of Common

Things, from the "Children's Friend,'" 228

Views, experiences, and reminiscences connected with

education, 230

Needed modification of the laws for a system of free schools. Proposed laws and curriculum for a free

school system, 244

Favorite Poems, found in his scrap book and among his papers.

The Book-keeper's Dream. J. W. Eddy 250

At Port Eoyal— 1861. J. G. Whittier 253

]\Iilton on his loss of sight. Elizabeth Lloyd. . . 254

Tlie Closing Scene. T. Buchanan Read 257

Address to the Sun. Ossian 258

CONTENTS. XI

The Prayer of Agassiz, 259

How to break a bad habit, 260

The Indians 261

Article contributed to the "Baltimore American" to show the spirit in which the Society of Friends

accepted the trust of caring for the Indians, . . . 265

Letter of H. B. Whipple, Bishop of Minnesota, ... 270 Religious views, from articles published in " Friends'

Intelligencer," 271

On Prayer : Extract from a letter to a valued correspondent, 274

Nothing created in vain, 276

Reflections on the wisdom, power, and goodness of

Quakerism, 306

' ' The God-given power to see or receive a truth is

God's command to impart it," 307

Friends in Great Britain, 317

Some thoughts connected with the fundamental principles of Friends, 327

Reflections in relation to peace and war, 333

"Whence is evil?" 345

Some results of reflection and meditation, 348

Eastern Tale, 361

Sketch of the latter days of Benjamin Hallowell, . . . 364

Letters received, 377

AUTOBI

BENJAMIN HALLOWELL.

Chapter I

Parentage and birth — Family separated — Lives with his grandfather — First recollections — Goes to school — First mathematical reasoning — Notices the stars — Death of his brother Joseph — Feeble health — Anxiety of his mother for his education — Aversion to school — Anecdote of hiding his hat — First experience in teaching — Visit to Philadelphia — Hearing the watchman ' ' cry the hour ' ' — Attending market — Anecdote of the cow.

I was born in Cheltenham township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, on the 17th of the Eighth month, 1799, as the records of Abington Monthly Meeting, where I had a birthright in the Society of Friends, show. My parents were Anthony and Jane Hallowell. My father was the oldest son of William and Mary Williams Hallowell. My mother was the daughter of Benjamin and Mary Comly Shoemaker.

My parents had five children, viz. : James S., who was about five years my senior, father of Caleb S. and James S. Plallowell'; Benjamin, who died young ; Joseph; Benjamin, jr. (myself), and Mary S., now Mary S. Lippincott, who has two daughters, Jane S. and Margaret W.

Z AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

I ^vas deprived of a father's care when about two and a-half years old, and have no recollection of ever being at a meal with him. The family was broken up. Joseph went to live with his uncle, John Brumfield, in Columbia, Pennsylvania, and my mother end her other three children, went home to her father, Avho had lost his wife some years before. He had a farm of over one hundred acres. She j^erformed all the housework for the family for many years, besides spinning wool for stockings on the big wheel, and knitting them, and also spinning flax and tow on the spinning-wheel, for sheeting, shirting, etc. In addition to this she prepared material for blankets, coverlets, and winter w^ear for the men and for herself and daughter. She made, also, striped linsey, the colored material of which was the result of her own labor, and check for aprons.

Her father, my grandfather, after whom I was named, lived at the north-west corner of the Old York road and Chelten avenue, then called Grave-yard lane, inasmuch as it led to the burial place, £'bout eight miles from Philadelphia, left by my ancestor, Richard Wall, to Friends of Cheltenham, for a grave-yard.

The house in which I was born was on the adjacent farm, near that in which my uncle Benjamin, who was a tanner, lived and died before my memory. Uncle Benjamin's house had a fine spring in one corner of the kitchen, which spring is the only thing that remains to mark the place where I first saw the light. By going up Chelten avenue, and turning to the left at the first lane beyond the present residence of Robert and Ann Shoemaker, and going a few hundred yards to the first hollow, a stream which supplied the tan-yard with water, will be found crossing the road. A short distance up the stream, and a little to the right, is the spring which used to discharge its waters into the forementioned stream. It is now covered up, and the water is used to supply the establishment of John W. Thomas (of No. 1022 Chestnut street, Philadelphia), on a hill near by, on the same farm that was my uncle Benjamin's.

The first consciousness that I can recall to memory, was sitting on the kitchen step of stone, in a feeling of very great discomfort, crying for bread and butter; which I think must have been the time of our moving to grandfather's, where everything was strange, and all so busy that the child did not receive its ordinary attention. This was when my sister was about six months old, and I nearly two and a half years. I can still recur, vividly, to the then existing feeling of distress and discomfort with which I commenced my life in a strange place.

The spring before I was five years old, I commenced going to school at Abington, to my cousin, Nathan Shoemaker, afterwards a prominent physician in Philadelphia, his sister Martha, who lived on my way to the school, kindly taking charge of me. I had previously been taught to spell and read by grandfather. Indeed, I do not remember when I could not read, nor do I remember any incident connected with learning to read, so early and gently did the good old man perform this kind and important office. He also taught my little sister to knit and spin when she was too small to do much other work.

When about six years old, I was assisting my brother James to carry a bucket of milk to the pigs, one of us having hold on each side of the handle, when he said, " Thee takes more steps than I do, why does thee not get along faster than I ?" The query took hold of my mind, and when we had finished what we were then about, I sat down on a board that lay across a ditch, then dry, and filled with leaves, my feet in the ditch, my head resting on my hand, and my elbow on my knee, studying out the problem. I well remember my feeling of delight, when I saw that his steps must be longer than mine, and ran to give him the solution. This is the earliest instance of mathematical reasoning that I can recall, although, as we were much together, and my brother was j^ossessed of a very active mind, he was daily doing or saying things calculated to exercise my reasoning powers, and I have no doubt assisted in my intellectual develoj^ment.

When I was about seven years old, my uncle Atkinson Rose, his wife, Rebecca (my mother's sister), and some of their children, came in a sleigh from Philadelphia (eight miles), to make an evening visit. Sister Mary and I, whose invariable custom it was to go to bed before dark, (getting our suppers of bread and milk ourselves), were allowed on this occasion to stay up to be with our little cousins, and when I went out with the older people about 9 a' clock to get the horses, I saw, for the first time that I can remember, the night sky and the stars, which were very bright from the clearness of the atmosphere. I Avell recollect the impression of delight the magnificent spectacle made upon me.

In the year 1808 my brother Joseph died. My cousin, Richard M. Shoemaker, told me of his death at Abington Meeting, which we scholars attended. Mother and her brother, Comly Shoemaker, had been at Columbia, where he lived with his uncle Brumfield, about a year before, to see him. When I returned from school that evening and saw the evidences of my dear mother's grief, I felt as if further happiness would be unknowTi. She was expecting him home on his first visit, when she received the intelligence of his death. His uncle, with whom he lived, kept a store, and Joseph was weighing some gunpowder from a canister the evening before Christmas, when a boy threw at another boy a lighted cigar, that fell into it, causing the powder to explode, shattering the door and windows, and breaking through the floor where he stood, so that he was found in the cellar. His face was entirely black from the effects of the powder, but he lived till next morning in great suffering, and explained to the family how the accident occurred. All the reference mother ever made to it afterwards was to say, " Poor Joseph," and weep.

Samuel Mifflin, who lives at Columbia, and married a daughter of William and Phebe Wright, of Huntington, Pennsylvania, told me within a few years, that he well remembered hearing the circumstance spoken of, and could point out the place.

Mother, although so industrious, rising by day-break, and many times before day, having the clothes hung out on washing-day by sunrise, would on Seventh-days get all her work done before dinner. In the afternoon she would dress up with a nice clean cap, white apron, and nankeen mitts coming up to the elbow (her gown having short sleeves), and would look over the farm, garden, orchard, etc. After Joseph's death, she would frequently sit down by the front window, with her face towards the turnpike, and say "Poor Joseph," while the tears would stream down her cheeks from the memory of him, and perhaps other tendering reminiscences of the past ! It made my young heart ache !

At that day farmers' children generally drank milk for breakfast and supper, which was the invariable rule with us, except that on First-day mornings we were each favored with a cup of coffee. My health was then feeble, and I was affected with a bleeding at the nose almost daily?

especially if I ran or used any violent exercise, -^liich made me weak and pale, so tliat my mother was told many times in my hearing, that she would "never raise that child," which I thought must be a true prophecy. I had heart-burn and nausea after my milk breakfast, almost every morning, but no excuse would induce my mother to let me remain from school. She would sometimes intimate unmistakably that the desire to stay from school might have something to do with my morning sickness. It happened that I was unable to retain my breakfast one First-day morning, and I then reminded her that that sickness could not be fi'om a desire to remain from school, as there was no school on that day. Dear woman ! She was very earnest and untiring in her efforts to keep me at school, in order that I might be a "-good scholar," and I now venerate her for it, and see that she had some grounds for believing that feigned sickness might be one of the many devices I tried to find as excuses for staying at home.

On one occasion the men were a little short of help and wanted me to " rake after the wao;on " in haulino- ha v. Pelighted, I ran to tell her, when, to my great disappointment, she said, " I will rake after the wagon, my son ; here is thy dinner" (handing me the basket), " go to school, and be a good boy." Another time the men wished me to "pull back," in cleaning wheat with a fan or windmill. On telling her, with hopeful feelings, she said as before, " I will pall back : go to school."

I tried every expedient I could devise, to gain the privilege of staying at home, for which it is but justice to myself to say, there was some excuse in the severity of the teacher,"^ who went about the school-room carrying under

* Our father did not give his name ; he was one of several that succeeded his loved cousin, Dr. Shoemaker.

his arm a large rod or switch, which would resound from a back here and another there, every little while, and sometimes on a whole bench-full successively, from which I did not escape. Being very sensitive and nervous, the sound of a stroke on another hurt me almost as badly, it seemed, as if it had been on myself. I dreaded going to school exceedingly, and thought any expedient, which was not criminal, would be justifiable, that would relieve me from a day of such agony. We had school six days in the week, except Monthly Meeting day, and when school was dismissed on Seventh-day afternoon, I would walk home with a light heart and enjoy the evening greatly — but a sadness would rest on me the next morning, from the dark shadow of the approaching school-day.

One morning, under a strong pressure of these feelings, I thought I would make one more effort, and hide my hat. When the time arrived to go to school, mother brought me my basket of dinner and said, " Now, my son, it is time to go to school." I told her I could not see my hat anywhere. She told me to look again. I replied, I had been looking a long time. She then came to assist me in hunting it, and whether or not she suspected I had hidden it^ I never knew ; but she went deliberately and got her black silk bonnet, and said, " Thee can wear this to-day," and without changing a muscle of her face, began to tie it on, I looking steadily into her eye, where, child as I was, I could see a look of determination that I knew to be irresistible. I exclaimed, "Oh, mother, I thinh I can find my hat" (but she kept on tying the strings of the bonnet); " I am sure I can find it, mother, it is in the dough-trough," by which time the bonnet was well tied on and her countenance still unrelaxed. This circumstance is strongly impressed on me to this day. I went with a

O AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

quick step to the dough-trough and got mv hat, and said, " Here it is, mother ; jDlease take this bonnet off," which she did, to my great joy, and I feh that I had made a narrow escape, and never tried it again. This was one turning point in my life. With my disposition and capacity for expedients, had she then yielded, the consequences cannot be told. I fully believe her firmness on that occasion saved me. The school seemed pleasanter after I had satisfied myself there was no remedy, and fi'om that time I got on rapidly with my studies, and I think, became a favorite with the teacher.

j\Iy mother's earnest and determined effort to keep me at school caused me to go in the summer time, when I was, by contrast, one of the " big boys " and most advanced scholars, so that for several summers the teacher would get me to hear some of the classes, boys and girls, in an adjoining apartment. Here I gained my first experience in teachinoj and it deliohted me.

About this time, 1809, there were two sisters, with an orphan niece younger than I, from Philadelphia, boarding in the neighborhood. Mother, as was her custom v\'hen strangers were in the neighborhood, invited them to take tea with us, which they did. The two sisters sat at the side of the table, their niece at the comer, and I at her right hand. AMien the little girl had finished her supper, she put her hands together, her fingers extended, and said, in the sweetest accents I almost ever heard, " Thank the Lord and Mi-s. Hallowell for my supper." "^liat a sermon that was to me! I have never seen her since, but have very, very often thought of her and her sermon.

in 1809, brother James went to Philadelphia as an apprentice in uncle William Hallowell's hardware store, No. 197 North Tliird street. Uncle William also had a

BENJAMIN HALLOWELL. y

store on the southwest corner of Third and Arch streets, with his brother-in-law, Abel Satterthwaite. This suited and pleased him greatly, and he soon made himself useful. He left home for his new situation in the early fall, and at Christmas I received permission to spend Christmas day and two nights at Uncle William's with him. It was a delightful and memorable time to me. We slept together, and I told him in the eveliing I wished to hear the watchman " cry the hour." After I had got to sleep, he nudged me, and in an undertone said : " Ben, Ben, hear the watchman ! " I soon listened, and heard faintly in the far distance theory, "Ho — past — twel-ve o'clock." Then all was- still — then the same cry, a little nearer — then the sound of his staff, and then his step could be heardj and the cry, more and more distinctly, as he drew nearer, with his heavy tread and knock of his staff on the pavement, till he seemed almost under the window. I felt a little alarmed, and huddled up close to my brother for safety. Then the cry became fainter and fainter as he passed, till at length it died away in the remote distance. I can recollect the scene and the attendant feeling as if it had been yesterday.

My brother was all love and kindness, having outgrown or corrected entirely his disposition to tease, and I have always looked back to this visit as one of the pleasantest incidents in my life. I walked home the next morning, eight miles, in just two hours.

My mother and I used to attend Philadelphia market from grandfather's, with the produce of the farm, leaving home about two o'clock in the morning, and returning before dinner-time. In the fall of 1809, as there was need of a cow for beef, we went down to the cow market, near Walnut street, where one was bought, and I left to drive her out of town, mother going for the market wagon, to follow. I got her along very well to the corner of Fourth and Vine, I think it was, where, I suppose, she had been accustomed to turn off, when she started up Vine street, I after her, to get before her and drive her back. The weather was very hot, and the then unpaved streets w^ere extremely dusty. On coming to Fourth street, she turned down back again, when another race was required to get before her and bring her back to Vine street, vip which she turned again, and all had to be repeated. I was almost overcome with exhaustion, yet could not give up and leave the cow, when a gentleman coming down Vine street on the sidewalk, seeing me, and seeming at once to comprehend my situation, went through the dust into the middle of the street, stopped the cow, and assisted me in getting her started out Fourth street, after which I had no ftirther trouble, and arrived with her safe at the place at which mother and I had agreed to meet.

Now, the form of that gentleman, with his blue coat and shining metal buttons, stepping out into the dusty streets to assist an unknown child, is before my mind vividly as I write, after the lapse of sixty-five years. How glad I would be to know who he was ! But he taught me a lesson I have steadily acted upon — never to pass a person whom I see in difficulty without rendering him all the assistance in my power ; for the double reason, that I know from experience how grateftil such assistance is to the recipient, and the recipient may be a descendant of the gentleman to whom I feel under lasting obligations.

In the fall of 1810, one of my schoolmates, Jonathan Paul, whose mother, Esther Paul, was a cousin of grandfather Shoemaker's, and, I think, a sister of George Shoemaker, came home with me from school, to stay all night. It was delightful to me ; he was the first guest I had ever had. We were put to sleep in the guest chamber, over grandfather's room, and enjoyed it greatly. The next morning we were up early, before the moon and stars had disappeared. The beautiful bright day, and his imitating the crowing of. the chickens, are vividly impressed as among the pleasant recollections of my early life.

CHAPTERIL

Death of his grandfather — Assists liis mother — Anecdotes of early times, related by his grandfather — Family again separated — Uncertainty as to his future — Goes to live with his uncle Comly Shoemaker — Quickness at calculations — Begins the study of geometry — Solves the problem of "The Three Steeples" — Constructs a quadrant — Lesson learned from an accidental picture — Sorrow at the sudden death of a schoolmate — Alarmed by a soldier — Love of nature — Eaccoon supper — Childish faith — Conscientiousness — No Young Companions.

On the 16th of Third month, 1811, my dear grandfather closed his long and eventful life, aged eighty-four years. His wife died on the 17th of Third month, 1793. She was very hard of hearing. They had fourteen children, twelve of whom lived to be young men and women. Grandfather outlived all his children but three, Nathan, Jane, and Comly. As before mentioned, I was named after him, and slept with him several years, and to the commencement of his last sickness, which was nine days before his death. I always felt safe in his presence.

12 ArXOBIOGRAPHY OF

In 1809-10, my motlier having no help, and my sister being nearly two years younger than myself, I used to help milk, set the table, make the coffee, bake buckwheat cakes, etc., etc., and this part of my education I have valued very much, and have found very serviceable to me to this day. It was a good training of the muscles, too, for my work afterwards in the laboratory and lecture-room, and there is no part of my life to which I look back with greater interest and pleasure, than those days when I was assisting my dear mother in her household daties, she, grandfather, my sister Mary, and I, constituting the family, except the laboring men. As mother rose very early, we would get the milking and other work done in time for school, which was never neglected, except on hog-killing day. The school was vacated in harvest time, when I would work in the field, gathering sheaves, raking after the wagon, handing sheaves on the barrack or mow. I often assisted the men in the mornings and evenings when I went to school, by which I learned to do many things that were afterwards of use.