292 WILLIAM AUGUSTUS STEARNS. 



teenth, througli whom Dr. Stearns traced his lineage. The earliest of 

 all of his cis-Atlautic progenitors was of a time preceding the foundation 

 of the College, — the Rev. John Woodbridge, who came to New England 

 in the year 1634, and was the first minister of Andover in this State. 

 Descended from ancestors educated in the best learning of their times, 

 spending their lives in a profession which involved responsibilities, 

 practical and secular, as well as moral and religious, it would have 

 been strange if his mind and character had not had impressed upon 

 them the qualities for which he was distinguished during his life. He 

 was in a manner preordained to be a minister and the head of an insti- 

 tution of learning from his birth. 



The father of Dr. Stearns was the Rev. Samuel Stearns, who grad- 

 uated at Cambridge in the year 1794, and his mother was the daughter 

 of the Rev. Jonathan French, long the minister of Andover. Mr. 

 French had begun his active life in the military service of the Prov- 

 ince, and was Sergeant in the garrison which was maintained at the 

 Castle in Boston harbor, when he was moved to exchange the sword 

 of the flesh for that of the spirit ; and, after graduating in 1771, he 

 was ordained minister of Andover as above. Mr. Stearns was settled 

 over the town of Bedford, in this State, with a salary of three hundred 

 and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents. The town further 

 gratified him with a loan of a thousand dollars without interest, which 

 probably enabled him to purchase a form of twenty acres to help in 

 the support of his family. That some addition to his meagre stipend 

 was convenient may be inferred from the fact that his children were 

 thirteen in number, of whom eleven grew up to adult age. His farm 

 he made a part of the physical education of his boys, and of their 

 moral education as well, they assisting him, as they successively at- 

 tained the proper age, in its cultivation, which he carried to a high 

 degree of perfection. Notwithstanding the narrowness of his means, 

 Mr. Stearns managed to send four of his five sons to Harvard, three of 

 whom were ministers, and eminent in their profession. Of the sons, 

 William, born March 17, 1805, was the second. He showed an early 

 love of study and an extraordinary power of memory, some remarkable 

 feats of which were remembered in the family ; such as his knowing the 

 Assembly's Catechism perfectly at six years old, a curious example of 

 purely verbal memory, as it was impossible that he should have at- 

 tached any meaning to most of those doctrinal apophthegms at that 

 childish age. A little later he learnt by heart the Gospel of Luke in 

 one week in the intervals of his farm work and other occupations. A 

 more chai'acteristic attempt of his was made on the outworks of good 



