62 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



public life cannot here be given, but n sketch of his life and his connection 

 with the College cannot be omitted without doing violence to the feelings of 

 all who have been associated with him in College afTaiis. 



Mr. Cbilds was born at Henniker, New Hampshire, the youngest of ten 

 children, one of whom now occupies the "old homestead," the home of Mr. 

 Childs's father and grandfather. The widely spread family held a reunion ia 

 1872 at Niagara Falls, and it was manifest that they were a race of industri- 

 ous, honorable, intelligent, and religious men. 



Mr. Childs completed his preparation for a college classical course in Nevr 

 Hampshire but was forbidden to take the course by his physician. Most 

 deeply disappointed in his longing for a college education he followed some 

 of his elder brothers to Michigan in 1848, having the same year married Miss 

 Lucy A. Hubbard, Claremont, New Hampsliire, who survives him, and 

 bought the farm in Augusta, Washtenaw county, upon which he has always 

 lived. He united with the Congregational church in his native town at 15 

 years of age, and aided in establishing the Congregational church in Augusta 

 in 1854. From that time until his death he has been the superintendent of 

 its Sabbath-school. His neighbors and towns-people have much cause to 

 mourn his loss. Tender and affectionate as a woman, he was constantly busied 

 for the improvement of them all. Until prescribed for him in his last illness 

 he had never tasted intoxicating liquors, and was an ardent advocate of tem- 

 perance. He entered heartily into the grange movement as being a highly 

 educating social force. He interested himself in the schools, in agricultural 

 associations and fairs equally warmly and efficiently, whether for the neigh- 

 borhood or for the whole State, and held many offices of trust and honor in 

 them all. 



Mr. Childs served two terms in the House of Kepresentatives and four in 

 the Senate, taking a prominent part in all public measures, and carrying into 

 politics the high sense of honor and conscientiousness for which he was known 

 in private life. He was a member of the Republican party which he had 

 helped to form. 



Mr. Childs was the well known and efficient friend of the University, the 

 Normal School, and the Agricultural College. He was put upon our board — 

 the State Board of Agriculture — by Governor Baldwin, and reappointed for a 

 second six years by Governor Bagley, and had completed about two years of a 

 third term under the appointment of Governor Jerome at the time of his 

 death. He could not have devoted more unselfish solicitude for a private 

 interest than he did for the welfare of this college. He belonged to a board 

 in which parties and dissensions have been unknown, and we feel his loss as 

 that of a brother. His death occurred Nov. 8, 1882. At his fune'ral his 

 clergyman and some of his intimate friends, and Eon. Thos. \Y. Oooley, of 

 the supreme bench, and the president of the Agricultural College all testified 

 to the reputation of his worth and our sense of the greatness of our loss. 



Eespectfully submitted, 



T. C. ABBOT, President. 



