EULOGY ON THE LATE GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN. 265 



the war of the Revolution, and engaged in mercantile pursuits in New York. 

 Attached to the cause of the mother country, he left that city, after the acknowl- 

 edgment of our independence, for Annapolis, Nova Scotia. It would appear 

 that his two sons remained in this country, since one of them, Peter G. Totten, 

 married in 1787 Grace Mansfield, of New Haven, a very beautiful woman, who 

 died a few years after her marriage, leaving two children, the subject of this 

 memoir and a daughter, Susan Maria, who married Colonel Beatty, an English 

 officer, and who is still living, a widow, in London. After the death of Mrs. 

 Totten, which occurred when her infant sou was but three years old, the father, 

 having been appointed United States consul at Santa Cruz, West Indies, took 

 up his future abode on that island, leaving his son under the care of his mater- 

 nal uncle, Jared Mansfield, a graduate of Yale College, 1777, and a learned 

 mathematician. The boy continued to be a member of Mr. Mansfield's family 

 until the latter removed to West Point, having been appointed captain- of engi- 

 neers and a teacher in the United States Military Academy, then just organ- 

 ized by act of Congress of 1802. Young Totten's first teacher was Mr. Levi 

 Hubbard, brother to the rector (at that time) of Trinity church, New Haven ; 

 afterwards his education was carried on under the personal superintendence of 

 his uncle. Of the period of his schoolboy life we have some glimpses, through the 

 recollectious of an old friend and schoolmate, Mr. Ralph Ingersoll of New Ha- 

 ven, who speaks of him as a bright, noble youth, of fine mind, fond of study, 

 aud always at the head of his class, gentlemanly in his deportment, and 

 greatly beloved. 



Young Totten went to West Point with the family of his uncle in 1802. He 

 was soon after appointed a cadet. He remained at West Point one term, that 

 of 1803, and perhaps part of that of 1804. He was promoted to a second lieu- 

 tenancy in the corps of engineers, July 1, 1805. 



The venerable General J. G. Swift, recently deceased, his brother engineer 

 officer and lifelong friend, describes him at West Point as " a flaxen-headed 

 boy of fourteen years of age, a good scholar, and to me a most interesting com- 

 panion." 



Captain Mansfield, having been appointed surveyor general of Ohio and the 

 western Territories, November 4, 1803, induced his nephew to accompany him 

 to the west as an assistant on that first systematic survey of any of "the new 

 States of the Union. Here that faculty which so distinguished him through 

 life, of keen observation of whatever was most interesting connected with or in- 

 cidentally brought under his notice by his professional pursuits, displayed itself 

 at this early age in a noteworthy manner. The vestiges of an earlier race than 

 the red man, which have since been made the subject of the researches of a Squier 

 and a Davis, of a Lapham and of a Haven, and to which, during recent times, 

 fresh attention has been directed by the developments of the high antiquity 

 of the human race in Europe as shown by similar relics over the surface of that 

 country and by the lacustrine remains in Switzerland, attracted his notice and 

 were made the subjects of survey. Although these investigations were not 

 published, they are, I believe, the first we have record of; those of Caleb 

 Atwatcr, who is called by Squier and Davis " the pioneer in this department, " 

 not having been published until 1819. Full descriptions and measurements of 

 several of these mounds, particularly that of Circleville, were made and sent to 

 his friend, J. G. Swift. To most youths of his age those remains of structures, 

 built 



"while yet the Greek 

 Was hewing the Pentclicus to forms 

 Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock 

 The glittering Parthenon," 



would have been passed over with vague curiosity or listless indifference. 

 Not so with young Totten. Although notable, perhaps, to perceive all the eth- 



