DOMESTIC EVENTS. 275 



deprived of the satisfaction of watching her last hours. On 

 the 4th of July we went, Mrs. Silliman and all my children, 

 in a family carriage to attend the funeral. The Rev. 

 Matthew Noyes conducted the religious services with solem 

 nity ; and we remained over the night. My little Trumbull, 

 who was with us, was very ill, and it was the first of those 

 premonitory attacks which ended his mortal life. My 

 brother, Gold Selleck Silliman, did not arrive until after 

 the funeral. Thus was ended an excellent Christian life, 

 and we felt that our mother had been spared to us to a 

 good old age, and was summoned home when she was 

 mature for heaven. She cherished a cheerful confidence 

 in her Saviour, and looked at death without dismay. She 

 told me after her recovery from the attack of pneumonia, 

 that she had no fear of death, and was ready and willing to 

 go at any time. She opened her trunk and showed me her 

 shroud, and all the dress for the grave which she kept by 

 her, that whenever she might be summoned, her death 

 might make little trouble in preparation. She was a heroic 

 woman, and encountered with firmness the trials and terrors 

 of the American Revolution, in which my father was largely 

 concerned. She did not lose her self-control, when three 

 months before my birth the house was assailed by an armed 

 banditti at the midnight hour, the windows demolished, and 

 my father and elder half-brother were torn away from her, 

 and my father detained for a year at Flatbush, Long Island, 

 as a prisoner of war. Blessed Mother ! In her widowhood, 

 after my father's death in 1790, she struggled on in embar 

 rassed circumstances, and gave my brother and myself a 

 public education, forming our minds at home to purity and 

 piety. Whatever I have of good in me, I owe, under God, 

 mainly to her, and I look with mingled reverence and 

 delight at her lovely picture, which smiles upon me still. 



Her death was soon followed by that of his son, 

 whom he tended, during a lingering illness, with 

 affectionate care. 



