BENJAMIN SILLIMAN 115 



upon him. The story is thus briefly told by Mr. Henry T. 

 Blake: 



"In March, 1856, occurred the famous Kansas Rifle meeting 

 in the North Church. It was begun as a semi-religious service 

 held on a week-day evening to bid farewell to a band of citizens 

 who were about going to Kansas as settlers in the interest of free- 

 dom. Henry Ward Beecher addressed them, and there was not 

 a thought of presenting them with arms, until it was sponta- 

 neously suggested by that noble embodiment of every personal and 

 civic virtue, Prof. Silliman senior. The rifles never did much 

 damage directly to the Border Ruffians, but the fame of the event 

 spread throughout the country. The hint was taken, and the ex- 

 ample followed by every emigrant aid society which sent out its 

 party thereafter, with the result that Kansas was saved, and formed 

 an outpost of the utmost importance in the war for the Union." 



The domestic life of Silliman was exceptionally happy. He 

 married in 1809 Harriet Trumbull, daughter of the second Gov- 

 ernor Trumbull of Connecticut, and their house was the home of 

 simple and refined hospitality where neighbors, students and kin- 

 dred, as well as strangers of distinction from every part of this 

 country and from Europe, were sure of a welcome. For more 

 than fifty years he dwelt on Hillhouse Avenue, having, for a long 

 period, his son Benjamin as his next door neighbor on the one 

 side, and on the other, his son-in-law James D. Dana. 1 After the 

 death of Mrs. Silliman in 1850, he made a second visit to Europe 

 in company with his son Professor Benjamin Silliman, Jr., and not 

 long after his return, he married Mrs. Sarah McClellan Webb, 

 (a relation of his first wife), of Woodstock, Conn., who survived 

 him. 



When he reached the age of seventy years, Silliman tendered 

 his resignation. Similar action was previously taken by President 

 Day and subsequently by Kingsley, Woolsey and the younger 



1 The daughters of Professor Silliman were married to John B. Church, 

 Oliver P. Hubbard, James D. Dana and Edward W. Oilman. His son Ben- 

 jamin was a professor in Yale College from 1846 until hte death in 1885. 

 Edward S. Dana, now editor of the American Journal of Science, is a grand- 

 son of the founder. 



