HIS CHILDHOOD AND EARLY HOME. 25 



the United States when convened in New York, in 1789, 

 in the first year of the Presidency of General Washington, 

 and the evening years of his life were devoted to the bench 

 of the Superior Court of Connecticut. 



With a fine person, he had the superior manners of that 

 day, dignity softened by a kind and winning courtesy, 

 with the stamp of benevolence. He is pictured on my 

 memory, and the reminiscence is very agreeable, a recol- 

 lection of my early youth. Judge Sturges had a large fam- 

 ily, sons and daughters ; the sons were gentlemen in senti- 

 ments and manners, and the daughters refined ladies, 

 partaking of the blended traits of both parents. They 

 were all amiable and intelligent and pleasant ; some of 

 them were beautiful. It was a delightful female circle. . . . 



In my early days, much company resorted to Holland 

 Hill, not a few lodging guests ; and it was a favorite ex- 

 cursion from Fairfield, especially with young people of both 

 sexes, and in Mr. Eliot's family there were sensible and 

 agreeable daughters. The reverend gentleman was not for- 

 gotten by his Boston friends, even by the great. I remem- 

 ber that on one occasion the celebrated Gov. Hancock, Pres- 

 ident of Congress, drove up to Mr. Eliot's in his coach and 

 four horses, and while he made his call, the coachman 

 drove farther up the road to find a place wide enough to 

 turn the horses and carriage. 



Living in a situation perfectly rural, on elevated ground 

 overlooking the country for many leagues ; having before us 

 Long Island Sound, a beautiful strait perhaps twenty miles 

 in average breadth, a strait often adorned by the white 

 canvas of sailing vessels, occasionally fretted by winds and 

 storms into waves which adorned the blue bosom of the 

 deep with snowy crests and ridges, in such a situation, 

 we had only to open our eyes in a clear atmosphere to be 

 charmed with the scenery of this beautiful world, as here 

 presented to our view. A love of natural scenery thus 



