CHAPTER III. 



V TEACHER: A STUDENT OF LAW, AND TUTOR IN COLLEGE. 



His Labors on the Farm at Home. Teaches School in Wethersfield. 

 Becomes a Law-Student in New Haven, and Tutor in Yale College. 

 Letters of Rev. Dr. Marsh and Rev. Dr. Porter. His Early Friends. 

 His Early Productions. Early Letters. His Religious Impressions. 



THE year following his graduation Mr. Silliman 

 spent at the home of his mother, in Fairfield. His 

 father's business as a lawyer had been broken up by 

 the Revolutionary War; he had been obliged to neg- 

 lect his farm ; and as he was not in the continental 

 line, nor in active service at the time of his capture, 

 he was never reimbursed for the serious losses and 

 expenses incident to his protracted imprisonment. 

 His life terminated before he had extricated his af- 

 fairs from embarrassment, and although his property 

 proved to be more than sufficient to meet the de- 

 mands upon his estate, careful management was re- 

 quired. Mr. Silliman, on graduating, was still a suf- 

 ferer from the effects of the hurt above mentioned, 

 and disabled for the most part from intellectual la- 

 bor. For this reason, and moved by the stronger im- 

 pulse of filial duty, he devoted himself to reclaiming 

 the farm-lands, which had run to waste. He went 

 into the field with the laborers, and had the satisfac- 

 tion of conferring a substantial benefit upon his sur- 

 viving parent. But during this period he was cut 



