48 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



REV. DR. MARSH TO G. P. FISHER. 



BROOKLYN, N. Y., March 2, 1865. 



SIR, You are pleased to ask from me some reminis- 

 cences of our departed friend, Professor Silliman. My 

 first acquaintance with him was in 1797, when I was nine 

 years of age. That year he came to Wethersfield, Conn., 

 the place of my birth, to teach our private, or, as it was 

 called, Grammar school. My father, the pastor of the Con- 

 gregational Church, anxious for the mental improvement of 

 the youth of his charge, had succeeded in establishing such 

 a school, placing in it as its first teacher the afterwards 

 famous Dr. Azel Backus. At his graduation, Mr. Silliman 

 was recommended for the place, though his youthfulness 

 was considered a serious objection. The school numbered 

 about forty, and some of the young ladies in it were already 

 highly cultivated and older than himself. I was one of the 

 youngest in the school ; but being devoted, as most minis- 

 ters' sons were, to a college life, I began with him my Latin 

 grammar and went nearly through it for the first time. But 

 the next year I was transferred to the school of Dr. Backus, 

 at Bethlehem, where I remained two years ; when, under the 

 inspirations of two such teachers, I was able in September 

 1800, at the age of twelve (unfortunately), to tread the halls 

 of Yale. During his residence and instructions at Wethers- 

 field, Mr. Silliman was as marked for the elegance and 

 courteousness of his manners and his efficiency in all the 

 business that was committed to his trust, as at any period 

 of his life ; and it has ever been conceded that he did much 

 in perpetuating and even increasing among the young that 

 refinement of manners for which the place had ever been 

 signal. Mr. Silliman was succeeded in the school by Pro- 

 fessor Kingsley, a gentleman in most respects the opposite, 

 so timid and bashful, that he could scarce appear in fam- 

 ily circles or look a scholar in the face, and yet found to 

 be such a scholar himself as to inspire with fear all who 



