HIS MARRIAGE: REMINISCENCES OF GOV. TRUMBULL. 241 



necticut, their coffins would be a necessary part of their 

 baggage. 



How the acquaintance with Miss Trumbull ripened 

 into an intimacy and resulted in their union, is de- 

 tailed in the " Reminiscences," to which we now re- 

 vert. It may be remarked that the course of lectures 

 to persons outside of College, of which he speaks, 

 was an event of no little importance in his career as 

 a teacher of science. 



First Course of Popular Lectures in Yale College, May 

 1808. Personal Events. My mother some two years be- 

 fore had fallen on the ice and inflicted a severe injury upon 

 the wrist of her left arm, which had been unskilfully set, 

 so that the arm remained useless, and was even an encum- 

 brance. A journey of business in the month of May 1808, 

 took me to Norwich and through Lebanon, where I re- 

 ceived such decisive evidence of the skill of the elder Dr. 

 Sweet in breaking up and setting anew injured members, 

 that after an interview with him I induced my mother to 

 come on with me and place herself under this self-taught 

 surgeon. The effort in which I participated as an assistant 

 was successful. A delicate lady of seventy-two submitted 

 to the severe torture, supported solely by her own firm- 

 ness, without stimulants or sedatives, and the injured arm, 

 although not rendered perfect, was eventually restored to 

 usefulness and comfort, and served for ten years more until 

 her death. My frequent journeys to Lebanon to attend on 

 my mother's case during several anxious weeks, produced 

 an interesting social intercourse with my mother's early 

 friends, the family of Governor Jonathan Trumbull. Be- 

 fore I left New Haven a course of popular chemistry for 

 ladies and gentlemen had been proposed by Mr. Timothy 

 Dwight, Jr., the eldest son of President Dwight ; and the 

 proposal having been sanctioned by him and consented to 

 VOL. i. 16 



