84 



LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



day I went to Hartford to support it, and had a hearing 

 before the Committee on Education, nine in number, the 

 chairman included. I addressed them for about three- 

 quarters of an hour upon the bearings of science and the 

 arts upon the interests of society, and had a respectful 

 hearing, and am told that the impression was favorable. 

 This was at eight o'clock on Thursday morning, May 13. 



In the following passage, he alludes to an occu- 

 pation to which he gave much time in the latter part 

 of his life : 



During the last week I have been deeply interested in 

 the reperusal of many letters of my dear father and mother, 

 and many of the father of my mother, the Rev. Joseph Fish, 

 minister of Stonington. My father's letters extend through 

 the Revolution, and also my mother's responses through 



very trying times and circumstances I have been 



deeply affected by the perusal of this correspondence ; the 



letters are arranged by my daughter, Mrs. H , in a 



book. There is great depth and strength of affection run- 

 ning through them all ; zealous devotion to each other's 

 happiness, and ardent piety and patriotism. I have de- 

 scended from the wise and the good, the pious, the patriotic, 

 and the pure in heart, who, I have no doubt, now see God. 

 I am softened and tenderly affected, especially towards my 

 beloved parents, who were noble people. My father I well 

 remember, although only eleven years old when he died, 

 (July 21, 1790,) in his fifty-eighth year. My precious 

 mother survived him twenty-eight years, having died at 

 Wallingford, July 2, 1818, aged eighty-two years. I had 

 long and tender intercourse with her, and she was often in 

 my family, and it would have been my wish to have had 

 her there always. I have great satisfaction in having re- 

 cently had her portrait restored by Jared Flagg, from a 

 portrait by Moulthrop, the latter a good likeness, but not 



