8 



{Susannah Adams, was the daughter of Abraham Adams, who 

 married Mary Brickett, and was a descendant of Henry Adams, 

 the founder of the Adams family in America, who settled at 

 Mount Wollaston (now Quincy), Massachusetts, and to whose 

 memory his descendant, President John Adams, erected a plain 

 granite monument with this quaint inscription: 



"In memory of Henry Adams, who took his flight from the 

 dragon persecution, in Devonshire, England, and alighted with 

 eight sons near Mount Wollaston. One of the sons returned to 

 England after taking time to explore the country. Four re- 

 moved to Medford and the neighboring towns. Two to Chelms- 

 ford. One only remained, Joseph, who lies here at his right 

 hand, who was an original proprietor in the Township of Brain- 

 tree, incorporated in the year 1639." 



Susannah Adams, the mother of Prof. Worthen, was a woman 

 of a most amiable disposition, and at the same time of great 

 mental and physical activity and force. A mother with these 

 characteristics seldom fails to transmit them to her posterity. 

 His father, Thos. Worthen, was the owner of a farm upon what 

 was known as the South Road, in Bradford, where were 

 "brought up" (not "raised") this large family of sons and 

 daughters. Here Prof. Worthen gained the first rudiments of 

 his education in the excellent common schools of his native 

 State, and his early physical training, of almost equal import- 

 ance to his future usefulness in his chosen profession, in labor 

 upon his father's farm. At that time the academy at Bradford 

 Village was an institution of learning of a high class, and here 

 Prof. Worthen finished his school training, boarding for that 

 purpose at the home of his sister, Mary, who married Capt. 

 Ellis Bliss, an extensive farmer in the Connecticut Valley. At- 

 tending the same school, from the same house, bearing the re- 

 lation of uncle and nephew, he finishing, and the writer begin- 

 ning his academic course, a friendship and intimacy began which 

 lasted from that period to the day of his lamented death. At 

 an early age, before arriving at his majority, he married, Janu- 

 ary 14, 1834, Miss Sarah B. Kimball, of Warren, N. H., who 

 was his faithful and life-long companion, preceding him to the 

 better land only a little over a twelve-month. At that time 

 Ohio and Kentucky were the far west, and it required a high 



