LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 

 CHAPTER I. 



HIS CHILDHOOD AND EARLY HOME. 



His Birth. Origin of the Family. His Father. His Mother. His 

 Father's Capture by the British. An Early Journey to Stonington. 

 Anecdote of Dr. Franklin. Manners and Society in New England. 

 Death of his Father. His Early Religious Training. The Assembly's 

 Catechism. His First School. Slavery in New England. His 

 Preparation for College. Society in Fairfield: Mr. Eliot; Mr. Burr; 

 Dr. Dwight; Judge Sturges. His Love of Natural Scenery. 



BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, the most eminent of Ameri- 

 can teachers of Natural Science, was born in North 

 Stratford (now Trumbull), Connecticut, on the 8th 

 of August, 1779. His life opened in the midst of 

 stirring scenes of the Revolutionary conflict. The 

 home of the family, from which his father had lately 

 been forcibly carried away as a prisoner by a party 

 of British soldiers, and from which his mother, to 

 escape the perils of war, was now a voluntary exile, 

 was situated in the town of Fairfield, at the distance 

 of a few miles from the place of his birth. To this 

 home his mother was speedily restored ; and here his 

 childhood was spent, on or near the spot where his 

 ancestors on the paternal side had lived for several 

 generations. Daniel Silliman, the first of the name 

 who settled in Fairfield, was understood in the tradi- 



