BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, THE ELDER. I4I 



sions of the British led to the secret expedition which suc- 

 ceeded in capturing him. He was held a prisoner nearly a 

 year. General Silliman died in 1790. 



Benjamin's mother, Mary Fish, was descended from John 

 Alden and Priscilla Mullins, of the Mayflower. She was the 

 eldest daughter of Rev. Joseph Fish, of North Stonington. 

 She had been married to Rev. John Noyes, of New Haven, and 

 at the time of her second marriage had three children living. 

 Mr. Silliman had also been married before and had a son, 

 William. 



In the recollections of his relatives and his early years, 

 written out by Benjamin Silliman near the close of his life, 

 he describes his father as a gentleman of the old school and 

 a decidedly religious man, but without austerity or bigotry. 

 All of his large household, including negro domestics and hired 

 white people, were expected to attend, so far as practicable, 

 daily prayers, and public worship on Sunday. For convey- 

 ance to church they had usually half a dozen horses and two 

 chaises, and the horses under the saddle frequently carried 

 two. " My brother and I," he writes, " were sometimes in- 

 structed to take each of us one of the daughters of our clergy- 

 man, the Rev. Mr. Eliot, who had more girls than horses ; and 

 we were at an age when the jeers of our school-fellows made 

 this a rather embarrassing duty." 



After attending for a time the public schools of his neigh- 

 bourhood, Benjamin prepared for college under the tuition of 

 his pastor, the Rev. Andrew Eliot, and entered Yale College 

 at the age of thirteen years, the youngest but one in his class. 

 As to his college career his biographer, Prof. George P. Fisher, 

 writes : 



" Mr. Silliman exhibited in his college essays and debates, 

 as well as in the letters written by him in that period, both a 

 maturity of thought and a correctness of style hardly to be 

 expected in one so young. He was fond of writing verses, 

 and acquired no mean facility in versification. His closing 

 piece at graduation was a poem, as was also the piece which 

 he delivered on taking the master's degree. He does not 

 appear to have shown an exclusive predilection for any one 

 department of knowledge, but attained to a highly respectable 

 proficiency in all. He speaks of himself as having been un- 

 usually fond of rhetorical and poetical studies, but as also 



