MONTHLY 



JOURNAL or AGIUCULTURE. 



VOL. n. OCTOBER, 1846. NO. 4. 



LIFE OF JAMES WADSWORTH. 



(IVUh a Portrait.) 

 BY PROFESSOR JAMES RENWICIC, OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE. 



The late James Wadsworth was descended from a native of the County Pala- 

 tine of Durham in England, who was among the earlier settlers of the valley of 

 the Connecticut. 



The name of the county which gave birth to his ancestor was perpetuated in 

 the township in Connecticut in which the subject of our Memoir was born. His 

 immediate progenitor was the father of three sons, of whom James was the 

 youngest, and who was born on the 20th April, 1768. We have no details of 

 the pursuits of his boyhood, which, however, were no doubt spent in the alternate 

 occupations of agricultural industry and scholastic discipline, until we find him 

 taking his degree of Bachelor of Arts at Yale College, in the twentieth year of 

 his age. 



Before he had thus completed his collegiate education, his father had died, 

 and the property upon which the latter had sustained his family in competence, 

 and by whose products he had been enabled to give his sons the best education 

 which the country could furnish, was now to be divided into three portions. 

 Neither of these, it was obvious, would suffice even for the decent maintenance 

 of an individual, far less for the support of a family. Industry, directed by in- 

 telligence, was therefore to be looked to in the place of patrimonial fortune, and 

 when united to enterprise and moral courage, might open a way to wealth. All 

 these requisites were united in the characters of James Wadsworth and Wil- 

 liam, one of his brothers. At the present day, the sons of families under cir- 

 cumstances similar to those of the Wadsworths, flock to our cities to seek situa- 

 tions at the counter of the retailer, or places at the desk of the countmg-house ; 

 throng into the schools of medicine or divinity ; or embark in the study of legal 

 science. In these lotteries, that one chance in the hundred turns out a prize, in 

 the acquisition of mercantile wealth, the enjoyment of high professional stand- 

 ing, the consciousness of spiritual usefulness, or the attainment of political emi- 

 nence, is more than the average amount of success. Yet the glitter of the few 

 prizes continues to tempt youth from the pursuits of Agriculture to the waste of 

 their slender patrimonies, the destruction of their health, or the ruin of their 



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