516 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



Master of the National Grange, Dudley W. Adams, 

 Esq., of Iowa. 



Like most men of his calling, Mr. Adams' life has 

 been quiet and uneventful. " My life," he says, in a 

 letter which we have been permitted to use, " has been 

 a rather uneventful one, and not such as will make a 

 stirring narrative." " I was born," he continues, " in 

 the pine woods of Massachusetts, in the town of .Win-v 

 chendon, in the year 1831." He is consequently forty- 

 two years of age at present. His father was at this 

 time " running a small saw-mill," by means of which 

 he managed to make a modest provision for his family. 

 When the subject of this sketch was four years of age 

 the family moved to a small rocky farm, which the 

 father had purchased, and on which the childhood and 

 youth of Dudley Adams were spent. His was the life 

 of the ordinary New England farm lad working on 

 the farm in the milder weather, and attending the 

 district school in the winter. He was a bright, quick 

 lad, and manifested a strong desire to excel in his 

 studies, so that when but a mere youth, we find him in 

 possession of all the erudition the district school could 

 afford him. Then the pupil became the teacher, and 

 for several years the young pedagogue presided over 

 the school in which his own education had been 

 gained. 



At length the critical period in his life arrived. He 

 was twenty-one years of age, and a free man. He was 

 also the owner of a modest little sum that he had saved 

 from his earnings as a teacher. He must* now make a 

 decision which would affect his whole future ; he must 

 choose the vocation of his life. New England offered 

 few inducements to an energetic and ambitious young 



