53 
a graduate of Yale College, 1777, and a learned mathe- 
matician. The boy continued to be a member of Mr. Mans- 
field’s family until the latter removed to West Point, having 
been appointed Captain of Engineers and a teacher in the 
United States Military Academy, then just organized by 
act of Congress of 1802. Young Totten’s first teacher was 
Mr. Levi Hubbard, brother to the Rector (at that time) of 
Trinity Church, New Haven ; afterwards his education was 
carried on under the personal superintendence of his uncle. 
Of the period of his school-boy life we have some glimpses, 
through the-recollections of an old friend and schoolmate, 
Mr. Ralph Ingersoll of New Haven, who speaks of him as 
a bright, noble youth, of fine mind, fond of study, and always 
at the head of his compeers, gentlemanly in his deportment, 
and greatly beloved. 
Young Totten went to West Point with the family of his 
uncle in 1802. He was soon after appointed a cadet. He 
remained at West Point one term, that of 1803, and per- 
haps part of that of 1804. He was promoted to a second 
lieutenaney in the corps of Engineers, July 1, 1805. 
The venerable General J. G. Swift, recently deceased, 
his brother engineer officer and life-long friend, describes 
him at West Point as “a flaxen-headed boy of fourteen 
years of age, a good scholar, and to me a most interesting 
companion,” 
Captain Mansfield, having been appointed Surveyor-Gen- 
eral of Ohio and the Western Territories, November 4, 1803, 
induced his nephew to accompany him to the West as 
a0 assistant on that first systematic survey of any of the 
new States of the Union. Here that faculty which so dis- 
- tinguished him through life, of keen observation of whatever 
‘Was most interesting connected with or incidentally brought 
Under his notice ‘by his professional pursuits, displayed 
