CHAPTER II

BIRTH.--BOYHOOD

ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS first saw the light at the old Marble Ridge farmhouse, on the 25th of March, 1818. He was a delicate infant, and it was impossible for his mother, with her other little ones and the engrossing labors of the farmhouse, to bestow upon him the care his condition required. His grandmother, one day visiting the farm, was shocked to see him still in his cradle, though three years old, and, remarking that unless he was taught soon he never would walk, insisted upon taking him home with her, where, under her gentle and experienced hands, he quickly learned to run about. After returning home his father used to plunge him, fresh from bed, into a hogshead of cold water every morning.

Such heroic treatment would be sure to kill or cure, and perhaps no better proof could be given of the native vigor of his constitution than the fact that he lived, and became strong, active, and hardy.

Even as a child he was active, daring, and adventurous. He used to climb the lofty elms in front of his grandfather's house, and cling like a squirrel to the topmost branches, laughing and chattering defiance to his grandmother's commands and entreaties to come down.

One afternoon Abiel Holt, the hired man on the farm, went a-fishing for pickerel, and took Isaac, who was then a very little urchin just able to run about cleverly. After catching a fine string of fish, they came to the old causeway which crossed the water where now stands the dam under the Essex Railroad, but which was then submerged several feet deep in the water for some distance.

A rude footway had been contrived here by driving down forked stakes at suitable intervals along the causeway, and placing loose poles in the crotches from stake to stake, forming one row for the feet and another a little higher for the hands.

The contrivance was rickety and unsafe to the last degree; the poles swayed and bent at every step, and it required great care and the use of both feet and hands to avoid a ducking. It was now time to drive up the cows, which were pasturing beyond the water; so Holt, bidding the child remain there, crossed over after them, taking with him the string of fish, which he hung up on one of the stakes on the farther side, for he wanted the pleasure of taking his spoils home in triumph, and feared, if he left them with Isaac, the latter would take them and run home while he was away. On returning he was struck with consternation to find no trace of either the child or the fish. He carefully scrutinized the water without result, and at length slowly returned to the farmhouse, filled with misgivings, and was not a little relieved to find both his charge and his fish safe at home. The child had worked his way across the water by the poles, although, standing on the lower row, he could hardly reach the upper one with extended arms, and had returned, holding the string of fish in his teeth, in the same way. His father ever after was particularly fond of relating this anecdote in proof of the daring and adventurous spirit so early manifested.

He was a sensitive, earnest child, not demonstrative, but having great affection and tenderness, which he lavished upon his mother. Her early death was his first and greatest misfortune. When he was only seven years old, his father, who always drove furiously, in driving with his wife in his wagon rapidly around a corner, overset the vehicle. They were thrown out violently upon the ground, and the unfortunate mother struck upon her head. From this shock she never really recovered, and died two years after the unhappy accident. During this period Isaac attached himself closely to his mother, and acquired no slight influence over her. The early death of this tender and devoted wife and mother well-nigh destroyed the happiness of her family. Isaac ever cherished her memory with the tenderest veneration. He thought that from her were inherited great part of his talents, and that had she lived he would have been spared the injudicious forcing of his mind in his childhood, to which he always declared he owed a real mental injury.

After the mother's death, a housekeeper was employed to provide for the helpless little flock, and attend to the household duties; and two years later the father married his second wife, Ann Poor.

Isaac was sent to school before his fifth year, where from the first he displayed great power of memory, close application, and devotion to study. His teachers were astonished to find that he did not stop at the end of the day's lesson, but habitually learned far beyond it, often reciting page after page. It was said that there was no need of telling Isaac how much to study; it was enough to show him where to begin, and he would learn more than the teacher cared to hear. His first teacher, Miss Susan Foster, said with astonishment one day, after hearing his lesson in arithmetic, "There is no use for me to teach him arithmetic; he is already far beyond me in that."

After his tenth year he attended Franklin Academy, in North Andover,--Old Put's school, as it was usually and more familiarly styled,--kept by Mr. Simon Putnam, who attained great repute as a teacher. This was situated on the hill north of the meeting-house, on land given for the purpose by grandfather Jonathan. Here he studied the usual English branches. Among his schoolmates were William Endicott, Jr., the well-known philanthropist, Hon. Daniel Saunders, the late George B. Loring, and Major George T. Clark. It appears that wrestling was a favorite sport with the active and hardy boys at this school.

His father, proud and ambitious on his account, kept him constantly at school, and urged on to still greater efforts this earnest, ardent nature, intense in everything he undertook. The evil effects of such mistaken treatment soon made themselves felt. His mind became wearied and dull from overtasking. The teacher advised rest. The boy, then but ten years old, begged his father to take him out of school and let him work on the farm, telling him that he could no longer study; that he could not learn his lessons. But the father refused, not realizing the son's condition, and bade him go back to school and study what he could. Isaac then went to his uncle Nathaniel, who owned the Cochichewick woolen mills, situated two miles below the farm, and obtained his permission to work in the factory for a year. He prevailed upon his grandmother to let him lodge at her house in order to be nearer the factory; and having thus decided upon his course, went home and informed his father of the arrangements he had made, who, astonished at the judgment and resolution of the boy, acquiesced. So Isaac went to work in the factory, lodging at his grandfather's, rising long before daylight that he might eat a hurried breakfast, walk a mile to the factory, and begin the day's work at five o'clock in the morning, and toiling ten to twelve hours a day. He entered the weavers' room, where he soon learned to manage a loom. The best weavers were women, it seems, and able to run two looms apiece. Isaac at once determined to excel the most capable; and before he left the factory, succeeded in reaching the goal of his ambition, and managed four looms unassisted.

After a year of this unremitting labor, he left the mills. As he was returning home with the scanty sum he had earned in his pocket, taking it to his father, he passed a shop where some tempting hot gingerbread was displayed for sale, and felt an intense longing to buy a penny-worth; but reflecting that his earnings belonged to his father, and it would be wrong for him to spend any of them, he overcame the desire and went home. But when he handed the money to his father, and asked for a cent to buy the gingerbread with, he felt stung to the quick by the latter's refusal. In truth, the father's hard struggle with poverty and adverse circumstances had narrowed his noble nature. Too much had life become to him nothing but hard work, self-sacrifice, and a severe sense of duty. He did not appreciate the sensitive nature of a child, and its needs of sympathy, recreation, and occasional indulgence.

Directly across the road from the house was a small pool called the frog-pond. Isaac selected a corner of this pond for his garden, filled it up with stones, and covered them with rich earth brought from a distance in his little cart with great pains and labor. He eagerly seized every moment that could be spared from school and his unceasing round of morning and evening chores to devote to this darling project. At last the garden was prepared, and planted with his own favorite seeds. But his father, fearing that it might distract and take up too much time from his studies and duties about the farm, rudely uprooted his tenderly cared-for plants, and put in potatoes instead.

On another occasion his father's injudicious urging nearly proved fatal. Isaac was helping in the hay-field, and was working with such ardor and had accomplished so much that his father was actually astonished. Instead of restraining, he praised him without stint. Under this stimulus the ambitious boy redoubled his exertions until he was prostrated by a sunstroke, resulting in a raging fever, from which he barely escaped with life after a severe sickness.

On another occasion, when twelve years old, he was working in the hay-field, pitching hay upon the cart; he was badly ruptured, and had to be carried to the house. As soon as he was able to travel he went alone to Boston, and sought out Dr. Warren, a noted surgeon, and laid his case before him. Dr. Warren was so much struck with the lad's courage and intelligence that he refused to accept any fee. "If you do exactly what I tell you, you will get well," he said, "and I know you will do so from looking in your face." The surgeon had a truss made, and prescribed treatment, but all the remainder of his life Isaac was obliged to wear the truss, although he outgrew the injury in a measure until it broke out afresh in Mexico from over-exertion.

Measured by modern conditions, it was a severe and laborious home life in which the farmer's boy grew up, but it was a wholesome one, and well adapted to bring out all his powers. Morning and evening, throughout the year, he had his round of duties, feeding and milking the cows, feeding the pigs, cutting and bringing in wood, etc. During the winter he rose long before daylight to attend to these chores and shovel snow from the paths, then after a hasty breakfast trudged away to school, and on returning again resumed the round of unending farm work. In summer there was no school for three or four months, and then he worked on the farm, hoeing corn, making hay, driving oxen, and performing all the hard and varied labors of a New England farmer's son. But the New England farmers of that day were the owners of the soil. They knew no superiors. The Revolutionary struggle, as recent to them as the great Rebellion is to us, was fresh and vivid in their minds, and stimulated noble ideas of liberty and national independence. The standard of personal honesty, manhood, and morals, bequeathed from their Puritan ancestry, was high. Such was the moral atmosphere of Isaac Stevens's household, heightened by his own earnest, philanthropic, and elevated sentiments. All his children were intellectual and high-minded, and nothing can be more touching than the constant ambition and striving of his five daughters for education and self-improvement. All became teachers, but died young, victims of consumption.

Nor was the life of the youth nothing but a round of hard work and privation. If he worked hard and studied hard, he enjoyed play with equal zest, and shared the rougher sports of those days with his cousins and other boys of his age. They were more pugnacious and rougher than nowadays. Wrestling was a common sport, and boyish fights and scuffles were usual.

At the age of fifteen he entered Phillips Academy in Andover. Nathan W. Hazen, Esq., a well-known and respected lawyer of the town, furnished him board and lodgings, in return for which he took care of the garden, and did the chores about the place. One of his schoolmates, describing his first appearance at the academy, said: "The door opened, and there quietly entered an insignificant, small boy, carrying in his arms a load of books nearly as large as himself. But the impression of insignificance vanished as soon as one regarded his large head, earnest face, and firm, searching, and fearless dark hazel eye."

He remained at the academy over a year. As usual, he took the front rank from the beginning. His reputation as a scholar, especially in mathematics, extended beyond the school. Besides his studies he took sole care of Mr. Hazen's garden, a half acre in extent, groomed the horse, milked the cow, and fed them, cut and brought in the wood, and did many other jobs about the house, performing an amount of labor, as Mr. Hazen declared, sufficient to dismay many a hired man. He studied early in the morning and late at night. His power of concentrating his mind upon any subject was extraordinary. His industry was untiring. The impress this boy of fifteen made upon those with whom he came in contact during his stay at this place is really remarkable. Mr. Hazen, who proved a considerate friend and adviser to the struggling youth, relates that every evening Isaac would bring his chair close to the office table, at which the former was accustomed to read or write, in order to avail himself of the light, and would work out mathematical problems on his slate. He would remain quietly with his hand to his head in deep thought for a little time, when suddenly he would shower a perfect rainstorm of figures upon his slate without hesitation, or erasure, oftentimes completely filling it. Generally the correct result was reached; but when the solution was not found the first time, he would rapidly wipe off every figure and begin again as before. His mind always sought out and mastered the bottom principle. It was remarked that, whenever he had once solved a problem, he could unhesitatingly solve all others of the same character.

On one occasion a mathematician of some note, who had just published a new arithmetic, brought his work to the academy, and tested the acquirements of the scholars by giving them his new problems to solve. When Isaac was called to the blackboard, he astonished the author and the teacher alike by the ease and rapidity with which he solved every example. They plied him again and again with the most difficult problems, but he mastered them in every instance. "Well, sir," exclaimed the author, somewhat piqued, "I think you could make the key to this book." Isaac took the book, and in three days returned it with every example worked out.

A very difficult problem was sent from Yale College to the academy. While the teachers and scholars were puzzling over it, Isaac sat in thought for half an hour with his hand to his head, then rapidly worked out the problem on his slate and presented the solution.

Young as he was, it seems that he had thought enough on religious subjects to become a decided Universalist and Unitarian. A religious revival took place while he was at the academy, and many of the scholars were brought within its influence. Among others, one of the teachers became "converted," and sought all means to promote a similar experience among his pupils. In order to remove the stumbling-blocks of doubt and ignorance, he offered to answer any questions they might propound on religious topics. The first question Isaac put, "Can a sincere Universalist be saved?" was met by a decided and uncompromising "No." But the youth plied the unfortunate zealot with such queries that he was forced to confess his inability to answer them, and to withdraw his offer. Once, when he wanted the whole class to attend one of the revival meetings, he put it to them that all who were willing to dispense with the afternoon session and attend the meeting should rise. All promptly stood up except Isaac, who resolutely kept his seat. "Every one in favor except Stevens," exclaimed the teacher with some bitterness, realizing the protest against his own bigotry. In truth, the youth's sense of right had been shocked by the doctrines he heard advanced; he was strongly opposed to such revival meetings, and his earnest nature would not bend in a matter of principle.

At one of these meetings his two sisters, Hannah and Susan, yielded to the exhortations and influences of the occasion, and took their seats on the converts' or mourners' bench, as it was called. Perceiving this, Isaac immediately marched up to the front, and made them both leave the church with him, no slight proof of his influence over them, older than himself. In fact, while they felt great pride in his talents, his sisters had come still more to respect and lean upon his sound judgment and firm will. He lavished upon them all the great tenderness and affection of his strong and earnest nature.

During his boyhood he was affected with excessive diffidence, or bashfulness. With characteristic resolution and good sense, he set himself to overcome this weakness. He made it a point always to address any one whose presence inspired this awkward feeling, but, he said, it was years before he overcame it.

After a year and four months of this severe application, Isaac completed his course at Phillips Academy. He wished to study law with Mr. Hazen, but that gentleman discouraged the idea. At this juncture his uncle, William Stevens, suggested West Point, and wrote to Mr. Gayton P. Osgood, the member of Congress for the North Essex District, in which Andover was situated, inquiring if there was an appointment in his gift, and suggesting Isaac's name. Mr. Osgood replied that there was no vacancy. But uncle William was not satisfied; he wrote to William C. Phillips, the member representing the South Essex District, by whom he was informed that no cadet had been appointed from Mr. Osgood's district. Accordingly he formally made application in behalf of his nephew. A lawyer by profession, and cashier of the Andover bank, he was a man of some influence. Mr. Hazen and other friends joined their recommendations. Mr. Phillips exerted a favorable influence, and although there were other candidates with more influential backing, Mr. Osgood bestowed upon Isaac the desired appointment. Both uncle William and Mr. Hazen declared that the recommendations had little weight, and that Mr. Osgood selected him on account of his reputation for ability and scholarship.