There must have been a cordiality in his welcome into the Tod family,
for to the day of his death he looked upon judge Tod and his wife, with
all the reverence he could have felt if they had been parents instead of
benefactors. I have often heard him speak of Mrs. Tod as the most
admirable woman he had ever known. He remained with the Tod family only
a few years, until old enough to learn a trade. He went first, I
believe, with his half-brother, Peter Grant, who, though not a tanner
himself, owned a tannery in Maysville, Kentucky. Here he learned his
trade, and in a few years returned to Deerfield and worked for, and
lived in the family of a Mr. Brown, the father of John Brown--"whose
body lies mouldering in the grave, while his soul goes marching on." I
have often heard my father speak of John Brown, particularly since the
events at Harper's Ferry. Brown was a boy when they lived in the same
house, but he knew him afterwards, and regarded him as a man of great
purity of character, of high moral and physical courage, but a fanatic
and extremist in whatever he advocated. It was certainly the act of an
insane man to attempt the invasion of the South, and the overthrow of
slavery, with less than twenty men.

My father set up for himself in business, establishing a tannery at
Ravenna, the county seat of Portage County. In a few years he removed
from Ravenna, and set up the same business at Point Pleasant, Clermont
County, Ohio.

During the minority of my father, the West afforded but poor facilities
for the most opulent of the youth to acquire an education, and the
majority were dependent, almost exclusively, upon their own exertions
for whatever learning they obtained. I have often heard him say that
his time at school was limited to six months, when he was very young,
too young, indeed, to learn much, or to appreciate the advantages of an