lived south of it in a rough stone house--the manor of the
neighborhood--with half a dozen slave huts ranged before the kitchen
door, and the gateway between his grounds and the village, as seen from
the upper windows of our house, was, to me, the boundary between the
known and the unknown, the dread portal through which came Adam, the
poor old ragged slave, with whom my nurse threatened me when I did not
do as she wished. He was a wretched creature, who made and sold hickory
brooms, as he dragged his rheumatic limbs on the down grade of life,
until he found rest by freezing to death in the woods, where he had gone
for saplings.

I was born on the 6th of December, 1815, in Pittsburg, on the bank of
the Monongahela, near its confluence with the Allegheny. My father was
Thomas Cannon, and my mother Mary Scott. They were both Scotch-Irish
and descended from the Scotch Reformers. On my mother's side were
several men and women who signed the "Solemn League and Covenant," and
defended it to the loss of livings, lauds and life. Her mother, Jane
Grey, was of that family which was allied to royalty, and gave to
England her nine day's queen.

This grandmother I remember as a stately old lady, quaintly and plainly
dressed, reading a large Bible or answering questions by quotations from
its pages. She was unsuspicious as an infant, always doubtful about
"actual transgressions" of any, while believing in the total depravity
of all. Educated in Ireland as an heiress, she had not been taught to
write, lest she should marry without the consent of her elder brother
guardian. She felt that we owed her undying gratitude for bestowing her
hand and fortune on our grandfather, who was but a yoeman, even if "he
did have a good leasehold, ride a high horse, wear spurs, and have
Hamilton blood in his veins." She made us familiar with the battle of