Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1 by Andrew Dickson White
page 35 of 804 (04%)
man in the township; but some time before my birth he
had become one of the poorest; for a fire had consumed
his mills, there was no insurance, and his health gave way.
On my father, Horace White, had fallen, therefore, the
main care of his father's family. It was to the young
man, apparently, a great calamity:--that which grieved
him most being that it took him--a boy not far in his
teens--out of school. But he met the emergency
manfully, was soon known far and wide for his energy,
ability, and integrity, and long before he had reached
middle age was considered one of the leading men of business
in the county.

My mother had a more serene career. In another part
of these Reminiscences, saying something of my religious
and political development, I shall speak again of her and
of her parents. Suffice it here that her father prospered
as a man of business, was known as ``Colonel,'' and also
as ``Squire'' Dickson, and represented his county in the
State legislature. He died when I was about three years
old, and I vaguely remember being brought to him as he
lay upon his death-bed. On one account, above all others,
I have long looked back to him with pride. For the first
public care of the early settlers had been a church, and
the second a school. This school had been speedily
developed into Cortland Academy, which soon became fa-
mous throughout all that region, and, as a boy of five or
six years of age, I was very proud to read on the corner-
stone of the Academy building my grandfather's name
among those of the original founders.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge