Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1 by Andrew Dickson White
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page 35 of 804 (04%)
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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. |
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