town in the General Assembly. The physical qualities of the grandson
may well have been a family inheritance, since of Benajah we read that
he was of medium height, with large head and body, short neck, and
short limbs.[3]

The portrait of Benajah's son is far less distinct. He was a graduate
of Middlebury College and a physician by profession. He married Sally
Fisk, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer in Brandon, by whom he had
two children, the younger of whom was Stephen Arnold Douglass, born
April 23, 1813. The promising career of the young doctor was cut short
by a sudden stroke, which overtook him as he held his infant son in
his arms. The plain, little one-and-a-half story house, in which the
boy first saw the light, suggests that the young physician had been
unable to provide for more than the bare necessities of his family.[4]

Soon after the death of Dr. Douglass, his widow removed to the farm
which she and her unmarried brother had inherited from her father. The
children grew to love this bachelor uncle with almost filial
affection. Too young to take thought for the morrow, they led the
wholesome, natural life of country children. Stephen went to the
district school on the Brandon turnpike, and had no reason to bemoan
the fate which left him largely dependent upon his uncle's generosity.
An old school-mate recalls young Douglass through the haze of years,
as a robust, healthy boy, with generous instincts though tenacious of
his rights.[5] After school hours work and play alternated. The
regular farm chores were not the least part in the youngster's
education; he learned to be industrious and not to despise honest
labor.[6]

This bare outline of a commonplace boyhood must be filled in with many