author of this memoir entered the class below him; but our college
reminiscences, however interesting to the parties concerned, are not
exactly the material for a biography. He was then a youth, with the boy
and man in him, vivacious, mirthful, slender, of a fair complexion, with
light hair that had a curl in it: his bright and cheerful aspect made a
kind of sunshine, both as regarded its radiance and its warmth; insomuch
that no shyness of disposition, in his associates, could well resist its
influence. We soon became acquainted, and were more especially drawn
together as members of the same college society. There were two of these
institutions, dividing the college between them, and typifying,
respectively, and with singular accuracy of feature, the respectable
conservative, and the progressive or democratic parties. Pierce's native
tendencies inevitably drew him to the latter.

His chum was Zenas Caldwell, several years older than himself, a member
of the Methodist persuasion, a pure-minded, studious, devoutly religious
character; endowed thus early in life with the authority of a grave and
sagacious turn of mind. The friendship between Pierce and him appeared
to be mutually strong, and was of itself a pledge of correct deportment
in the former. His chief friend, I think, was a classmate named Little,
a young man of most estimable qualities and high intellectual promise;
one of those fortunate characters whom an early death so canonizes in the
remembrance of their companions, that the perfect fulfilment of a long
life would scarcely give them a higher place. Jonathan Cilley, of my own
class,--whose untimely fate is still mournfully remembered,--a person of
very marked ability and great social influence, was another of Pierce's
friends. All these have long been dead. There are others, still alive,
who would meet Franklin Pierce, at this day, with as warm a pressure of
the hand, and the same confidence in his kindly feelings as when they
parted from him nearly thirty years ago.