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Henry Jonus Doolittle
Captain and A. D. C. (U. S. Vols.), April, 1862; died at Racine, Wis., August 10, 1862, of disease contracted in the service.Henry Jonas Doolittle was born March 4, 1839, in Rochester, New York, the son of James R. and Mary Lovina (Cutting) Doolittle. He was a descendant of Abraham Doolittle, Dowlittle, or Dulitell, who took the oath of allegiance to the Colony of New Haven in 1644, and was chosen marshal of the Colony twenty years later. In his autobiography in the Class-Book he thus describes his school and college days:—
I was kept steadily in school (the common school) till I was ten years old, when I was transferred to a high school at Warsaw, under the charge of Mr. Horace Briggs. My father removed to Wisconsin. When I was twelve I entered the school of one Stow, in Racine, and began Latin. In about one year I was put under the charge of Rev. Roswell Park, D. D., who opened a school at Racine, under a charter from the State incorporating Racine College. I continued at school here until I was seventeen. I then left for one year; and during the summer months I worked with a party of engineers on the construction of the Racine and Mississippi Railroad. In June, 1857, I determined to come to Harvard; and, after a little brushing up in my studies, came on. I reached Cambridge in August, was examined in September, and admitted as an undergraduate. Owing to my poor fit in the classics, and especially in the Greek, I was conditioned in Greek Grammar and prose reading, but soon rubbed the conditions off. The first vacation I spent with my relatives in Wyoming County. The next term I “trained” with other members of my Class for the race to come off at Springfield in July, 1858. Owing to the death of one of the Yale crew by drowning, the race was given up. I trained the next term for rowing. We pulled in the Juniata at the celebration of the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, our boat taking the second prize. In July following I pulled at Worcester in
