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John Lyman Fenton.
Private 9th Mass. Battery, August 5, 1862; Sergeant; died at Baltimore, July 28, 1863, of a wound received at Gettysburg, Pa., July 2.John Lyman Fenton, son of Orrin and Mehitable J (White) Fenton, was born in Mansfield, Connecticut, March 5, 1835. He was the youngest of a family of four. When he was about a year old, his father removed to Dixfield, Maine, and died four years later. The widowed mother, being dependent on her own exertions for support, came to Cambridge, Massachusetts, leaving John with his grandmother, in Dixfield, till he was ten years of age; when he also was brought to Cambridge, where he attended Mr. Mansfield's school. Shortly afterward, however, his knowledge of his mother's circumstances induced him, greatly against his tastes and inclinations, to leave school and assist in his own support. He entered into mercantile business; and while employed at Cambridge, formed the acquaintance of some students, which rekindled a strong desire for literary knowledge. At last he determined upon his course, and though expecting to contend against many obstacles, resolved to acquire a professional education. On returning home one evening, he expressed his intentions to his mother, who was astonished, and saw no way of gratifying his wishes. But there was a will, and a way was provided. He entered the Webster Grammar School in Cambridgeport when seventeen years of age, and rapidly fitted himself to enter the Cambridge High School, where he remained four years, under the instruction of Mr. William F. Bradbury. He completed the prescribed course in 1857, and entered Harvard College the same year, then twenty-two years old. Owing to pecuniary embarrassments, he left college at the close of the first term of the Sophomore year, and entered the Dane Law School. He afterwards studied in the office of J. P. Richardson, Esq., in Cambridge, was admitted to the bar June 21,
