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[229]

Stephen Goodhue Emerson.

Private 1st Mass. Vols. (Infantry), July, 1862; killed at Chancellorsville, Va., May 3, 1863.


the following extracts are taken from the autobiography of Stephen Emerson in the Class-Book. They are given at some length, because in no other way can the traits of his simple and manly nature so well be shown.

I was born on the 17th of July, 1838, in Chester, New Hampshire. My father's name was Nathaniel French Emerson, and he was also a native of this town, as well as my grandfather, John Emerson. Up to 1858 my father owned a large farm in Chester, and I was brought up a farmer's boy, which I have always esteemed a circumstance to congratulate myself on, though, in many respects, likely enough, it was not so. At any rate, they were happy years, and gave me, perhaps, a good degree of bodily strength, and a great mass of pleasant recollections pertaining to rural scenes, farming occupations, the pleasant vicissitudes of the seasons, and a thousand other happy things of that nature, which I shall carry with me all my life. If I were ever to be a poet, I would go back to those halcyon days for the material of my poetry; and now, my affection for the soil, for the plough, the scythe, and the apple-basket is still fresh, and, as far as mere propensities go, I would love to be a farmer now better than almost anything else. But these particulars are unessential, and I pass them over.

I attended district schools, &c., until I was thirteen years old, when I first became interested in study at a school kept by Silas W. Moore of Chester, who was an expert teacher, and drew out my ambition remarkably. Then I attended Chester Academy for three years (also under him), and studied Latin and Greek somewhat, and in 1855 went away to try my hand at school-teaching in Salem, New Hampshire.

I was now thinking of going to college, not from any special circumstance that I know of, excepting that I liked study and such pursuits pretty well; and, on the other hand, my father's financial prospects were not favorable. But I had an impression that, having only one life to live, it was best to commence it wisely and deliberately, and furthermore that a college education would add much to

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