قراءة كتاب Extracts from the Diary and Correspondence of the Late Amos Lawrence; with a brief account of some incidents of his life
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Extracts from the Diary and Correspondence of the Late Amos Lawrence; with a brief account of some incidents of his life
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DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH.—ANCESTRY.—PARENTS.
Amos Lawrence was born in Groton, Mass., on the 22d of April, 1786. His ancestor, John Lawrence, was baptized, according to the records, on the 8th of October, 1609, at Wisset, County of Suffolk, England, where the family had resided for a long period, though originally from the County of Lancaster.
Butler, in his "History of Groton," has, among other details, the following:
"The first account of the ancestor of the numerous families of this name in Groton and Pepperell, which can be relied upon as certain, is, that he was an inhabitant of Watertown as early as 1635. He probably came in the company which came with Governor Winthrop, in 1630. His given name was John, and that of his wife was Elizabeth. Whether they were married in England or not, has not been ascertained. Their eldest child was born in Watertown, January 14, 1635. He removed to Groton, with probably all his family, at an early period of its settlement, as his name is found in the records there in 1663. He was an original proprietor, having a twenty-acre right."
Of the parents of the subject of this memoir, the same author writes:
"Samuel Lawrence, the son of Captain Amos Lawrence, sen., was an officer in the continental army, in the former part of the Revolutionary War. He was in the battle of Bunker Hill, where a musket-ball passed through his beaver hat. He was also in the battle in Rhode Island, where he served as adjutant under General Sullivan. On the 22d day of July, 1777, being at home, on a furlough, for the express purpose, he was married to Susanna Parker. * * * *
"Having faithfully served in the cause of his country during the term of his engagement, he returned to his native town, to enjoy the peace and quiet of domestic life on his farm. He was elected by his townsmen to some of the highest offices in their gift; he was a deacon of the church, and a justice of the peace quorum unus. He took a deep interest in providing means for the education of youth, particularly in establishing and supporting the seminary in Groton, which now, in gratitude to him and his sons, bears the family name. Of this institution he was a trustee thirty-three years, and in its benefits and advantages he gave ample opportunities for all his children to participate. Here their minds undoubtedly received some of those early impressions, the developments and consequences of which it will be the work of their biographers hereafter to portray. No deduction, however, should here be made from the importance of parental instruction, to add to the merit of academical education. The correct lessons given by the mother in the nursery are as necessary to give the right inclination to the tender mind as are those of the tutor in the highest seminary to prepare it for the business of life and intellectual greatness. In the present case, all the duties incumbent on a mother to teach her offspring to be good, and consequently great, were discharged with fidelity and success. Both parents lived to see, in the subject of their care, all that they could reasonably hope or desire. He died November 8, 1827, æt. seventy-three; and his venerable widow, May 2, 1845, æt. eighty-nine."
Mr. Lawrence writes, in 1849, to a friend:
"My father belonged to a company of minute-men in Groton, at the commencement of the Revolution. On the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, when the news reached town that the British troops were on the road from Boston, General Prescott, who was a neighbor, came towards the house