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��LEVI W. BARTON.
��of maintaining the family, the pecuni- ary condition of which was such as to demand his time and labor even in early boyhood. He early learned the lesson of self-reliance and the necessity of economy and a proper use of time, a lesson which has contributed much to the success he has attained in life.
From the age of ten years till he left the district school at eighteen, his attendance was restricted to a short term in winter and this with frequent interruptions, he being engaged in man- ual labor all other parts of the year.
The condition of the family having somewhat improved, he left home when he was eighteen years old for the pur- pose of taking care of himself. But the way before him was beset with difficulties. He now wished to improve his condition and receive the advantages afforded to others ; but he had not the means. He must labor. So he com- promised the matter by taking his books with him as he went to his daily labor, and, as an opportunity presented itself, changed from labor to study. The writer well remembers the times, on rainy days, when Levi W. would call upon him, book in hand, for instruction in grammar or other common school branches. In this way, and by attend- ing one term at the Unity Academy, then under the instruction of Alonzo A. Miner, now Dr. Miner, of Boston, he fitted himself for teaching. He now regarded his school days closed and cheerfully chose the occupation of a farmer.
In 1 839, when twenty-one years of age, he married Miss Mary A. Pike, of New- port, a young lady of great worth, who died of scarlet fever in 1840, leaving an infant son five days old, afterwards the late Col. Ira McL. Barton. He placed his motherless boy in the care and keeping of a sister, Mrs. Amos Kidder, who tenderly cared for and reared the child.
By the death of his young wife, all his plans for life had perished. He could no longer endure a home so desolate. H« spent a part of the following year with friends who extended to him every kindness in their power. The year fol-
��lowing he collected together about one hundred dollars, all the worldly effects which he posessed, and commenced a classical course of study at Kimball Union Academy, then under the direc- tion of Dr. Cyrus Richards, a distin- guished .teacher and educator. There he pursued his studies with a zeal which would listen to no discourage- ment. During his stay of three years, he taught school each winter and spent his vacations in manual labor to eke out his scanty means.
It being often a matter of doubt how he should meet even the most prudent expenditures, separated, as he was, from his son, and still labor- ing under the load of domestic afflic- tion, few believed that he could com- plete a labor commenced and con- tinued under such circumstances. Al- though laboring at first under disad- vantages arising from lack of early school training, he rose by dint of ap- plication to stand abreast with his fel- lows in their usual studies, and to out- rank them as a speaker and debater.
He entered Dartmouth College in July, 1844, being then twenty-six years of age. Few who had witnessed his course thus far, dared predict that he would hold on his course four long years. Especially was this true of those who knew that he must rely up- on his own exertions to raise the means for his support. Still, nothing daunted, he entered upon his course and gradu- ated in the class of 1848, with Hon. James W. Patterson, Hon. H. P. Rolfe, Hon. Anson S. Marshall, Dr. A. B. Crosby, and others who have done honor to their Alma Mater. Mr. Bar- ton's standing in college was honorable, and his oration on the day of gradua- tion was highly commended through the public journals of the day.
While in college, he also spent the winters in teaching and the vacations in manual labor. His custom, as he informed the writer, was, as soon as the last recitation of a term had been heard, to start on foot for his mother's house, a distance of twenty-one miles ; and at the commencement of the next term he would return by the same conveyance.
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