My school days at Kortright were confined to the district school, and three years in a private school kept by the village clergyman.[45] I then spent a year at Hartwick Seminary[46] near Cooperstown from which place I walked at the close of the term to my home in a day, a distance of 30 miles. The greater portion of the three years of private instruction I have always looked upon as lost or wasted, it having been mainly devoted to acquiring a smattering of the dead languages, Latin and Greek. I say wasted, unless the case were that of a person desirous of becoming a teacher, or of diving into moss covered theological traditions. Even such persons however would be better fitted to advance the general welfare of the race, if they devoted more energies to acquiring a knowledge of what pertains to that welfare, through methods of mental development that belong to modern times. I recently read in the Delhi Gazette a notice of the death of Robert F. McAuley, a member of the bar, at Kingston, on the Hudson river. He was an old schoolmate, and the youngest child of the Rev. William McAuley, referred to above as the village clergyman, whose private school I attended.
The son and I were very intimate in our youthful associations. This led to what I may call an epoch-making incident in my youthful history. In those days the military law of the state called for a general training day; all males between the ages of 18 and 45 were required to be enrolled and to do two days’ duty yearly—one day of company, and one of general training. General training was looked forward to yearly as a very important event, not only for doing military duty, but as a general holiday for the amusement and recreation of old and young, both male and female. Our fathers decided, in order to encourage us in our studies, to give us the privilege of attending the coming general training, which was to be held that year at Delhi; that is, provided we were studious, and attentive to our school duties.
On the morning of the anxiously looked for day we received a letter of introduction to General Erastus Root,[47] of Delhi, who at that time was the most prominent lawyer and statesman in that section of the country, if not in the State, and the commanding officer of the military force assembled. We were received very kindly, and placed in charge of his son, who took pleasure in showing us over the field where the exercises took place, and we went home at night feeling greatly elated over the reception and other delights of the trip.
Mr. McAuley was one of the most highly educated men of his day, a graduate of Glasgow, Scotland; he was as familiar with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as with the English language. His church was of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian faith—“Seceders” as they called themselves in those days; he was looked up to and revered by the entire community, and was the peace-maker in all differences that arose among his parishioners. The communicants numbered several hundred. The grounds about his church on every Sunday were crowded with teams; in fact Sunday was like a general training day in point of numbers. Within a radius of six miles from his church I am sure it is no exaggeration to say there would not be fifty of the populace absent from the services, which were made up of two long sermons each day, opening and closing with a prayer of corresponding length.
At his death the congregation split up into three churches which I am told have a comparatively feeble existence; in fact I was told on a recent visit to the old home by one of the most prominent members of the parent church, that he doubted whether they could longer sustain a clergyman and that they would probably be obliged to sell their building to the Methodists. Mr. McAuley raised to maturity 16 children—9 sons and 7 daughters; he lived to bury all I think but four or five. He was totally blind for several years before he died.
At the age of sixteen I was left an orphan by the death of my father, my mother having died five years previous. They both lie buried in a favorite corner of the ground he owned near the old home which was reserved at the sale of the estate after he died. Time and the elements have not dealt kindly with their monuments, but it has recently been a reverent occupation of my brothers and myself to restore them and enclose the grounds with a new wrought iron fence. The old buildings are still standing, but in a very dilapidated condition; the office, a two story building—the upper story, used by his many students as a dissecting room—stands unoccupied; even the outside front door was unclosed on a recent visit. But in most other things there has been little change. Kortright presents today essentially the same scene that I looked upon in boyhood,—except that the inspiring scenes of busy life along the highway are known no more.
On reviewing at this date the following few years of my free intercourse with the world, unchecked and uninfluenced by parental restraint, I am astonished at my escape from moral destruction, through the wiles and baneful influences, which are every where so prevalent and attractive in appearance to the uncultured, easily impressed, youthful mind. Does the world and do parents, realize their responsibility in watching over and guiding children through this, the most critical period, morally speaking, of life, from sixteen to twenty-one? If we only look about we may see a horde of stranded, mental and physical wrecks as compared with the few who are carried safely through that period.
After spending three years required by law as a medical student, beginning with Dr. E. T. Gibbs in Kortright, two years after the death of my father and ending with Drs. Fitch and Hine of Franklin, I was graduated and received my diploma from the Fairfield Herkimer County Medical College, which was afterward moved to Albany and merged into the college established there.[48] This was in the winter of 1839-40, three months before I reached my majority.
As an example of the wonderful advancement in all departments of knowledge, allow me here to mention the little that was then known of the wonderful, all-pervading principle of electricity. The professor of chemistry at the Fairfield College, James Hadley, when lecturing upon that subject, said to the class before him that this principle, so omnipresent throughout nature, could never be of practical use, for the reason that it could only be made to produce motion, being without other power, and to prove it he had an apparatus, driven by electricity, by which a wheel was made to revolve rapidly, but the slightest obstruction, as a feather, would stop it. He was estimated to be one of the highest of chemical authorities. Could he return to life again with what amazement would he look upon the influence that this element is exerting upon the enlightenment and advancement of the world.
In looking about for a place in which to open an office for the practice of my profession, I decided to stop at what is now Scranton,[49] Pennsylvania, then a hamlet known as Razorville and a lumbering section. Coal was known and the people of the region were burning it but it had no commercial value, for the simple reason that there were no railroads or other facilities for transporting it to market. I finally abandoned the idea and on the 9th day of April, 1840, landed in Unadilla and took board with Erastus Kingsley but not having the traditional shilling piece in my pocket; instead I had $5 borrowed money, and a debt of $700 on my shoulders.