Phineas F. Bresee - A Prince In Israel - Media Sabda Org

Phineas F. Bresee
A PRINCE IN ISRAEL
By E. A. Girvin
CHAPTER 1
Birth and Childhood -- Education -- Parentage and Ancestry -
Conversion -- Called to Preach
Phineas F. Bresee was born on the 31st of December, 1838, in the town of Franklin, Delaware
county, New York. Franklin is perhaps six or eight miles square, and is situated in a beautiful little
valley, through which flows a charming stream called the Ouleout. Here it was that the boy Phineas
fished and swam with his childish playmates.
He was born in a log house, about five miles from the village of Franklin. The whole district
including his birth place, took the name of the town of Franklin.
Early Memories
Doctor Bresee says of his early childhood: "I remember when I was a year old that my parents
moved from where I was born to the house where I lived until I was about twelve years of age. With
an ox team and a sled, they went over a cross road not often traveled. It was early in the spring, when
most of the snow was on the ground, and just as they were going from the rough road to the turnpike,
the oxen got frightened and turned to the left, off the road into the brush. I remember my father
jumping off the sled and getting the oxen back into the road. I can see the scene yet. I remember
when I was two years old, having a little red flannel dress with my legs bare, and burning my right
thigh against the stove. My mother put cream on it, and it felt cool and nice.
"I remember before I was three years old, playing with my little brother, two years younger than
I, who died when he was about a year old.
"My parents sent me to school when I was only three years of age. I came home one evening with
my little primer. It had pictures in it, and I said: 'Oh, Ma! I have got clear over to the wolf.' I was so
proud. I remember that still. We lived in that house, about half a mile from the valley road, until I
was twelve years old."
It was a very picturesque country, and the love of natural beauty which characterized Phineas F.
Bresee throughout his life, was doubtless intensified by the lovely environment of his earliest years.
From the days of his tender childhood he was taught to work on the farm, to drive horses and
oxen, to attend to the cows, and to do every kind of farm work. He did not go to school very much
of the time, but when he did, he attended the District School. At the age of twelve he had learned the
ordinary rudimentary things. He could read and write, and knew something of arithmetic and
geography. He took up the latter study before he could read. He and his schoolmates read United
States history in the school. In those days he was not a good reader, but knew by heart all the things
that were read in the district school. Of this stage of his boyhood, he says: "I could read first-rate the