Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

" ' Sunday was to me the most uncomfortable day of the Week, from the confine-
ment in dress and locomotion which it imposed on me. After Prayers and Breakfast
I was taken by my Mother to a Wash Tub, and thoroughly scrubbed with Soap and
Water from head to foot. I was then dressed in my Sunday Habit, which, as I was
growing fast, was almost constantly too small. My usual dress, at other times, was a
thin pair of Trowsers, and a Jacket of linsey-woolsey ; and
I wore no shoes, except
in frosty weather. On Sunday morning I was robed in a Scarlet Cloth Coat with
Silver Buttons, a white Silk Vest, white Cotton Stockings, tight Shoes, Scarlet Cloth
Breeches with Silver Buttons to match my Coat, a close Stock, Ruffles at the Breast
of my Jacket, and a cocked Beaver Hat with gold lace Band. In this attire I was
marched to the Meeting House, with orders not to soil my Clothes, and to sit still,
and by no means to play during meeting-time. . . .
" ' I liked loud preaching, and suffered only from the confinement of my Sunday
dress. ... As I was not allowed to sleep during meeting-time, my sufferings
were frequently extreme.
" ' After service, new toils awaited me. ... In the interval from the end of
services in the Meeting House till Sunset, my Father read to the Family from the
Bible or some printed Sermon, and when he had done I was examined by my Mother
in the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. I learned to recite this, in self-defense ; and I
comprehended it as well then as at any time afterwards. When this task was ended,
I was allowed to resume my ordinary Habit. It exhilarates my spirits, even at pres-
ent, to think of the exstacies I enjoyed when I put on my Jacket and Trowsers, and
quit my Stockings and Shoes. I used to run to the Garden Lawn or into the orchard ;
I would leap, run, lie down and roll on the grass, in short, play all the gambols of a
fat calf when loosened from confinement.' "
He entered Yale College in 1774—having been frightened away from
its halls the year before, when he had gone there for admission, by the
awful sight of silk-robed and bag-wigged Professors, and by not less awe-
inspiring student-gownsmen, strongly contrasting with other students who
had no gowns (all college-men will readily identify these luckless ones),
"who walked but never ran or jumped in the yard." After graduation, in
1778, he at once began the study of law with Judge Reeve of Litchfield,
though frequently inteiTupted by the state of the country. Arduous duties
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