he bore him gently to the rude place of repose he had prepared for him. Under such circumstances, the poorest accommodations are enjoyed with a soul-inspiring sense of comfort, of which those who are in health, among friends, secure from danger, and surrounded with the luxuries of life, can form no conception.

With our suffering soldier the point of danger appears to have been passed, by this timely assistance of his friend. How much he was afterwards indebted to the same, or some other generous heart, we have no recorded or traditionary testimony to inform us. He returned to Pittsfield, and was married to Miss Paulina Phelps, on the 22d day of March, 1781. The family records inform us that he was born December 15th, 1757; and that Miss Phelps was born May 1st, 1764.

Five years after their marriage, they removed to Hampton, in the State of New York, where the survivor of the dangers and hardships of the revolutionary struggle was promoted to the office of captain in the militia of that state. In the last war with England, he was a member of the company called the Silver Grays, a volunteer body, to whose protection the public stores and other property at Whitehall were intrusted, on the approach of the British army along the shores, and of the British fleet on the waters of Lake Champlain. As a citizen, the character of Captain Miller was irreproachable. He never made a public profession of religion; but his house was often the place to which the neighbors gathered to hear the preaching of the gospel. He was taken away suddenly, with one of his daughters, by the pestilence which broke out in the army at Burlington, Vermont, and swept over a considerable portion of the country, with the most terrible fatality. He died December 30th, 1812, three days after his daughter.

Captain Miller's wife was the daughter of Elder Elnathan Phelps, a minister of the Baptist church, and well known, in his day, for the plain, scriptural character of his preaching, through the whole section of country extending from western Massachusetts, along the line of Vermont and New York, to Lake Champlain. She was one of the earliest members of the Baptist church formed at Low Hampton, then a branch of the church at Orwell,

Vermont, where Elder Phelps resided. We have the most convincing evidence of the sterling character of her piety; and shall find, as we progress, another instance to add to the long list, which the church of God keeps among her choicest memorials, to illustrate the power of a Christian mother's deportment and prayers, in recovering a gifted son from a dangerous position, and bringing him where his powerful natural energies, after being renewed by the spirit of God, would be devoted to the defence of the faith, and the edification of the church. Her death will be noticed in another place.

Thus were blended in the parents of William, as their strongest traits of character, the highest virtues which heaven and earth can confer on man- piety and patriotism. If patriotism became most conspicuous to the public eye, by its exhibition on the field of danger and suffering, where the husband moved, its claims on the comfort of the wife, in her retirement, were felt to be sufficiently heavy. And if the mother, by her public but appropriate profession of faith, made her piety the most noticeable, the father yielded, at least, his assent and respect to that name and service which had won the heart and added to the graces of William's mother. The soldier of the Revolution was to lead his son into scenes, and bring him under a worldly discipline, which would add to his efficiency; and the camp, for a time, would feel as sure of his permanent attachment as it was to be proud of his soldierly honor; but the disciple of the cross would, at last, see that son enlisted under a different banner, to become a leader of other ranks to a different warfare, and a different kind of glory!

The calling of William's grandfathers was entirely different; but there was a remarkable similarity in their end. Elder Phelps was suddenly attacked, while on a journey from Orwell to Pittsfield, by the army epidemic; he was found in a dying state by the wayside, in Pownal, Vermont, where he soon after died, and was buried by the side of their pastor's grave, all unknown to his friends at home, till these last acts of respect and affection had been completed. He is mentioned in "Benedict's History of the Baptists," (p. 485,) among "the first Baptist ministers who settled in Vermont."

This

took place "about the year 1780." He died in peace January 2d, 1813. Of his grandfather Miller, but little more is recollected than his escape from death at the hands of the Indians, almost by miracle, to find a grave among strangers, on his return from the wars of our colonial history; probably from some one of the ill-advised and unsuccessful attempts on Canada, at the commencement of the Revolutionary War.

The traditionary form of his Indian adventures is to this effect: Somewhere in the western part of Massachusetts, when every exposed white settlement was protected by a rude fort, the grandfather and several companions were going to one of them, probably to strengthen the garrison, and must travel several miles by the road, or take a nearer route through the wilderness. Mr. Miller chose to take the shorter route, alone. He had come within hearing of the fort without harm, when a sudden stirring of the bushes awakened his fears, and he started to run. At the same instant the Indians fired their muskets, and several balls passed through the skirts of his heavy coat. He had proceeded but a few steps before he stumbled and fell to the ground; but his fall saved his life, for the hatchets of the Indians passed at the instant directly over his head. His self-command now returned; he arose to his feet, took aim at the spot where the savages were concealed, fired, turned and fled. The report brought some of the garrison, including several friendly Indians, to the spot. These Indians had already decided that the last gun heard was that of a white man, and that he had killed an Indian, for they heard his death-yell. On repairing to the spot, marks of blood were seen; and these were traced to a pond near by, into which it was supposed the dead Indian was thrown by his brethren.

It is thought by Deacon Samuel D. Colt, an aged, highly intelligent, and respected gentleman of Pittsfield, where he has resided since he was a child, that this incident is connected with the history of "Hutchinson's Fort," so called from the man who built it, during "the second French war." It was located about two miles west of the village. Its site is now covered by a brick dwelling-house. None of the other forts were then occu

pied. The few inhabitants of Pittsfield nearly all left the place at the time, on which account there is an omission in the town records for several years. Deacon Colt remarked, on referring to the adventure, that "this Miller was a courageous fellow." Mr. Miller afterwards fell a victim to the small-pox, as before stated.

Such, then, were the family recollections and public events which were to make the first and deepest impression on the strong intellect and generous heart of the subject of this memoir.

When William's parents removed from Pittsfield, in 1786, the section which embraced what is now known as Low Hampton was an almost uninhabited wilderness.* The village of Fairhaven did not then exist. And the town of Whitehall, now one of the familiar and important centres of trade and travel, was marked only by a few rude dwellings, the inhabitants of which were in danger of being crushed by the trees impending from the mountain sides over their heads. Half a dozen, or possibly half a score, of farm-houses were scattered over the country, between the southern extremity of Lake Champlain and Poultney, Vermont. But it was naturally a much more fertile and inviting country than the western part of Massachusetts. William was then

about four years of age.

The farm selected by Mr. Miller consisted of about a hundred acres. It was taken on a lease, for which twenty bushels of wheat were to be paid annually. The farm was located near the bank of Poultney river, about six miles from the lake. After a suitable clearing had been effected, the logs of the felled trees were converted into a dwelling, and farming life in the wilderness, with its toils, privations, and hardships, was fairly begun. This was the condition of things to which young William's lot consigned him. The difficulties with which he had to contend need not all be enumerated.

In his early childhood, marks of more than ordinary intellectual strength and activity were manifested. A

* The name then applied to this section was "Skeenesborough; though its extent or boundaries do not appear to have been very definite.

few years made these marks more and more noticeable to all who fell into his society. But where were the powers of the inner man to find the nutriment to satisfy their cravings, and the field for their exercise?

Besides the natural elements of education, the objects, the scenes, and the changes of the natural world, which have ever furnished to all truly great minds their noblest aliment, the inspiring historical recollections associated with well-known localities of the neighboring country, and the society of domestic life, there was nothing within William's reach but the Bible, the psalter, and prayer-book, till he had resided at Low Hampton several years. But were ever such natural scenery and such historical associations before blended together in so confined a circle?

A few rods behind and west of the log house, the level which began at the bank of the river was broken by one of those natural terraces which mark so often the long slopes of the outspread valleys of our country. From this beautiful elevation, a forest scene might be witnessed, at the return of every autumn, that was so rich in its variegated beauties, and covered so extended a field, that it could not fail to entrance the soul of even an ordinary lover of nature, on beholding it.

From the summit of the sharp mountainous ridge, half a mile further west, there was spread out before the eye a view as captivating by its grandeur as that from the lowlier position was by its beauty. The extent of country seen from this higher point was not less than fifty miles from north to south, while it stretched away easterly to the Green Mountains, the distant outline of which, including some of the higher peaks, seemed to rest against the sky.

Sometimes a dense, motionless sea of vapor spread over the low plain, through which the hill-tops rose up like islands, and to which the neighboring mountain sides seemed to form the coast. From the wide-spread surface of this mimic sea, the smoke of the scattered farm-houses arose, and, as it became chilled in the air above, turned and sunk into the vapory bed, very much in the form, but not with the force, of the water spouted by a whale in the ocean. Again, the rising smoke from