University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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dtxgtirc Smith Morriii attatfsaie SKETCH, though but a brief and imperfect one, of this veteran legislator, the Nestor of Congress and illustrious friend of educa- tion, should have interest for every reader of the Ariel. Nlr. Nlorrill was born in Strafford, Vt., April 14, 1810, being the son of Nathaniel Nlorrill, and grandson of Smith Morrill, who was one of the pioneers of that town. The father of Senator Morrill was a success- ful farmer and manufacturer. His son, the distinguished subject of this sketch, received his early education in the public schools and local acad- emy. At the age of fifteen he stepped behind the counter of a Strafford merchant as a clerk, and obtained further mercantile experience in the successive employ of two prominent merchants in Portland, Nle. In 1829 he returned to Strafford to become the commercial partner of the late Judge Jedediah Harris, who was the leading merchant in Stratford, an extensive farmer, and an eminent citizen of- that county and of the State. This business connection was terminated only by the death of Judge Harris, in 1855. Seven years previous to that event, however, Mr. Morrill ceased to give his personal attention to the business, and devoted himself chiefly to agricultural pursuits. From his boyhood Nlr. Nlorrill had given what of his waking hours was not occupied in regular labor to books. While a clerk he read through Blackstone's Commentaries, and in subsequent years he pur- sued a self-directed course of reading of standard and classical authors. He was thus storing his retentive memory with facts, and fitting himself, consciously or unconsciously, for public life and national usefulness and fame. Until he was forty-four years old, however, he had neither sought nor held any public office higher than that of a Justice of the Peace, although in the circle of his numerous acquaintance he had become known as a man of much more than ordinary intellectual ability, of remarkable balance of judgment, of marked business capacity, of uni- form courtesy and of pleasing personal address. Suddenly he stepped to the front. ln 1854 the late Andrew Tracy, of Woodstock, Representa- 4

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TO JUSTIN SMITH NIORRILL, SENATOR PROM VERMONT, FATHER OF THE COLLEGE ENDOWNIENT ACTS, STATESIVIAN, EINANOIER, PRONIOTER OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF ALL CLASSES, THIS VOLUME IS RESPEOTEIILLY DEDICATED. 3

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