Harvard memorial biographies ...

Stephen Goodhue Emerson.

229

STEPHEN GOODHUE EMERSON.
Private Ist Mass. Vols. (Infantry), July, 1862; killed at Chancellorsville,
Va., May 3, 1863.
T HE following extracts are taken from the autobiography
of Stephen Emerson in the Class-Book. They are given
at some length, because in no other way can the traits of his
simple and manly nature so well be shown.
"I was born on the I7th of July, 1838, in Chester, New Hampshire. My father's name was Nathaniel French Emerson, and he
was also a native of this town, as well as my grandfather, John
Emerson. Up to 1858 my father owned a large farm in Chester,
and I was brought up a farmer's boy, which I have always esteemed
a circumstance to congratulate myself on, though, in many respects,
likely enough, it was not so. At any rate, they were happy years,
and gave me, perhaps, a good degree of bodily strength, and a great
mass of pleasant recollections pertaining to rural scenes, farming
occupations, the pleasant vicissitudes of the seasons, and a thousand other happy things of that nature, which I shall carry with me
all my life. If I were ever to be a poet, I would go back to those
halcyon days for the material of my poetry; and now, my affection
for the soil, for the plough, the scythe, and the apple-basket is still
fresh, and, as far as mere propensities go, I would love to be a
farmer now better than almost anything else. But these particulars
are unessential, and I pass them over.
"I attended district schools, &c., until I was thirteen years old,
when I first became interested in study at a school kept by Silas
W. Moore of Chester, who was an expert teacher, and drew out my
ambition remarkably. Then I attended Chester Academy for three
years (also under him), and studied Latin and Greek somewhat, and
in 1855 went away to try my hand at school-teaching in Salem, New
Hampshire.
"I was now thinking of going to college, not from any special
circumstance that I know of, excepting that I liked study and such
pursuits pretty well; and, on the other hand, my father's financial
prospects were not favorable. But I had an impression that, having
only one life to live, it was best to commence it wisely and deliberately, and furthermore that a college education would add much to