THE ESSEX ANTIQUARIAN.

VOL. I.

SALEM, MASS., MAY, 1897.

REV. JACOB BAILEY.

MR. BAILEY was a son of Deacon David and Mary (Hodgkins) Bailey, and was born in Rowley, Mass., in the ancient house pictured on the next page, in 1731. His father had a large family; and though always industrious and saving he obtained for them but a scanty maintenance.

the

The means for securing an education, beyond the slightest knowledge of writing, reading and arithmetic, were not within grasp of poor boys in Rowley at that time. Extreme bashfulness added to young Bailey's poverty the hopelessness of ever being anything more than a drudge within a world whose confines were little more than the extent of his vision. From his early childhood he had an insatiable desire for knowledge and travel; a thirst which he could never hope to satisfy. He had no books. They were scarce and high; and his labor must be bestowed upon that which would assist in obtaining bread and clothing for the family from

day to day.

The poor are sometimes ambitious, and by some means sooner or later such will lift themselves into prominence and posi

tions of responsibility.

No. 5.

One day some of his scribbling came to the knowledge of Rev. Jedediah Jewett, the pastor of the parish in which Mr. Bailey was born, and a learned Christian gentleman. He was much impressed with the originality and slumbering talents of the young man, and came to his father's house to see him. When Jacob was called, on learning who the visitor was, he

was so diffident that he went into the woods and remained there until Mr. Jewett had departed.

Arrangements were, however, made. with Jacob's father by which the boy was to study a year with Mr. Jewett gratuitously. His thirst for learning was so intense, that after a great struggle he overcame his diffidence, and placed himself under the agreed tutelage; thus taking his first step out of obscurity.

Mr. Bailey entered Harvard college in 1751, at the age of twenty. Poverty placed him, in those days of social dis

tinctions, at the foot of his class, in which were John Wentworth, afterward baronet and governor of New Hampshire

and Nova Scotia ; John Adams, afterward

second president of the United States; William Browne, who became the royal governor of Bermuda, and a justice of the Sewall, who also became a justice of the supreme court of Massachusetts; David supreme court of Massachusetts; Tristram Dalton, in after years a member of

Without books, this young man did the best thing to do; he made them. Arduous toil occupied the day, but during the hours of darkness his time was his own. When the family were asleep he frequently spent hours in writing, upon such paper as he could find, thoughts that the United States senate; Samuel Locke, came to him, occurrences of the day, de- afterward president of the University; and scriptions of the neighborhood, the peo- Rev. William W. Wheeler, a missionary ple, their customs, etc., thus acquiring of the Church of England.

skill and knowledge and accomplishing

Mr. Bailey relied principally upon Mr.

that which books alone could not effect. Jewett for means to pursue his course of