Cyrus Whitney

http://wiki.whitneygen.org/wrg/index.php/Family:Whitney,_Cyrus_(1770-1860)

Cyrus, son of Lemuel and Thankful Griffith Whitney, was born 20 Sep 1770, in Spencer, MA. He moved with his father's family to Tolland, CT, in 1778, and to Springfield, VT, in 1780. The family moved in the primitive fashion, which was then the only possible one, carrying their own food and driving their live stock before them. It was Cyrus' task on the way to Vermont, to lead two wild colts. At Bellows Falls he separated from his family, who kept to the east side of the Connecticut river, and took his way alone, save for the company of his colts, along the rough pathway and through unbridged streams in the bleak December weather to Eureka, a little settlement in Springfield, 15 miles away, where he arrived in safety though he was at that time barely ten years old. The colts, let us here say, were of the stock of the captured horses of Burgoyne's officers, and become noted horses in the new state. Cyrus was sent to school six months there, in Connecticut, to be taught to read, and three in Vermont to learn to write. He was an insatiate reader, particularly of history. The Bible he regularly read through every year after his conversion, and toward the close of his life he read it through three or four times a year. He was well acquainted with the Apocryphal books and had read the entire works of Josephus twice. He was a farmer, and was able to do many kinds of handicraft which the farmer now seldom undertakes. He was a Baptist, and a Whig with strong anti-slavery principles. He resided Springfield, VT