American Biographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men: With Portrait Illustrations on Steel; Michigan Volume (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from American Biographical History of Eminent and Self-Made Men: With Portrait Illustrations on Steel; Michigan Volume

Ray, soon after Jervis came to his house, bought a. Negro girl. This gave Mrs. Ray an opportunity to prae tice her schemes of persecution on the child, by making him feel that he was nothing more than a slave. It was a year or more before his mother came to see him; then, finding how cruelly he was treated, she took him away. Mr. Adams well remembers the scrubbing she gave him in order to make him look like her boy. When seven years old, he removed with his mother and step-father, John Rogers, to Hoosick, Rensselaer County, New York, where he remained until he was nine years of age. His step-father was honest and temperate, but always poor. In the year 1817, known as the cold season, the cr0ps were all killed by the frosts; and, the next year, his parents removed to Cherry Valley, New York. In 1819 they removed to Monroe County, and settled near Rochester. At this time, Rochester was but a small village, with only one bridge across the river, and the country around was but thinly inhabited; while it was so unhealthy that there were not well people enough to take care of the sick. In this emergency, necessity compelled them to become a town charge; and, as if to add a keener edge to their grief, the law provided that the poor who had not gained a residence should be transported to the town from which they came. Hence Mr. Rogers and his family were compelled to travel from town to town until, in the spring of 1820, their eyes were gladdened by the familiar sight of the old Hoosick Mountains. The same spring, Jervis Adams' mother bound him out to her brother-ih-law. He was to stay two years, and receive his board, clothing, and six months' schooling each year. The last he did not get; but served his time faithfully, though going poorly clad. An important period in Mr. Adams' life begins here, and we give it in his own language: At the age of fourteen, I began to do for myself, on a very small scale.

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