The Autobiography of Edward Jarvis: Part I

/1/ Edward Jarvis, son of Francis and Melicent [sic] Jarvis recorded in the life of Charles Jarvis, was born in Concord, Mass., Jan. 9th, 1803.' From early childhood he attended the town schools, almost without interruptions, until he was sixteen years old. He was fond of mechanics. In his boyhood, he made windmills, water mills, trip-hammers, and put them on the corner of the buildings, or in a little water course in his father's field. He was deeply interested in a neighboring mill whose proprietor introduced various machines for the execution of his purposes; and such of them as he could imitate with his shingles, boards, bricks, and the carpenter's tools which his father had, he repeated at home. The new trip-hammers, the new form of complicated bellows for the forges, going by water, were objects of great pleasure to him. Perhaps more than all, the printing press which was brought to, and set up, in his neighborhood, was the object of the intensest interest to him, when he was twelve years old. He had never seen one before nor comprehended the manner of printing on paper. Every new improvement introduced by the mechanics of the village attracted his attention until it became familiar to him. At the same time he inherited and developed his father's taste for reading. Like other /2/ children he first inclined to fictions, tales. There were few even of these in his town in his young days. His father had a small library which was composed principally of histories, travels, sermons, philosophical treatises and a few novels. There was a good public library of which his father was one of the proprietors and officials. This, like his father's, was filled with graver works than children usually care to read. Edward first read the tales: Robinson Crusoe, Fool ofQuality, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle.2 Soon these were exhausted;