GEORGE DEWEY By Lois Eleanob Ejknby IN the latter half of the sixteenth century the Frendi Hu- guenot f amily, Douai, came to Kent, England, seeking for religious freedom. The same motive later sent the founder of the American Dewey family to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where he settled in 1634. This is the first that we hear of the family of our famous American admiral. George Dewey was horn in the little town of Montpelier, Vermont, December 26, 1837, the youngest of three brothers. His boyhood days were spent in this beautiful New England town among the Green Mountains, where his father, Dr. Julius Yemans Dewey, had settled after finishing his medical course at the University of Vermont. The death of his mother, when he was five years of age, made his father's influence of the greatest importance and of it he says, **To my father's influ- ence in my early training I owe, primarily, all that I have ac- complished in the world. ' ' His early life was that of the boys in a small American town, which Dewey considers *4s about as healthy a life as a growing boy can lead. ' ' A life of Hannibal early stirred his love for soldiers and forts and in the winter he built snow fortresses and entrenchments and proudly led forth his sol- diers to snowball battles. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the Military Academy at Norwich, Vermont. There the boys lived in dormitories, and had regular military drill. While at this Academy he, with four others, was brought into the Windsor County Court at Woodstock, Vermont, for break- ing up a religious meeting by singing negro melodies outside the window of the room where the meeting was held. There were no gymnasiums in those days where a boy could work off his surplus energy, and continual study in a solenm manner had awakened the spirit of mischief. After this somewhat serious outbreak Dr. Dewey took his son from Norwich and later in the year 1854 sent him to the Naval Academy at An-
Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/165
This page needs to be proofread.