king for a clerk in a store, application to be made at
the office. I at once wrote to Joseph S. Hubbard,* a former
schoolmate, asking him to call at the office and get the name of the
advertiser. This he did, and gave me the name of Benj. P. Dix of
Groton. I wrote to Mr. Dix, and upon the receipt of an answer, I went
with my father to see him. The result was an agreement to work for him
for three years. Terms, board and one hundred dollars for the first
year, one hundred and twelve dollars for the second year, one hundred
and twenty-five dollars for the third year. I commenced my clerkship
with Mr. Dix the fifth day of March, and in the month of September my
contract was ended by his failure. His business was small, his manners
were abrupt, his capital had been limited, and his family expenses, not
extravagant, had exceeded his income, and bankruptcy in the end was
inevitable. His sales were chiefly of boots, shoes, leather, and
medicines, of which he kept the only stock in the village.

Mr. Dix was a man of exact ways of life. The sales made were entered
each day at the close of business, the cash was carefully counted, and
the cash-book was balanced. But these careful and businesslike ways
did not save him, and in September he made an assignment of his
property to his father Benj. Dix, and to Caleb Butler, for the benefit
of his creditors according to the preferences specified in the
assignment. Mr. Butler was not a creditor, but Mr. Dix, senior, was
much the largest creditor. In fact he had furnished his son with the
chief part of the means of doing business. He was a tanner by trade,
and he had gradually enlarged his business by employing workmen to make
boots and shoes. A portion of his product of leather and all his
product of boots and shoes had been turned into the son's store.

The deficiency of means on the part of the son was represented at each
settlement by an addition to the debt due to the father. The debts
amounted to about five thousand dollars. Following the assignment Mr.
Dix left home, and he did not return until the spring or summer of
1836. Imprisonment for debt in a modified form then existed. He and
his family were proud, and he may have wished to avoid seeing his
neighbors and acquaintances while his misfortune was fresh upon him.
His wife was a granddaughter of General Ward, who had been the rival of
General Washington for the command of the army at the opening of the
War of