ut five years of age,
and one, little Mehitable, only three. Several of the older children
were already married, and when, in 1727, Mrs. Putnam took a second
husband, one Captain Thomas Perley, of Boxford, only the younger members
of her family went with her to live in the new home. There Israel
resided until he was about eighteen, and Boxford being only a few miles
distant from his birthplace, in the same county (Essex), he made
frequent visits to the old farm, to which he finally returned as part
owner before he attained his majority.

Numerous anecdotes are still related of him in Danvers, all tending to
illustrate the early development of those high qualities for which in
after-life he became conspicuous. Courage, enterprise, activity, and
perseverance, says his original biographer, were the first
characteristics of his mind. His disposition was frank and generous, as
his mind was fearless and independent. From his earliest years he
craved, and was always in pursuit of, some daring adventure, yet he was
the most sober and apparently contented youth in the village, loving
hard work, even seeking to perform a man's task at daily labor, while
yet a mere stripling. Brought up mainly on the farm, spending his days
in severe labor and his nights in sweet slumber, he became the peer of
all his companions in athletic feats involving strength and skill. He
could "pitch the bar," run, leap, wrestle with the best of them, and
more than held his own with the most doughty champion. But he never
boasted of his strength, nor sought occasions to display his skill,
being content with their mere possession.

His sense of fairness and self-respect, however, would not allow him to
become the butt of other people's ridicule, and when the need arose for
putting forth his energies in a good cause, he held nothing in reserve.
Such an occasion occurred the first time he paid a visit to Boston, the
metropolis of his State. He was roaming about in rustic fashion, when he
attracted the attention of a youth twice his size, who began to "make
fun" of him. Young Putnam bore the insult as long as he could, then he
"challenged, engaged, and vanquished his unmannerly antagonist, to the
great diversion of a crowd of spectators."

There were very few diversions for the youth of Putnam's time, so long
ago; but the boys, like those of modern times, indulged in
bird's-nesting now and then. Climbing to a tree top one day, in his
endeavor to secure a ne