Hearne, of Sussex co., Del. My mother was Harriet Hobbs, daughter of William Hobbs, of Laurel Del., and was his only child. I was born in Laurel, Del., Sept. 24, 1818, and was the second child of my parents. The elder, named Ann., died at about the age of five years; I can just remember her, being about three years old at the time of her death. The others, both girls, named Lavinia and Mary Jane, were younger than myself and died in infancy. In my boyhood, what time I went to school was in Laurel, till I was about twelve or thirteen years old; during the latter part of the that time the schools were very poor in Laurel, and part of the time there were none at all. By reason of the children of the town having nearly all died off, 1829. 1830 and 1831, so that about 1832 I was sent to the Old Buckingham Academy, Worcester Co., Md., where I continued between three and four years. Till the death of my father, 1835. This was a very good school, of which the Rev. Alexander Campbell was principal, and Rev. James L. Vallandingham was assistant. At the Buckingham Academy I made good progress in all the English branches, as well as in Latin and Greek, but Mar. 1835, my father died, and I being the only child, and my mother in poor health. I was obliged to quit school. I was put into my father's store to carry on the business, in my seventeenth year, and so continued until my mother's death. Jan, 1836. After that, I being under age, my father's and mother's estate were by my mother's will wound up by Henry Bacon. An uncle by marriage with father's youngest sister. Mary. I then went into a store as clerk until my marriage with Maria Elizabeth Ross, while I was still a minor, not quite nineteen years old. I then went into the mercantile business on my own account, in partnership with my wife's father, Caleb Ross. In 1840 the firm of Hearne & Ross was organized, the members being William H. Ross, my wife's brother, and myself. This firm was dissolved, 1842, the firm property divided between us. I continued to keep the store until 1844, when I moved to a farm I had bought, called the "Garden of Eden," on the Choptank River, Dorchester Co., Md. I continued farming until 1857, when I moved to Hannibal, Mo. There I went into the manufacture of plug tabacco with David J. and John H. Garth, under the firm name of D. J. Garth & Co. In the fall of 1862, being the second year of the Civil War, we all moved to New York City, continuing the tabacco business there until the

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Thanks to Candy Hearn for transcribing this page.