In the spring of 1759 I again enlisted for another campaign I went to crown point. About this time I b[e]came acquainted with an amiable and accomplished young woman a school Teacher by the name of Lydia Gates the daughter of Nathan and Lydia Gates a man living in ease and affluance in the town of East Hadam state of Con<​necticut​> to whom I was shortly united in the bands of Matrimony and <​a​> most worthy <​and invaluable​> companion <​did​> she prove to for I soon discovered that She was not only pleasant and agreable by reason of the polish of Education but She also possesed that inestimable jewel which in a wife and Mother of a family is truly a pearl of great price namely <​a​> truly pious and devotional Character. In the course of 2 years I was <​moved​> into the town of Marlow where we remained untill we had a family of 4 children at that time <​marlow was​> a desolate wilderness. There was but 4 families in 40 Miles then it was I learned to prize the inestimable talents and virtues of my wife As our children were wholely deprived of the priviledge of schools she took the charge of their education which task she performed as none but mothers can <​do,​> debared in their earliest years and in thier mothers first experience in some measure from intercourse with the world their Mother’s percepts and example tooke deeper root in their infant minds and had a more lasting influence upon their future character than all the flowery eloquence of the pulpit