Nathaniel Sackett

995. Nathaniel Sackett, 1792–1825, son of (462) Samuel and Polly Halstead Sackett, was born at Fishkill, Dutchess County, N. Y. He seems to have been a studious and precocious youth. On the fly leaf of a well preserved copy of Hutchenson's Xenophon, which was printed in London in 1797, I find written:
     "This book is presented by the Trustees of Dutchess Academy to Nathaniel Sackett, as a present for his excelling in the Greek Language at a public examination on 26th April 1805.
John Thomas, Senr. Trustee."
     Samuel Sackett evidently cherished the hope that his son Nathaniel would study divinity, but the young man planned otherwise. In 1810 he determined to go to sea, and from that time on he led a wandering and rather unprofitable life. He did not marry. The following record in his father's handwriting, appears in the family bible:
     "In a letter from my brother Nathaniel, who lives in Ohio, to his sister Hannah Arkills, he informs her that my son Nathaniel was drowned from a steamboat, lying at the wharf at Cincinnati in the month of January last, 1825."