Silas Hardy was born in Nelson, April 3, 1827, and made his home there till twenty-nine years of age. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1855, taught the following year, in Foxcroft academy, Me., studied law in the office of Hon. Levi Chamberlain, at Keene, and was admitted to practice, at Newport, N. H., September, 1858. He immediately located in Keene, where he has pursued his practice ever since, with success, which, with remarkable industry, and economy, has placed him in the rank of large tax payers in the city. In March, 1859, he was appointed by Governor William Haile, register of probate,- which office he held five years, when he was appointed judge of probate, which office he held ten and a third years, till a political guillotine severed his connection with the same. He was the eighth of a family of ten children, eight boys and two girls, all of whom were noted for good health, muscular strength, and practical common sense, and all lived till the youngest one was of mature years and of prodigious strength. The family being large, and the means of the father limited, Silas was obliged to go cut to work at the age of eleven, till of full age, being subjected to all the hardships and disadvantages of such a life-his only opportunity for schooling being from six to twelve weeks in winter, the rest of the year was spent in hard work, yet at twenty, he managed to teach his first school. During his minority he earned in this way over $700. Every cent he spent for his education was earned with his hands and brain. He came of Revolutionary stock, both of his grandfathers, Deacon Noah Hardy and David Kimball having been soldiers in the war of the Revolution-some of his kindred falling at the battle of Bunker Hill. His grandfather Hardy was .born in 1758, at Hollis, N. H., and his grandfather Kimball at or near Boxford, Mass., in 1760. The former died at Antrim, N. H., December 22, 1835, and the latter in Nelson, October 18, 1842, aged respectively 77 and 82. His grandmother Sarah Hardy (Spofford) died at Antrim, May 9, 1850, aged 85; and his grandmother, Lydia Kimball (Runnells), died at Nelson, January 22, 1867, aged 87. Soon after the Revolution, these grandfathers with their young wives settled in Nelson, both raising up children-five Hardys and seven Kimballs. In these families were Captain Noah Hardy and Jerusha Kimball, who were the parents of the subject of this sketch. They were born in, lived in, and died in said Nelson (formerly Packersfield). Captain Noah was born September 16, 1789, and died November 28, 1862, aged seventy-three, and Jerusha was born August 13, 1790 and died January 11, 1854. Subsequently Captain Noah remarried Dorathy W. Hubbard, who died August 22, 1882 at Peterboro, aged seventy-nine.
