Early Life and Education
Born near Hempstead, New York on Long Island, Truxtun was the only son of an English country lawyer. He lost his father at a young age and was taken to Jamaica on Long Island with relatives and placed under the care of a close friend, John Troup. Having little chance for a formal education he joined the crew of the British merchant ship Pitt at an early age of 12. Truxtun went against his father's previous wishes for him to pursue a career in politics and so at the age of twelve he left his home in Jamaica and joined the merchant Marine.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Truxtun
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“One of the most horrible, yet most important, discoveries of our age has been that, if you really wish to destroy a person and turn him into an automaton, the surest method is not physical torture, in the strict sense, but simply to keep him awake, i.e., in an existential relation to life without intermission.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)