He was early fitted for teaching and followed that calling for eighteen years, having labored in Salem, N.H., Methuen and Bernardstown, Mass., Kingsbury, N.Y. and other places. A thorough and successful teacher for his time, his school experiences were varied and interesting. He was teaching during the winter of 1810, noted for the cold Friday of January 19 of that year. On that day only five of his pupils braved the cold to meet him at the school-house warmed only by an open fireplace. They had gone through their morning exercises, and next were to write, but the ink froze on their pens; the cold was so intense he was obliged to dismiss the school, and taking a little boy in his arms, who was too small to face the increasing cold, he started for home and bade the others to get home as best they could. The first exercises of his pupils each morning was to read the Bible, and while the scholars were reading he occupied the time in sharpening quills for pens, or setting copies. His knowledge of the Bible being such that the least error would attract his instant attention, no matter what he was doing. One morning a roguish boy saw he was very busy and thought he would not notice whether he was reading right or wrong, and he read his verse wrong purposely, but he was instantly interrupted with "You are not reading right." He was fond of relating his experience in a school where the master had been killed by the scholars, previous to his teaching there. He was a large and muscular man and noted for his wonderful strength. He once told the writer that when he was sixteen years old he shouldered an old cannon on Salem Common, a feat that no other man was able to perform.
He was a soldier in the War of 1812. Served at Portsmouth, N.H., on garrison duty, and his descendants were among the bravest of the brave during the late Civil War. He married Betsey Cochran and lived for some time at Salem, N.H. His old Bible, a gift from his mother, printed in Edinburgh by His Majesty's Printer, Alexander Kincaid, is in his son's possession. Upon the fly leaves are written numerous odd bits of poetry and snatches from hymns (Severance, B. Frank. Genealogy and biography of the descendants of Walter Stewart of Scotland and of John Stewart who came to America in 1718 and settled in Londonderry, N.H. Greenfield, Mass. : T. Morey & Son, 1905, pg. 69, 112-113).