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The room became warm, and as he dozed in his chair he thought of his childhood in Lyme, New Hampshire. A smile came to his face as he remembered some childish prank, and then it relaxed as he recalled lying before the hearth one wintry day and hearing his mother, Ruth Strong Skinner, relate how she chose a name for the sandy-haired boy who lay before her.
It seemed that she knitted endlessly on the family stockings and at the same time told of the letter which her grandfather Jedediah Strong had written to his family just before he was killed in the Great Swamp Indian battle. Then she was reminded of her emigrant grandsire, John Strong, who as Presiding Elder of Northampton, Massachusetts, had set apart the Reverend Soloman Stoddard as pastor of the Congregational Church. Most of the Strong men were tall and muscular and won colonial records for their wrestling bouts. She was undecided as to whether the name for her son should be Jedediah or John. Her heart went out to Jedediah, alone in the Great Swamp, fighting to make safe their home, and so she decided on Jedediah. "Jedediah would mean 'courage' and 'service to others’," she said. The Ingersoll was added to his name because the great grandfather, John Ingersoll, believed in having but "one hearth. II Then she told how the Ingersoll children were still in possession of the old homestead. "Ingersoll" was to stand for "stability."
Since of necessity his surname must be Skinner, she related how the Skinner family had helped open up the iron mines and iron works in Colchester, Connecticut. "All of them honest men of the 'forge and the mill'," she said. This name he must respect to bring him "strength of character."
"Well," thought Jedediah, there in his comfortable home, "I have fought no pitched battle with the Indians as did Jedediah Strong, but some of my neighbors have been about as "ornery" as they. I’ve pulled no shroud over a dead man's face or pried into the morals of the congregation as did old John Strong, but son Elijah and I donated the ground, and between us built a meeting house which we presented free from debt to this community for their worship. I've dug no ore .nor run no "iron works" but I've been drenched with sweat over the forge and anvil trying to keep the ferry boat in repair which ran across the Connecticut River at Lyme, New Hampshire, and in which my father Joseph had partnership. I think I've plodded through as much acreage behind a plow as Old John Ingersoll. I may not have fulfilled all the expectations of my mother, but I've at least kept out of the mire."
Like a jack knife he drew up his legs and lifted his six-foot frame from the chair. "Guess I better be goin' to the school house to help those young runs with their singing. No good can come of Jedediah Ingersoll Skinner lettin' the community go to waste. Got to keep 'em busy and out of mischief with one thing or 'nother, - Ma! Where's my tuning fork?"
William Fullington Folsom was graciously received at the Skinner home in Sandwich when he called to court Jedediah's daughter Hannah. The adversities of his youth had deprived him of some of the material things of life, but by so doing had strengthened his character. He never shunned the obstacles which beset him, because he saw all about him the misery of life as others found it. Who was he to complain? At twenty-one he was quiet and unassuming, yet alert to opportunities and felt that he wanted to give to the world the benefit of whatever experiences and talents he had.