CHAPTER V.

The Porter Family. Edmund Kidder, the Centenarian. The Lee Family.

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Joseph Porter, Jr., born in 1702, son of Joseph and Hannah (Buell) Porter of Hartford, grandson of John and Mary (Stanley) Porter, and great-grandson of John Porter,* settler, in 1639, at Windsor, married, in 1733, Joanna Dodd of Hartford. They came to Great Swamp, where he was active in church affairs. In 1733, when a vote of twelve pence a pound

* Mrs. F. A. North of Germantown, Pa., has contributed the following information about the Porter families in America. Some of the data was obtained originally from Miss Catharine North's papers, especially the part about the first American John Porter and his twelve children. Incidentally, Miss North herself was a direct descendant of Samuel Porter, the fifth child of John Porter of Windsor. It may not be out of place to introduce this information here:
John Porter, born between 1590 and 1595 in Wraxhall, Parish of Kenil-worth, Warwickshire, England, embarked at London, with his family, for America, arriving at Dorchester, Mass., May 30, 1630. He died 1648 at Windsor. His wife Rose died 1648 or 1649. There were twelve children: John, b. 1618; Thomas, b. 1620; Sarah, 1622; Anna, 1624; Samuel, 1626; Rebecca, 1628; Mary, 1630; Rose, 1632; Joseph, 1634; Nathaniel, 1638; James, 1640; and Hannah, 1642.
(Joseph Porter, who came to Great Swamp, was a descendant of the eldest son of the first John Porter.)
Samuel Porter married, in 1659, Hannah Stanley, daughter of Thomas Stanley.
Hezekiah Porter, b. 1665, their son, married Hannah Cowles.
Timothy Porter, their son, married Hannah Goodwin.
Aaron Porter, their son, married Rhoda Sage.
Isaac Porter, b. 1755, their son, married Hepzibah North.
Olive Porter, 1782, married Richard Wilcox.
Mary Olive Wilcox, 1812, married Alfred North.
Catharine M. North, 1840. Among the descendants of Samuel Porter and Hannah Stanley were Israel Putnam, Clarence Steadman, U. S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, Thomas W. Higginson, and John Brown.

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was laid for building a new meeting house, he was appointed to collect the tax.

Mr. Burnham was in ill health for a long time before his death, and the people began early to look about for candidates to preach "on probation" with view of settlement.

In 1742 Joseph Porter went to Stratford and brought up a Mr. Judson, who assisted Mr. Burnham and boarded with the Porters. The society voted £7. 16s. as compensation to Mr. Porter for his journey to Stratford, and for entertaining Mr. Judson, and his horse.

Mr. Burnham rallied so that he continued to preach until near his last days. From 1750 for more than six years the church was without a settled minister.

Mr. Samuel Clark of "Elizabeth town" was installed as the successor of Mr. Burnham July 14, 1756. When the society was divided he chose to go with the Kensington parish and remained with that church until his death, November 6, 1775.

The records of the church, as placed in the hands of Mr-Clark at the time of his settlement, were in his words "very imperfect and broken." A little girl said, "Papa, I have cleaned out your pocket book For you, I burned up all those old dirty papers, and put back just the clean ones." Her father nearly fainted. Those old papers were his family records that never could be replaced. Mr. Burnham's statistics, if be kept them, have never been found, possibly some neat housekeeper threw them into the fire. Mr. Clark proceeded at once to makr a list of "Such as were members when I came."

In this list of 1756 were the names of Joseph Porter and his wife Hannah (Joanna ?). Their son Samuel Porter born June 1, 1750, married June 14, 1779, Mindwell Griswold of Windsor. She died in 1810 and he married, second, 1812, widow Elizabeth Percival, mother of the poet, James G. Percival. Mrs. Percival had another son, Oswin. At his death, about 1870, the family was extinct. A bureau full of his mother's personal belongings was sold at public auction from the house next south of the old Worthington church.

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Among the articles were an immense green silk bonnet with a great, black lace, embroidered veil and fine hand-woven linen sheets. A beautiful bead handbag was struck off to a pack peddler who chanced along. Colonel William Bulkeley was the auctioneer.

William Bulkeley, Jr., bought a chest with its contents. In it, besides a lot of old books, was a piece of metal, black as iron, which proved to be a masonic jewel, of silver, worn as a watch charm. In size it is two and one-quarter inches long, one and three-quarter inches wide. Around the edge in front is a motto, with number and name of owner, as follows:

AMOR HONOR ET JUSTITIA A. M. 5791, JAMES PERCI-VAL JUNR.

IN THE LORD IS ALL OUR TRUST.

Under skull and cross bones is a coffin, on which are the words "Memento Mori." Both sides are covered with masonic emblems exquisitely engraved.

Dr. James Percival, father of James G., was Worshipful Master of Harmony Lodge, 1797-1801, which then met in Berlin.

Rev. J. T. Pettee, of Meriden, who has examined this jewel, says that the number, 5791, corresponds with 1791 of the Christian era, and it shows that Dr. Percival wore the badge sixteen years before his death, January 21, 1807.

In the course of time the Burnham parsonage and farm came into possession of Samuel Porter. Of the eleven children born there, to him and his wife, Mindwell, nine lived to maturity. Their names were Samuel, Nathaniel, Mindwell, Almira, Laura, Norman, Joanna, Chloe and Sophia.

Samuel, born November 22, 1780, settled in Philadelphia. Three of the sisters, Mindwell, second wife of Jesse Hart, Almira, wife of Blakeslee Barnes, and Sophia, who was mar ried late in life to Joseph Camp of Newington, left in widow-

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hood, joined forces and kept house at the Squire Daniel Dunbar place, on Worthington Street.

Joanna was married to John Ariadne Hart, botanist and physician. He practiced in Berlin for awhile before his removal to Natchez, where he died of yellow fever October 23, 1822, aged thirty-two years.

Sophia, born February 19, 1797, went to Natchez with her sister, and afterwards taught school in Philadelphia. She used to say that while there she took lessons on the piano, and had learned to play "Robin Adair," when, somehow, it hap pened that she got married and that ended it. She died at Newington, October 21, 1891, at the age of ninety-four. In her latter years she did not know the faces of her lifelong neighbors, but to the last she could make a beautiful prayer.

Norman Porter, born December 12, 1789, married in 1823, Abby Galpin, daughter of Col. Joseph Galpin, half sister of Mrs. Seth Deming, and a lovely woman she was. Their wedding journey was to Lexington Ky., the first part of the way by stage, then over the mountains they had to ride on the backs of mules. When the time came for them to return they rode all the way on horseback.

Mr. Porter, in his business ad merchant at Lexington, gained what was considered, in his day, a small fortune.

The town records at New Britain show that in 1824-5 Nor-man Porter bought out the right of the other heirs in his father's estate. The deeds were signed by Mindwell Hart and Jesse Hart, Chloe Peck and Everard Peck, and Almira Barnes, all of Berlin; by Samuel Porter of Philadelphia, Joanna Hart and Sophia Porter of Natchez, and by Norman Porter of Lexington.

A life interest in the place was reserved for the father, Samuel, who died January 22, 1838, aged eighty-eight years. Then Norman, who had come back to his native town, planned to built a new house, finer than any to be seen in this region. He decided to use the homestead site, and wished to tear down the old house, but his sisters, who loved the place, begged him to move it off, and to please them he consented. The way was

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narrow and the house was wide. It stuck fast in the road and remained there several weeks. Finally, however, it was landed on the new site, opposite the Berlin town house, where it stands to this day. The work of removal cost more than the house was worth when settled, except for the sentiment.

The sisters used to like to go and look over the rooms, filled with dear associations, but there came a day—the time of Mrs. Camp's last visit there, when, as she stepped over the threshold of the east sitting room door, she turned and said to her com-panion : "Let us go away, it does not look like home here now."

Mrs. Emily (Galpin) Bacon, a niece of Mrs. Norman Porter, remembers that once, when she visited her aunt in the old house, Sophia Porter (Mrs. Camp) led her up into one of the chambers to see the silk worms she was raising. As she fed them their supper of mulberry leaves they made as much noise as a horse champing. In one corner of the room Mrs. Camp showed her how she reeled the silk from the cocoons.

This house was photographed in the nick of time. Soon afterward a carpenter, in want of a job, persuaded the owner to let him cut off the west half. He said there would be lumber enough in it to build another house. It was said that the lumber was of no use when razed, but the proportions of the old parsonage were ruined. Mrs. Frank D. Jamison, a great-granddaughter of Samuel Porter, after reading the account of the removal of the Burn-ham-Porter house, recalled this story: The carpenter, when consulted in regard to drawing the house away, advised against it, saying that the building was so old that it would not "pay." "Can you move it?" asked Mr. Porter. "Yes," replied the carpenter, "I can move it." "Then move it!" said Mr. Porter, "It is none of your business whether it will pay or not."

Mrs. Jamison's mother, Mrs. Jane Porter Hart Dodd, who, after the death of her father, Jesse Hart, lived with her widowed mother at her grandfather's, remembers that attached to the main house was a long line of back buildings that seemed

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interminable to the child. Besides the place piled with many cords of wood for winter fires, there was a room used as a dairy, and another was filled, in autumn, with vegetables and fragrant apples.

Town Clerk William Bulkeley was at the raising of Norman Porter's grand new house. A thunder shower came up that afternoon, and he, with all the other boys, ran into the barn for protection.

Mr. Porter was a fine looking man, erect of carriage, and gentlemanly in bearing; quick of step, energetic and full of business; always doing something, or going somewhere. It is said that he went to Hartford nearly every day. His farm, which he adored, was cultivated for pleasure, not for profit. Here were found all the new fruits and flowers—and labor-saving inventions. Japonicas bloomed in the windows, tulips, lilies and strange new shrubs bordered the walks. Grapes, Isabellas and Catawbas, climbed over arbors; Bartlett pears and Seckels grew in the garden a delicious revelation to the neighbors, who were welcome to take grafts. Children, who had never seen strawberries growing except in the fields, heard with wonder that over at Mr. Norman Porter's there were beds of cultivated strawberries which bore so full that they were left to decay on the vines. Mrs. Dodd has told us of the con-sternation created when Uncle Norman cooked and ate the fruit of the tomato he brought home from Kentucky.

South of the house was a hot-bed, filled in the spring with "green things growing."

There was a patent gate at the driveway, west of the house, that opened and closed automatically by series of levers under-neath, as the horses stepped upon and off the platform, that slanted down to the ground on either side.

When Mr. Porter heard that Daniel Buck of Windsor had a wonderful new breed of cows from Island of Alderney, he took his neighbor, Cyrus Root, and drove up to see the cows and the butter. Not long afterward a herd of twenty or thirty of those Alderneys were grazing in the pastures on the Porter farm.

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The large horse barn, east of the house, was burned after the place came into the possession of Richard Murray.

The field south of the Christian Lane school house, called the Lee lot, came into the possession of Mr. Porter, and when he was about sixty years old he planted it full of apple trees. When asked why, at his time of life, he should set out apple trees, he replied, "I expect to live to send fruit from this orchard to Queen Victoria." He did live to gather a bountiful harvest of apples from what came to be known as the "prize orchard of the state."

The trees were started in this way. Seeds from common apples were planted and cultivated. In the fall of the second year the saplings were pulled and stored in the cellar, where, during the winter, they were grafted. In five years from seed the trees were in bearing.

Cyrus Root, Jr., who is the authority for this description, gives a list of the variety of apples, all grown on the Lee lot. It includes the Baldwin, Peck's Pleasant, Roxbury Russet, Hubbardston's Nonesuch, Belden, Sweet, Yellow Bell-flower, Gravenstein, Sweet Russet, and Rhode Island Greening. There were also Porter and spice apples there. Mrs. Webber used to dry the spice apples on shares.

In after years it was sad to see that orchard browned, as by fire, from the ravages of canker worms.

Mr. Porter was fond of children. He even allowed them to swing on that patent gate. One day a little girl who lived in that neighborhood started to walk over to Upson's store in Kensington, on an errand for her mother. She lost her money in the road, and began to cry. Presently Mr. Porter met her and asked her why she cried. Then he took money from his own pocket, gave it to her, and sent her on her way, gratefully happy.

On Sunday the Porter horses always knew that they were to stop and add to their load any woman or child walking toward the village church.

In his zeal for town and village improvement, Mr. Porter sometimes gave offense by urging people beyond their inclina-

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tions. One day as he came up the street he stopped to speak with a housewife out in her yard, and said: "You ought to have a fountain here." She straightened herself up with hauteur and said, "Can't you make a few more suggestions, Mr. Porter?"

In 1849, when subscriptions were solicited for the new church in Worthington, the name of Norman Porter was placed on the paper for $1,000. In 1852, when the recently-built spire was found so defective as to be in danger of falling to the ground, he subscribed $125 toward repairs. Again, in 1855, after the great revival, under Mr. Love, when galleries were added to the church, he gave $200. On these subscrip tion papers may be seen the name of Captain Norman Peck, who matched Mr. Porter by giving $1,000 for the new church in 1849, $125 for repair of spire, in 1852, and $200, for galleries in 1855. Samuel C. Wilcox, who contributed $300 in 1849, gave $100 in 1852, and $200 in 1855.

Norman Porter died January 20, 1863, aged seventy-three years, as recorded on his white marble monument in the Bridge cemetery.

Norman Porter, Jr., only child of his parents, born in Ken-tucky, was in sympathy with southern life and, in the autumn of 1863, as soon as he could settle up the family affairs after his father's death, he removed to San Jose, California. His wife, Hannah, was the eldest of three daughters of Captain Peck. Their children, born in Berlin, were Mary, Arthur, Margaret and Evangeline. Two daughters, Anna and Eliza-beth, were born in San Jose.

Arthur has been successful in the business of silver mining in Nevada.

After the recent earthquake the family felt unsettled. They said the only safe place they could think of was Berlin.

The mother of Norman Porter, Jr., was born in 1796. She went with her son to spend her declining years in San Jose, and died there at the age of ninety-six.

We do not know the history of the little brown house opposite the Porter place. James Richardson, a shoemaker, lived there many years.

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In 1786, Isaac North, Jr., for the consideration of £22, deeded six acres of land to his son, Abel. This land lies on the north side of the road coming toward the village from Christian Lane, and the house, with brick basement, thereon standing, long known as the Pollard place, was built by Abel North, whose wife was Sarah Wilcox. She used to bake most excellent shortcakes on a slanting board, before the open fire.

The place next east of Abel North's, now used as a town home, was occupied early in the last century by Blakeslee Barnes, who married Almira Porter, one of the daughters of Samuel Porter.

Mr. Barnes had unusual natural business faculty, and in his occupation as a tinner, conducted, with a number of apprentices, in a shop near his home, he was quite prosperous. Denied the advantages of schools in boyhood, he studied, after he began business, to make up his lack of book knowledge.

Leonard Pattison learned his trade of Mr. Barnes and then went to Lexington to work for Norman Porter.

After a while Mr. Barnes moved up on to the street where he died, August 1, 1823, aged forty-two years. It is supposed that he built the house which he occupied, and which was afterward purchased and remodeled by Captain Peck, now owned by Daniel Webster.

The town of Berlin bought the Town farm, with buildings thereon, November 7, 1833, of Seth Deming, described by him as "the place where I now live." In the cellar, fastened firmly into the wall, are two iron rings, once used to secure charges of the town who were violently insane. There was a fine brass knocker on the front door of the house, and Mrs. Laura (Barnes) Willard, who was born there in 1808, obtained it from the Selectmen in exchange for a modern bell.

We have been reminded that one of the tenants of the Burn-ham-Porter house, after its removal, was Edmund Kidder, a useful, honest, steady, sober man, who died there February 23, 1885, aged one hundred years, six months and six days. He was one of the oldest Free Masons in the country, but was

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unable to attend their meetings in his old age. He voted for Jefferson in 1804.

Born in Fairfield, Conn., in 1784, his father died when he was eleven years old, and at the age of thirteen he shipped on board a merchantman for the East Indies. He made a three-years' cruise and sailed around the world. Later he took up the trade of stone mason. He worked at various odd tasks in the neighborhood up to his last summer and could swing an axe as well as a man of sixty. He was fond of reading, and was always pleased to receive copies of the Sailor's Magazine.

A bachelor up to the age of fifty-seven, he then married, in 1841, Lydia Fielding Johnson, widow of Shadrack Johnson, of Hartford, twenty-five years his junior, and they had three children. Mrs. Henry Moore, whose first husband was Darius Richardson, was a daughter of Mrs. Kidder's first marriage. The only father she ever knew was her mother's second husband.

Edmund Kidder was buried at the south side of the family lot in Maple Cemetery. Next north is the grave of Mrs. Kidder, who died October 26, 1888, aged seventy-nine. These two graves are unmarked. Next north of the father and mother lies a daughter, whose stone bears the following inscription:

Opposite the town house, on what is now a barren field sur-rounding the Porter farmhouse, as it came to be called, there stood, within the memory of some now living, a grove of wal-nut trees. Farther south, near the Middletown turnpike, were many grand old trees of walnut, chestnut, and oak, spared from the ancient forest, so dense were they as to hide the prospect from one road to the other. Here, village picnics were held.

One year, Clark Talbott attempted to run the old tavern as a temperance house. To help eke out expenses he served a Fourth of July dinner, spread on tables in the shade of those trees. The tickets were sold for seventy-five cents each, and the people in their desire to assist the temperance landlord, all went forth to dine with him on the occasion.

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One Sunday school picnic on that ground is especially remem-bered, in the time of Mr. Love, when Miss Mary Talcott, a successful Sunday school teacher, was active in trying to make everybody have a good time. One of the boys, now in Washing-ton, D. C, recalls his first experience with ice cream that day, and a girl, now gray-haired, wishes she could have another piece of the delectable sponge cake made by Mrs. Florence Brande-gee. Her receipt called for ten eggs, their weight in sugar, the weight of six eggs in flour, juice and grated rind of one lemon, and a saltspoonful of salt. As for the rest it depended on the skill in mixing and baking.

At that time, on the south side of the turnpike, opposite the Porter grove, were acres of land covered with trees and under-growth, known as Captain Peck's woods. Another piece of woodland, west of the Abel North house, which until quite recently remained uncut, was very attractive to the lover of wild flowers.

Almira Barnes, daughter of "Blakslee Barns," was married to Thomas G. Fletcher, a lawyer of New York City. They had two sons, Frank H., born 1831, married Helen Clapp; and Charles S., born 1833. Mrs. Fletcher died in 1835. A deed on record at New Britain shows that she came to the age of twenty-one November 15, 1833, and in that year Esquire Dunbar sold for her, buildings and land that came to her from her father's estate. The property conveyed consisted in part of a lot, once owned by Samuel Porter, situated southwesterly from Eiverside or Bridge Cemetery, with barn, "Cider-mill house" and "Still house" thereon.

A clump of trees, on a rise of ground, by a bend in the stream, about fifteen rods south of the road, marks the site of the distillery. Aunt Mindwell Hart said it was a wonder that they were not all drunkards, with so much cider brandy around. It is not known that any of the family ever were drunkards. Norman Porter was a strong temperance man, and so outspoken as to gain the ill will of men of different views. One day, as he drove up to the post office, at Mr. Galpin's store, a young rowdy stepped up to him, with a horsewhip, and gave him a

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thrashing. Mr. Porter was an old man then, and the act was severely condemned by the community.

Captain Peck bought Mrs. Fletcher's property and the "still" was turned into a dwelling house. Peter Mullen lived there and worked for the captain. His wife, with an abundance of water running close by her kitchen door, took in washing.

A boy who lived there came to the district school, his head alive with pediculus capitis. Colonies of the pest soon swarmed. Teacher and pupil shared alike in the invasion, and careful mothers cried "Mercy on us" when they found what their boys and girls brought home from school. Kerosene was not then on the market, and one poor woman sent to a neighbor to ask the loan of her fine tooth comb. She said she wanted to use it to comb the lice from her children's heads.

This still house was sold to E. S. Kirby, who moved it over near the railroad station, where it was used as a liquor saloon.

In the deed of conveyance from Mrs. Fletcher in 1833, the "Point house" was included. It was described as occupied by Samuel Durand. A part of this house which still stands near-est the point, east of the cemetery, was made from Blakeslee Barnes's tinshop, moved from the north side of his house up on the "Street." The names "blue house," "blue house cemetery" and "blue house bridge"—the north bridge—were given because, as before stated, the house was once painted blue. This dwelling house was remodelled by John Staveley.

A short distance farther east brings us to another point of land. The deeds of this place show that it was purchased November 6, 1832, by Cyrus Hoot, from Samuel A. Hamlin, and that on the same day he sold it to Horace Sheldon for the price of $400. The house was then there but not the brick shop, which was built by Sheldon who was a blacksmith and shod stage horses. On April 2, 1835, he sold out for $1,200 to Benjamin E. Fanning, who was also a blacksmith. In the Riverside cemetery, on a little stone is the following inscription: Clarence Lee, only child of Benj. E. Fanning and Charlotte Fanning, d. May 28th, 1854, aged 3 yrs. 4 mos. How many hopes lie blasted here.

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Mr. Fanning had an unusually bright mind, but the loss of this little son embittered his soul and he could never rise above the blow. His wife, a refined, gentle, home body, died September 2, 1885, aged seventy-four years. Mr. Fanning married again and removed to Portland, where he died February 6, 1892, aged eighty-one years.

The Fanning place is now the home of Alonzo Sweet and his wife, Alice Wilson [Dillings] Sweet. The large open field opposite, on the south side of the way, was owned, a hundred years ago, by Pete Galpin, who was seventy-seven years old in 1808. On November 7 of that year he sold, to Amos and Elisha Edwards, for $100, sixty-five rods off from the east end of that lot. It was bounded south by Jesse Hart, which shows that Mr. Hart then owned the hotel property.

Amos and Elisha Edwards were brothers of Josiah Edwards, who kept the store on the northwest corner at the top of this hill. They built a house, barn and shop, on their land, and then, September 23, 1816, sold the property to John Lee, 2d, son of Captain James Lee of Bristol. He was born May 28, 1766, and married at the age of twenty-two, Abigail Gerome. The children began to come the next year, and seventeen years later, thirteen had been born to them. Unfortunately, the last six died young, and the mother followed them to a "land of rest." In 1809, the father married, second, widow Charlotte (Dorr) Neff. She brought to his home at least one child of her first marriage, Delia Neff who became the wife of Nelson Atwood (grandparents of Clarence Atwood).

The names of the Lee children were: Jeptha, John, Henry, Juba, Abigail, Edward, Aurilla, Jerome, Ebenezer, Lucy, Lucy, Polly, and William. Then, after the second marriage, three more children, Edmund Charlotte, and Sally, came to bless the Lee household.

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died July 15, 1857. Edward Gaylord Lee died at Janesville, Wis., in 1862. He had four sons and one grandson in the Civil War. John Lee, the father, his two sons, Jeptha and Henry, and William Palmiter, the husband of his daughter, Aurilla, were all in the War of 1812.

John Lee came to Berlin from Burlington in 1816. He was a blacksmith, and shod stage horses in his shop, which stood east of the house. He died August 18, 1844, at the age of seventy-eight years. His wife, Charlotte, died Septem-ber 3, 1836, aged sixty-four years. Their graves are at Riverside. The Lee place is now owned by Dr. R. E. Ensign.

At a town meeting held in December, 1785, it was voted "That the Parish of Worthington may erect a Pound in sd Parish at their own expense, in such place as shall be most convenient."

Where the first pound was situated we do not know, but within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, it was east of John Lee's blacksmith shop. It was about fifty by thirty-six feet in size, and was surrounded by a strong high fence. When animals were inside, a row of boys sat on the top rail of that fence. James Richardson had six sheep that lived on the high-way, and whenever a neighbor's gate chanced to be left open, in rushed that flock to trample and destroy the garden. One day, when the hayward was half seas over, he came across those sheep and drove them to pound. That ended the nuisance.

Once a large flock of sheep owned by a butcher were impounded there. The owner refused to reclaim them and one morning the sheep all lay on the ground with their throats neatly cut, as if by butcher. If animals were not redeemed within a certain time they were sold by the town.

Daniel Galpin, constable, sold at auction, July 23, 1802, six sheep that had been impounded. They were struck off to the highest bidder for $4.78.

When creatures fed on the commons it was customary to mark them, and to have the mark recorded. Some of those marks, taken from the early records, are as follows:

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Elishama Brandegee Jr. Ear Mark is a hole in Each Ear and a Bobtail. Kecorded May 21st, 1811. Roger Riley's Ear Marke is half crop under the Right Ear and also a Bole'd tail. Recorded March 22, 1800. Samuel Wilcox Mark is a half penny underside the right ear, a slit between the head & the half penny & Crop of the left ear. Recorded Nov. 21st, 1792.

Until within a few years a front fence was an expensive necessity. The iron fence, removed not long since from the front of the village church, was intended to last forever. The bill for this fence, dated April 6, 1853, sent to Norman Porter and committtee, was for $378.00.

The pound, which was a part of the hotel property, was sold, May 26, 1883, by Landlord Henry Gwatkins, to Alfred North, for $100 cash, and with this lift, Mr. Gwatkins took his wife on a trip back to their old home in England.

The small dwelling house, of which the pound is now the south yard, was built about 1880 by Albert Holt to rent as a market.

A description has already been given of the Edwards carriage factory that stood opposite the John Lee place. The tinners' business, now conducted on that site by Homer F. Damon, was established by James B. Carpenter and S. C. Wilcox, and afterwards continued by Lorenzo Lamb, now of Hartford.

Mrs. Almira Barnes died March 29, 1858, while away on a visit. She was brought home, and, as the procession attempted to come up the hill, the carriages stuck fast in the deep mud. Soon after this Deacon North took from the town a year's contract for repair of roads. He dug a trench, three feet wide and three feet deep, in the center of this hill, from the top down to the tinshop, and filled the space solid with stones. Another springy place that he made firm was over east of "William Bulkeley's. He spent more than he received for his year's contract.