The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1870-02-11
JA isrell y nen 1t q .
First Series---No. 9.

DEAR SIR Having written series of
letters for the -Bgie G Mtelligencer the past
winter, and having read very attentiyely
and with great deal of interest, both that
journal and yours for many months my
mind has learned to feel almost as much
identified with the fortunes and interests of
old Hartford as when, in the long ago, as a
wild and hayward boy, sported and ram
bled at will DER its halftilled and gully
scanned fields and shook down chestnuts and
gathered huckleberries CHATS the common
sense way ofspelling the wordD in its
dense, and unredeemed forests and thick
cts.
lahave been driven to the inclination to
drop you few hasty thoughts, from read
ing the correspondence in your columns
from various points of the county, Darling
ton, Dublin, &c.-in reference to manufac-
lures and improvements, in all of which |
have somehow or other, felt as much inter-
ested, perhaps, as your own bona fide citi-
Zcns. To be sure, the names, for the most
part now given, are strange to me, but oc-
casionally one appears that calls up memo
ries of the past, and carries me back again
to the friends and incidents of early life.
For instance, a few wecksago the obituary of
Ephraim Hopkins attracted my attention,
in your columns. How wildly | remem-
Der the kindness of that good mans heart,
when, on one occasion, when | was not
more than Il dozen years old, night over
took me in the dark woods surrounding
the old Quaker Meeting house. near his
residence. His cheerful voice soon dispell-
ed the hob-goblins that fancy or fear had
painted he took me by the hand and led
me to his cheerful and hospitablc home,
where mush and milk soon turned my
| thoughts into another channel, and a COM
Portable bed superinduccd pleasant dreams
of the enjoyments / would realize in future
travels more than ten miles from home.
Mr.. Hopkins was then in the meridian of
life, and, ifI remember rightly, had but
one son, whose name was Wakeman, and
who was contemplating the study of medi-
cine. Altho' memory decays as years ac-
cumulate, yet the most trivial incidents and
objects Of early boyhood are remembered
with freshness that often astonishes N.Y.
self. Every stone fthat old Westinghouse
with the dilapidated shed on the opposite
side ofthe road, the simple and unadorned
resting place fpast generations, with no
inscribed stone to tell the name of the
sleeper, and the cottage uncovered in the
adjacent forest, inhabited by an honest son
OF ST. Crispin, by the name of Perveil, as
also the stone style at the door OF Ephraim
Hopkins, all rise up before me away down
at this distant day, exactly as they then
appeared. Modern progress, trust, has
not disturbed or desecrated that quiet bu-
rial-place of our forefathcrs, for mine sleep
there, as well as many of the friends of my
youth.
Darlington, in those days, was but a
hamlet, consisting of tavern, a black
smith and shoemaker shop, and some
half dozen houses. The shoemaker's name
was McJilton, and he had q son of literary
promise, who, with better luck than my
sell, and others of his contemporaries, sub
sequently made his mark in the world
My uncle, Richard Coale, lived within a
mile OF Darlington, and if he has descen-
dant living, whose eye may fall upon this
letter, hope | may hear from him OF her,
as have not heard from o member of that
family for forty years.
Excuse the depression. In reading of
your improvements, / often wonder if the
round sands stones have ever been removed
from the road between Darlington and
Dublin if that old brick house, midway
between the two villages, is still standing
in its dilapidated loneliness, and where I
have in Imagination, seen a thousand
ghosts, more or less; and if Dublin, with
its single street that lay stretched out like
black-snake, has spread itself, and assu-
med the shape and dimensions of a town.
Mr. Silver and an old gentlemen who
had a crazy son and one or two pretty
daughters, kept the two hotels, but they
were rarely disturbed by the advent of
guest, and when one did arrive, as was the
case at intervals, the event produced COM
motion from one end ofthe snake to the other