The Portland daily press., 1874-04-30
ERMS 100 PER ANNUMIN ADVANCE

reading possibly exceeded his interest in the
shop and who found more pleasure, 1t may
0e Ventured to say, in Burns poems than in
9ay-p0ok or ledger-was subscriber to the
New England Galaxy, edited by Joseph T.
Buckingham. In good things and bright
sayings these papers led all Others in the
country. Ii Noah excelled in humor, Buck
ingham was unrivalled in satire. His "at-
| tentlons' to Alexis Eustapheive, the Russian
consul at Boston, and to the Rev. John New
land Maffit, with his Bromfield Street pranks,
anorded tnese nelghbors infinite amusement
TO see one OF them approaching the house
of the other on stormy day, when the ses-
sion might be long and uninterrupted, gave
| unbounded pleasure TO the young people of
the favored household, who understood well
what was coming-the news of the day, the
funny sayings of Noah, the sharp ones of
| Buckingham, the anecdote never stale how
| ever often repeated, the freshest joke of the
neighborhood, the body shaking laugh of the
genial doctor, the more explosive one of his
companion-and with these, at not in nfIequent
intervals, discourse on higher themes, earn
| est discussions of topics political, religious,
literary, and social, when Algernon Sidney,
Burke, Jefferson, Archbishop Tillouon,
William Winston, DIR. Priestly, Jonathan
Mayhem, the dialogues of Elhanan Winches-
ter, Addison, Goldsmith, or DR.. johnson,
were quoted and commented on.
Sometimes Capt Kendall and, perchance,
| Capts Waters and Pray were present also,
| and at such times the discourse was more
likely to be political, when State matters and
public men were discussed with rare intelli-
gence and the freedom that became independ-
ent thinkers. AT one time, the theme might
be the Missouri compromise and John
Holmes connection with it, or the separation
of Maine from Massachusetts, with references
to Mr.. Holmes theory of "five-ninths;' at
another, it would be the controversies OF the
Bucktalls and the Clintonians in New York,
or the ~"era of good feeling" heralding the
election of Dr. Eustis as governor of Massa-
chussetts; again, it would refer to the Pana-
ma mission, and later to the northeastern
| boundary question, and the labors of their
| honored friend, Enoch Lincoln, the chival-
rous governor, whose love of Maine was so
earnest and so touching. Previous to the
new departure at the close of Mr.. Monroe's
administration, the doctor, the storekeeper,
and Capt. Waters had been republicans, and
| the other captains, federalists, bat they came
| together in the support of John Quincy Ad-
| ans, for president, against Mr.. Crawford in
| 1924, and Gen. Jackson in 1923, and were
never afterwards divided in their political
| views or party affiliations. .
When theology or religion was the topic,
as was not seldom the case, it needed no
great discernment to discover that they were
all stanch adherents of the Broad Church,
reveient in feeling, and apt and valiant in the
maintenance of its views and doctrines.
| Of these neighbors, since the recent de-
cease of Capt. Pray, March 1874, at the age
| of eighty-five years and twelve days, one only
the venerable Israel Washburn, the store
| keeper and longtime magstrate-remains.
| While he is nearly blind from the effect of
| cataracts, which began to be source of in
convenience about fifteen years ago, his gen.
eral health is excellent, and his memory, at
almost four score and ten, is remarkably ac-
tive and distinct, covering things new and
old, and small as well as great, so thoroughly
thatit would seem no event or anecdote OF
which he ever had knowledge-from the day
when a boy of five years he advocated the
adoption of the federal constitution, against
| Daniel Wilbur to the general election in 1872,
| in which he took lively lnterest-had es :
| capped its marvellous grasp.
OF CERTAIN TRAAiPs AND ODDITIES.
| The town used to be visited frequently
more perhaps during the last decade of the
| half century succeeding its settlement than
at any other peried-by pedlars, beggars,
| charlatans. tramps, and odd characters gen.
| orally, some of whom made it at times their
headquarters.
Prominent among the pedlars was Joshua
Brown, native of some town on the lower
Kennebec, who is said to have been crazed in
early manhood by unrequited love. In the
better days Of his itineracy he carried his
|
thimbles, cotton and linen thread, sewing
silk and tapes, on horseback. His travelling
| expenses-moderate as they were, for his pc
| culiarities and strange simplicity made him
| not unwelcome guest at the wayside homes
where he was wont to call, and at which the
charge for supper, lodging, breakfast, and
| housekeeping could often be cancelled by
| darning needle-gradually exhausted his cap
| ital, and he was compelled at last to trudge
on root with his diminished stores. A fond,
garrulous old man, whom the children were
always glad to see and hear, his visits were
not SO much enjoyed by the elder sisters aud
ladies Of the household, to whom. to the
great amusement of the mirth-loving younk-
ers, lie never failed, with absolute impartiali-
ty, to offer himself as a candidate for matri-
mony. When a matter-offact maiden lady,
to whom he proposed marriage, answered
with a prompt and curt negative, like the
Laird of Cockpen, upon similar occasion,
che gave no sigh," but mounted his mare"
and only said as he rode away, 81 think you
must be a Fosterite, my pretty DEAR" leaving
her to wonder what that might mean.
There was a class of stragglers who fire.
| quented the town for many years, called sci
| der pots" who went from house to house
begging for cider. They were commonly
hard cases, seedy and sodden, but inoflensive.
One of better type than the general is re-
membered. He was a man of education and
/
the carriage and tone OF a gentleman. Call
| ing in the afternoon of delicious summer
day at one of the hospitable, orchard -fanked
mansions in the town, he inquired ii he
| could be favored with mug of cider. Re-
ceiving an affirmative answer, he seated HIM
self in the doorway and patiently awaited the
return OF the large hearted matron, to whom
he had addressed his petition. When she
had given him the cider he set it upon the
floor. and repeated from beginning to end, in
a voice of singular sweetness and pathos,
Wordsworth ''We are Seven" He then
drank off his cider and bade the lady good
bye. She had never seen or heard OF the
poem before, but the stapza,
Sand often at the sunset, sir,
When it is bright and fair,
take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there"
Never ceased to haunt her memory until
she was herself
'In the churchyard laid"
A peripatetic Irish tailor, by the name of
Brennan, who made and mended clothes for
| the more substantial families, enlivened MANY
a household by his tales of the "old country"
and by good-natured threats of vengeance,
with his goose, upon all enemies of good lit
| tie boys and girls.
| A aforementioned denizen for a year or
| two, between forty and fifty years of age, was
| jeremiah Gilman, from Vermont, sort of
chartered rascal, and the champion liar of the
! town. His fables were so impudently and
| outrageousy improbable, so various and au-
dacious, that Zachariah Chickering declared
| he received assistance from the father of lies
himself. His name-more's the pity-wil
| doubtless outlive that of the good deacon
whom he had, as he boasted, ''tackled'' on
| question of religion, and "worsted ON the
| pinnacle of the Scripture"
| A pseudo doctor, pretentious and impos-
| ing, haunted the town for season about this
| time. He related with circumstantial detail
| and curious plausibility many wonderful
| cures of the sick and remarkable trausforma-
tions of the healthy, which had been accom-
pshed by his treatment. He found some
dupes, but unfortunately they were not of the
"siaves who pay" There was living in town
respectable old gentleman, protuberant and
unweldy, whose wife was as singularly and
inconveniently lean and thin as he was gross
and stout The doctor proposed, for a mod
crate consideration, to transfer, without pain
or danger to either, the surplus rotundity of
/ the husband to the wife Rnt raasanahia %