Connecticut western news., 1875-06-25
A REMARKABLE NARRATIVE.

Sketch of Incidents in the Life of a Former
 Mayor of Rochester, N. +Y..-The Turning
 Point in nm Eventful Career.
 A most eventful and instructive per- sonal history has come to our knowledge, mainly through the statements of lady, now far advanced in years, who was formerly resident of Lockport, and the wife of 8 practicing physician of that place. She is personally known to the editor of the Country Gentleman, and reliance may be placed in all her state ments. The occurrences referred to began about 1923 or 1924, when the great excavation for the Erie canal through the solid rock for miles at Lock port was in progress, under the super vision of David Thomas as chief engi- neer, and of which Darius Comstock, a widely known citizen, was one of the largest contractors.
 The physician to whom we have re- ferred returned one day from his visiting rounds under good deal of excitement, and exclaimed to his wife: 't I have visited to-day, in poor Irishman's hut, the most beautiful woman ever saw in my life. She is very sick-her case must be an extraordinary one-and you must go and see what you can do for her." The wife consented to go, and on entering one of the most poverty stricken novels she had ever seen-the floor of bare earth, the door cut partly down through the log sides, so that on enter ing 1t was necessary to step over the logs that were left-she found She sick woman lying on bed of straw, SUD- ported on rough poles, which constituted the bedstead. She was young in years, and trouble had not obliterated the sur passing beauty nor the refined express sion of her countenance. The language she used indicated high and excellent education, and she had evidently been brought up in genteel society, nothwith- standing the utter destitution of her present surroundings. Her husband, q young man recently from Ireland, was day laborer, employed by Darius Com stock and Otis Hathaway, his assistant, in excavating the bed of the canal. The sick woman was of course adverse to giving any account of their history to & stranger, but after several visits the phy- sician's wife secured her confidence, and she related their remarkable history in substance as follows:
 She was the daughter of a gentleman in Ireland, in high rank but little below the nobility. Her father employed as clerk and steward young man named John -, of rare attainments and ability. The gentleman's daughter and the young steward formed mutual at tachment; but as he was below her in rank, notwithstanding his high charac- ter, the father would not listen @ mo- ment to anything of the kind, and seeing what was going on, dismissed him from his service. But the attachment was too strong to be quenched by mandate. When the young lady and her lover found there was no other resource, they concluded to get married and (" run away" With his scanty means and what little property of her own she could secure, they sailed for Quebec, in Cana da. The ship was wrecked in the St. Lawrence, and they barely escaped with their lives. All their effects and money went to the bottom of the wide river Their condition was desolate enough without means, without experience, un- accustomed to hardship, and in an un- known country among strangers. He was compelled to labor by the day to keep them from starving. He became utterly discouraged, and through the en- ticements of bad companions he resorted to drinking. In this state they found their way to Lockport-a place where many laborers were wanted at that time for excavating the canal, and where he could obtain employment. It was here that his young wife, unaccustomed to such accumulated hardships and priva- tions, was prostrated on sick bed, and in this condition was found by the physician and his wife, as already re- lated.
 It was about the same time, or before, that Comstock & Hathaway, the contrac- ors who employed him, observed that the young man had not been accustomed to the severe labor which he had under taken, and that in handling the heavy crowbar, and in wheeling the loaded bar TOW, the blood oozed from his fingers. A few days afterward, when pay day ar rived, he signed the receipt for his wages by the usual 's cross, or his mark" used by the Irish laborers generally. In the course of 8 few weeks, his employers (who were members of the Society of Ftiends), observing that he possessed superior intelligence, said to him in the