The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-07-31
OLDEST FREE MASON.
Born in East Hartford in i7eI-His Orig
 inai Descriptive Poem.

tnal Descriptive Ioch.
 From tho Hartford Times.l
 Some months ago. while Mir. E. O. Goodwin. of East Hartford. was mak- Ing trip across the continent. he visi- ted Mir. Adna Adams Treat. who is a relative Of Mir. Goodwin's mother and a native of East Hartford. Mir. Treat enjoys the distinction of being the old est Free Mason In the United States. He was born in East Hartford. April 8, l7o7. and now resides with his daugh- ter. the wife of Dr. N. G. Burnham. Of Denver. Colorado.
 In 1893 he became member of Apol- 10 Lodge of Troy. N. r.. and is stiil a member of that organization. In 1925 he married Miss Jane Relay of Troy. who died October 2s. 1890. In early life this aged Mason was engaged in the picture-frame business In this city. He was one of the founders of "the Troy Looking Glass Manufactory." In 1880 he removed to Syracuse and engaged in the grain trade. Subsequently he resi- ded in Ohio and Indiana. going west ward with the population of the peri cd. He was eighty years of age when he began the writing of poems of an anniversary and descriptive character. His description of the Rocky Moun- tains and the poem written on the nine nf hl trtk ha, been published.
 Mir. Treat remembers the celebrated Hartford convention. which was held In the State Capitol here during the war of 1912. The old building in which the convention held its sessions under the ban of secrecy Is now used as the City Hall. He took part in the celebra- tion here in 1915 recognizing the peace treaty with England: The public fes- tivities were kept up until midnight. being three hours later than the cus- toms and habits of the city at that time allowed
 The old Mason and his bride, Jane Relay, were regarded as the handsom- est couple in Troy back in 1895 Mir. Treat is hale and hearty in his ninety
  concluding years of the century. He has been Mason more than seventy years.
 MT. Treat has sent the following lines to the Times, giving a description of his birthplace and youth. They were written since his ninety-eighth birth day in April:
 Above the vale on level ground
 A spacious dwelling long had stood Wherein were love and beauty found Beside the maid in woman hood. The aged sire surveys his land
 On natures ever blooming hill, And left behind & noble b
 That holds and occupies it still. That maiden, fairest of her kind,
 Was with her one loved guest And in a narrow space of time
 Was snugly settled in the west; The home she left pleasant one,
 When winter comes they live in ease, In summer time, when work was done They rest beneath the shade of trees; l now return to that school class
 Where began to read and spell; Though sad, if true, to be the last, To hve-and use my pen to tell, Should survey my native land,
 And look the sunny landscape OCT, Not one of all that little band
 Is there to welcome me once more. This tale of grief unmans me quite.
 I breath long, lamenting sigh, It chills my senses, blinds my sight, For all that live are doomed to die: The school-boy years are quickly run, Unmindful there of moral strife, But early training Is the one
 That fits them for a higher life, The youthful mind aspires for light,
 And strives to learn what is and was, And thinks it sees with clearer light
 That nothing comes without cause. Of my first home live to tell
 Of love and truth engendered there. On such as those love to dwell,
 But most t-of all my mothers prayer; In later years with eyesight dim
 I feel like one in sad despair, For none of all my race or kin,
 l grieve to learn are living there. Ere we begin pur mortal strife.
 The seeds of death are freely sown, The hidden germs that end our life AS we approach the dismal tomb
 MT. Treat writes of "the old school house beside the brook" and remembers the teacher who taught him his first lessons. On the sunny side of the "old shell' of school-house, A water stream from fountain head Came leaping by, when on swell Thro' pastures green, where cattle fed, Its way was through the old grist mill To give it power and motion.
 MT. Treat says that he had brother some years his senior, who was named Ira. The mother of MT. Goodwin, now living in East Hartford, is niece of this oldest Mason in the United States.
 THE EYII 0F PEACH YEIIaK