The San Francisco call., 1896-03-21
CONNECTICUT TOWN CLERK.
Othniel eager Was Delicate Boy, but
Lived in Office to the Age of 90.

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Lived in Office to the Age of 90.
There is something about the office o.
Town Clerk in the Nutmeg State perhaps
n the tranquil atmosphere of the place it.
self, more likely in the humdrum, unemo.
ton al nature of the work transacted there
that is conducive not only to long terms
of office on the part of the clerk, but also
to longevity. Although the Office is
yearly electoral one, nevertheless a Town
Clerk in Connecticut seems to grow into
it, TO become a part and parcel of his Of
fetal den as much as its inanimate fixtures
are, so that only very rarely any one pre-
sumes to take it away from him. Often
both great parties or three or four parties
place his name on their caucus tickets and
vote for him to man year after year.
Such was the political experience of 9th
MEL eager, Town Clerk of Norwich, one of
the last of the old-time Puritans who at
the time of his death not long ago had
the unchallenged record of being the oldest
Town Clerk, in point of continuous SER
vice in the Office, of any one in the Unired
States. Mr.. eager had been a slender,
sickly youth, so frail in constitution, in
fact, that his parents often said to the
neighbors about their Bean Hill home
that they really did not think they would
be able to raise Othniel. Nevertheless.
Othniel was raised successfully enough !;
he raised himself, as a matter of fact, and
one day, in the very remote past, lis
townsmen came together and elected him
Town Clerk. That settled 1t.
Mr.. eager was only middle-aged man
when he went into the Office, and he stayed
right there, without break III his term of
service, between forty and fifty years, until
the angel of death came to him at his desk
one day, and the old man closed the town
books forever. Yet he never had an hour
of perfect health, perhaps was never free
from pain, in his long life-he was 96 when
he died-and during the last ten years he
hobbled about on crutches. In the final
ten years of his clerical career he seemed
to grow closer all the tipe to his books on
the tall desk under southern window, his
face almost sweeping his page, SO that a
stranger entering the office received the
momentary impression that the venerable
Town Clerk was great clerical ant cling
ing to the record page or monstrous fly
crawling laboriously over it.
At such time old Mr.. eager was the
picture OF official serenity, OF unsullied Of
ticial rectitude and integrity, of boundless,
cnhurried, old-time patience and perse-
verance, and of unruffied and unassaila BILE
calm. His handwriting was fine. round,
rather small, and as clear as print, and
there was not blot or blur or blemish
of any kind in any one of the many pom
derous books penned by his hand in his
forty-six or forty-seven years of continu-
Gus service. The books were his books as
we'll as the towns: he cherished them as a
father cherishes his children.
He was succeeded in the office by Samuel
Freeman, who has had the office continu-
ously for seven years. is voted for, as
rule, almost unanimously by all parties,
and is likely to grow old in the Office and
grow to the books, as Othniel eager did.
In a number Of other Connecticut towns
Town Clerks have had somewhat similar
experiences. For instance, Town Clerk Viii
liam Greene OF Waterford, adjoining this
city, who lately lost the place to j. E. Beck
with, had held The Office for ten years, and