The Newtown bee., 1908-08-21
The NeWtoWn Bee.
 Newtown. Friday, August 2l. 1908
GUNN MEMORIAL LIBRARY.
ADDRESS BY REV w. R. RICH
 ARDS D. D.
At the Dedication Exercises at Wash.
 ington on May 29.
Continued from Page 5.)

tiOi was
 The first share of stock in this libra ry company was sold to Elnathan Mitchell. The fourteenth share was sold to Mir Gum, who passed it on to Mrs John Brinsmade, after thirty years. The thirty-elghth share was of interesting history. It was held by a young ladies' sewing society. It seems this sewing society had a few books which were read out loud while Ithey sewed; they turned over these books . to the new library association, and re- ceived for them this share of stock. This shows that whatever may be the truth about the present generation, our grandmothers did not spend all their time at sewing circles in gossip. The charge was islander then, and think it is islander now. Altogether, one hundred and thirty-seven shares were sold during the history of the associ- ation. The last share was sold in 1879 to the Rev George Thrall of sainted memory. It interests us who know of the later history of this Gum Me- morial Library to find out that the next to the last share, the one hundred and thrity-sixth, was sold to Mrs Van Ingen.
 The first books werel bought. im- mediately after the first shares of stock were sold. The first purchase was for one hundred dollars worth of books. A committee selected these, and our friend, Henry Church, bought these books. They were deposited aft CT their purchase in closet under the stairs in the Old Academy building, which then stood on the Green, where the Hall building now stands. That Academy building is the building now called The Abbey. The books were kept in the Academy until it was moved off the Green, and the Hall on the Green took its place. At that time the offer of a room in the Hall was made to the library association. . On the first Thursday of December, 1874, this new library room, which has been familiar to all of US as Our Li- brary, was used. While the Academy was being moved and the Hall being built, the books were kept in the porch of the Congregational church.
 The circulation of these books was by means of auctions. The use of book month was auctioned off to the high. est bidder for that use. This was but ter on bacon to genuine New Eng landers, for, if there was any excite ment beyond others which they en- joyed it was an auction, and to have an auction and get good books to read by it was doubled blessing. The by- laws provided that no book should be issued for smaller bid than two cents. he usual bid for a book was from two to five cents for one months use. But the tradition exists of riotously ex- travagant occasions when, for such a book as for our forefathers' rep- utation, am sorry to say, it was not Edwards on the Will" or the Hist ory of the Thirteen Colonies" or "The Metaphysical Basis of the Understand ing"-no, for such novel as Neigh Dor Jackwood," or "Ivanhoe," for light literature these Puritans ran up the bidding to seventy-fve cents, dol lar, dollar and quarter. An human nature is much the same as generations come and go. We are all children and like story. I have not been able to ascertain who was the extravagant in- dividuaI who made his undying reputa- tion in our town history by bidding more for the use of a book for one month than he could have bought it at new. but such an one is reliably said to have existed; and am ready to main tain the thesis that the reputation which he made by it was worth the price, although it is another illustra- tion of the malignity of fame in this world that his name is not definitely