The Press., 1918-05-23
WILMINGTON.

& week Tn New York.
 Dwight Gardner has been spending a few days at his home on the Hill.
 Ben Robbins is having his barn shingled by Messrs. Morse and Reed.
 Miss Emma Robbins is the guest of Mrs. Joseph Dimock at Moose Meadow.
 A classmate of Miss Chalker's from Springfield spent the week lend with her.
 Mrs. Jennie Nichols makes delicious Dutch cheese which she is selling in small boxes.
 Mrs. Julia Meyer has returned from a visit in New Jersey. She is capably driving her large car.
 Clarence Essex has a new spray CT with which he will spray his own trees and his neighbors.
 Mrs. Brown is visiting in New York and Miss Bennett is staying with her parents, Mir. and Mrs Oosgrove, dur ing her absence.
 Miss Edith Oushman of Stafford Springs and MT. and Mrs. Herman CushmaD of Franklin were the guests of their parents, MT. and Mrs. Merrill Oushman, over Sunday.
 Mrs. Peter Brand visited the John. son hospital last week. She carried flowers to the patients whom she found there during her recent stay for an operation.
 The first Baptist church in Willing ton was built by Elder Lillibridge on what was then the highway from Wilmington Center to Stafford Street, on a portion of his own large property, the substantial underpinnings and foundations of the chimney being still to be seen opposite the present home of Samuel Bartlett. Here he main tained regular services, preaching for fifty years or more without salary. Elder Lillibridge, who came from Exeter. R. l., in 1777, was proceeded by Andrew Main of Stonington and others, also Baptists and these sub. stantial pioneers made creditable history in the north part of the town for several generations and their descendants are scattered here and there all over the U. s. Dea. W. H. Braokett of this town is on his mothers side 8 descendant of Andrew Main. The Village Hill cemetery was really the churoh yard of this notable religious enterprise. Julius P. Main, whose various benefsctions have called for this explanation by a family relative. was brought up on Village Hill and has for years been an interesting personality in Florence, Mass. where he hss made his home. He is known as tho chi1dren's friend and accounts have been widely pub. lished of his annual May celebrations when at least five hundred boys and girls assemble in orderly groups to make . grand rush for the thousands of marbles that he soatters broadcast, followed by thousands of pennies and they in turn by barrels of ginger snaps. MT. Main is now over 80, hale and hearty, and the children have no doubt that he will live as long as Santa Claus and hope that he will. Besides the various gifts to the prettily situated cemetery, MT. Main has provided substantial mOnu. ments for several of his immediate family, noteworthy example giving peHmanency to the names and lives of people who made this country what it was for generations of peace loving, peace keeping folk whose record, look ing back, if in some ways primitive, seems too beautiful and bene1cient to be true, aud we can but wonder if in years to come they will figure in song and story as having lived in the almost forgotten brief and formative period of this rapidly developing New England. It has been often proven that it is more easy to make improve ments than it is to make them permanent and here that is insured by the incorporation of the smaller enclosure with the WilliDgton Gene. tery association. This incorporation and we'll managed association with it's varied visible results that are a credit 10 the old town grew out of an effort to improve the old Hill cemetery, after some of the leading families had made departure from chat time honored, but crowded plot to the west, now known as the New-Old cemetery. The extension connecting the two. With the idea of 'strengthen- ing the things that remained, !" several of the then old residents, notably MeaseEa. Edward Morrison, Sylvester T. Preston, the MaDniDgs, Johnsons, Sparks and others asked then com. paratively new conner who had been so kindly welcomed as to feel 'that she belonged" to write to friends, non residents still interested in the home of their ancestors giving her names and suggestions. The interesting replies received as. preserved will furnish matter to follow and the letters turned over to the officials of the association for preservation. MT. Adolph Korper, who was then chair nan of the board of seleotmen, was always ready to further any scheme for improvement and later after a sympathetic interest had been aroused the late LeGrand Johnson, who was worker, always optomiatlc in seeing desirable end of . sOhema from however small beginning, and Ool. ". H. Hall with characteristic willingness to put his shoulder to the wheel promoted the enterprise to it's development. Charles T. Preston from time to time giving in this Press column publicity that iporeased inter-