Old Axe 62 1-2c.-Hoe 62 1-2-Table $3-3 Chains $1,12 1-2-One old Scythe and Snathe, $1, 121-2→→ One old Pail 12 1-2c-One large Bible $1,00. He died Sept. 1825, aged 78.

CHAPTER VI.

Annals of the town.-Great sickness of 1802.-Difficulties respecting the location of Meeting House, &c.Division of the town petitioned for.—Ministry.

For a succession of years after the insurrection, we find little in the annals of the town requiring particular notice. The population increased gradually but slowly. After the year 1780, and previous to 1790, several enterprising individuals had established themselves in the south part of the town in trade and in various branches of mechanical business, and owing to the central situation of that part of the town in relation to the surrounding country, it began to flourish and considerable business to be done. These subjects will be noticed in another place.

The laying out of the road called Federal Street, from Smead's inn, north, was an exciting subject in the, year 1788, and was very violently opposed by the town, The travel then went from the head of the village under rocky mountain. As late as 1790, petitions for a lottery for building a bridge over Deerfield river, were made by this town and others, and an effort in '95 for a free bridge there, and remonstrances of the towns in this vicinity against the petition of John Williams for a toll bridge.

The smail pox prevailed in '92, and a vote is found allowing a hospital for inoculation, to be built, and in '96,

a house was licensed for the purpose. The house now occupied by Mr. David R. Wait, the Hoyt place, was, among others, improved for the purpose. In this year also a petition was forwarded to the General Court for an act to incorporate a company, Daniel Wells, Eliel Gilbert and Abner Smead for the purpose of bringing good and wholesome water into the "town street" by pipes.

1802. In the year Eighteen hundred and two, there occurred in the village, a most mortal and desolating sickness, carrying dismay and death in its progress, and terror to the hearts of all.

"When I remember all

The friends so link'd together,
I've seen around me fall,
Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one, who treads alone

Some banquet hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled, whose garland's dead,
And all, but me, departed!

Thus in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad mem❜ry brings the light

Of other days around me.'

Truly, then the hearts of men failed them for fear of that desolating judgment which seemed to threaten all, the old and the young and the middle aged. The strong man bowed before his sway; his strength in which he confided, and of which, perhaps, he made his boast, became suddenly like that of a little child; like the unweaned infant; it vanished before the mighty power of that Sampson of diseases, the dysentery, which came down upon the peaceful village like a wolf on the fold. "The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast." Those who were attacked by the disease, which seem

ed to mock at, to defy the power of medicine, soon became so weak and exhausted as to be careless of life, and almost reckless as to the issue of their sickness. In all who breathe the air, both man and brute, even down to the minutest insect that sports in the sunbeam, the love of life is strong and powerful, even to intensity. This love predominates over every other love. The fear of death is the greatest of all fears. Otherwise, the unhappy, the miserable, the oppressed, the persecuted, the victims of misrepresentation, of power and malice, who constitute a large portion of the human race, would become their own destroyers oftener than they now do, seeking a relief in death from their sorrows, and earth become one great charnel house of the dead. To the future must be deferred an understanding of this riddle of life, this constant warfare of existence.

The stores and shops were mostly shut up, the streets were deserted, and an appalling solitude brooded over them; none came to transact business unless in cases of necessity, for there were scarce enough well to take care of the sick, and other thoughts and cares than those of business occupied the minds of men. The traveller sought out other avenues or roads to pursue his journey, carefully avoiding to pass through the village, for alarming reports spread far and wide, that a contageous disorder, either the plague or the yellow fever, or something worse and more horrible, prevailed here, sweeping off the inhabitants with the besom of destruction. Many who did pass through the village, tied handkerchiefs over their faces and took other precautions to avoid the contagion. Many families removed from the village, and of those who remained, many sent away their children, as the disorder was mortal among the young.One hundred and one persons went away to other pla ces in consequence of the sickness, and at one period there was not an inhabited house in the place where there was not one or more sick or dead. Five coffins

were made on one Sabbath-day alone. The first death occurred July 18, and the sickness soon spread into other parts of the town. Some families-lost five, some three, and some lost all their children.-Then was there heard the voice of weeping and lamentation, Rachel mourning for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were not.

The whole number which had died, according to a record kept by the late Rev. Dr. Newton, from July 18 to Sept. 20, was 47,-whole number in the year, of all disorders, 68,-57 of whom were of the dysentery, and nearly all of them young persons.

Eminent physicians did what they could to stay the plague. That excellent physician and estimable man, Dr. John Stone, the late Dr. Williams of Deerfield, and that nobleman of nature, the late Dr. Henry Wells of Montague, were employed; the last and the first named, mostly. The sick seemed to have the impression generally, although they had great and well founded confidence in Dr. S., that they should certainly recover if Dr. Wells attended upon them, so great was their reverence for that philanthropist. The writer of this, then in his twelfth year, remembers, as though it were of yesterday, the gentle manners, the mild and benevolent countenance of the good and venerable man, in his plain suit of brown, cut in the Quaker style.

According to a statement made by him and Dr. Stone, in the Gazette of August 16, upwards of ninety had been affected with the disorder up to the 14th, and there were then about 30 sick. They attributed the sickness to a scarcity of fruit, so necessary in hot weather to correct the bile, and to a putrid atmosphere occasioned by a great flood in June, which left stagnant water on the low lands, which by the intense heat of the weather became putrid, and being blown hither by the southerly winds affected the air so sensibly, as that its insalubrity might be plainly perceived by any one walking abroad

in the evening. At this time-the 16th-the wind was blowing N. W. the heat was mitigated, considerable rain having fallen, most of the sick were convalescent. In 1777, a great sickness prevailed here as also in Shelburne; the population was much less in both than at present. Fifty died here and eighty in Shelburne.

Stop, mortal, pause and consider! what is human life? What is thine own life? It is even as a vapor which appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. A bubble on the stream of time. That vapor, the sun, as soon as he shall have arisen, and before he has attained his meridian splendor, shall exhale; that bubble shall soon burst and be lost in the waste of waters. The eager pursuit of men after wealth, hurrying to and fro; their fraud, avarice, over-reaching and dishonesty, are matter of special wonder. Look at them, and-they are gone. The places that knew them, know them no more forever. The Ocean of Eternity is before you, interminable, vast, boundless, shoreless. Where is your chart, your compass, your helm, your anchor?

"Soon time to thee shall be no more,
No more the sun thy eye shall view,
Earth o'er thy limbs her dust shall strew;
And life's fantastic dream be ́ o'er."

Fix your eyes upon the Eternal City, your heart on Him who is the head-stone of the corner, who is without shadow of change, and since

"Jesus has lain there, dread not the tomb."

POLITICAL PARTIES.-At this period, the excitement of feeling between the two great political parties into which the country was divided, was, perhaps, as great as at any other in its history. They were first called Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The division arose at first, from a difference of opinion in regard to the Constitution. The Federalists claim that they were in favor of it, as it is. The Federalists are understood to have