At the conclusion of the active controversy between Hubbard and the society, the unpaid salary amounted to several hundred dollars. Hubbard threatened suit, and he may have commenced one. In that juncture my uncle went over the town and gathered the signatures of those nominal members who had no property, who had not paid taxes, and whose eyes had not seen the inside of a meetinghouse. A parish meeting was called, composed by my uncle and his new adherents. At the end authority was given for the conveyance to Mr. Hubbard of the site of the old meetinghouse in full satisfaction of his claim. This spot was in the center of the village and in the view of the houses of the principal residents. Not their curiosity merely, but their fears were excited when they learned that their bitter enemy was to become the owner of the common in the center of the village. To be sure the bounds were indefinite, but there was a spot belonging to the parish, and it included all that was not highway.

My uncle had an understanding with Hubbard that the land was to be conveyed to Hubbard and the society released from all its liabilities under the contract. Then the land was to be conveyed to my uncle for the sum of six hundred dollars. This was done, and my uncle became the owner of the common. He was not a friend of the citizens of the village, and various uncomfortable surmises were set afloat. But my uncle had but little malice in his nature, and moreover he was too inert to indulge in the luxury of avenging any wrong either real or imaginary. The common was left to the use of stray cattle, the children of the neighborhood and of the school. After a time the school district decided to rebuild the school-house. The old site was small, indeed, only sufficient for the building. The citizens divided, but the advocates of the old site prevailed, and a brick building was erected. Still the contest went on, and after a year or two the majority of the district voted to erect a new house, and the upper part of the common was selected for the site where a second house, of wood, was built. Whether any title to the land was obtained from my uncle, I know not. The new house was used for a time, when it was sold, moved, and converted into a dwelling.

When my uncle died at the age of about eighty-five years, the common was unoccupied, and it had the appearance that property takes on when the owner is intemperate or absent, or when the heirs cannot agree to a division. The settlement of my uncle's estate was put into the hands of Mr. Ephraim Graham, whose brother had married my uncle's eldest daughter. My uncle's children were scattered, and apparently they inherited their father's indifference to property. Graham was unable to finish any business, and after ten or more years he died, leaving the estate unsettled. Finally, the ladies of the village took possession of the common, removed the rubbish, leveled the ground, and made the spot an agreeable feature of the town.

Of the teachers of the village school there are several that I remember with gratitude, and I cannot but think that some of them were very good teachers. My first teacher was Martha Putnam, afterwards Mrs. Nathaniel F. Cunningham. Of her as a teacher I can recall nothing. Her father, Major Daniel Putnam, was the principal trader in the village. For the time and place his accumulations were very large. Nancy Stearns, afterwards Mrs. Benjamin Snow, was the teacher of the summer school for many years. But beyond comparison Cyrus Kilburn was the best teacher of the town, and a person who would have ranked high among teachers at any period in the history of the State. He was not a learned man in a large sense, but his habit was to investigate the subjects within his scope, with great thoroughness. Grammar was his favorite study, and he devised a system of analysis in parsing quite in advance of the time. He had the faculty of putting questions and of changing them to meet the capacities of the pupils. He compelled thinking. I attended the winter school about ten terms, and of these not less than six terms were taught by Mr. Kilburn.

In later years we had Colburn's Sequel as the arithmetic. From this I passed to algebra and geometry, and during the last two terms I studied Latin Grammar. My school-going days ended in February, 1835, a month after my seventeenth birthday.

[* During the session of the Legislature of 1843 or 1844, I walked with my father on the ice from Boston to Fort Warren, a distance of about three miles. The authorities were then engaged in cutting a channel for the departure of a Cunard steamer.]

II LIFE AS A STORE-BOY AND CLERK

In the month of December, 1830, when I was about one month less than thirteen years of age, Mr. Simeon Heywood, the postmaster at Lunenburg and the owner of a small store, proposed to my father that I should go into his service to remain four years. An arrangement was made by which I was to receive my board and clothes, and the privilege of attending school during the winter months. I commenced my service the 26th of December, 1830, and I remained until December 1, 1834.

My life with Mr. Heywood was a peculiar one. The business of the store was largely in the sale of goods for hats made of palm leaf. The business was comparatively new at the time. For many previous years the women had been employed in braiding straw and making hats and bonnets for market. Gradually, work in palm leaf had taken the place of work in straw. The neighbor of Heywood, Major Daniel Putnam, was doing a large business in hats. The preparation of the palm leaves was not an easy business. The leaves were stripped on the folds by the hand, then bleached with sulphur in large boxes. The leaves were then split so as to produce straws from one twentieth to one eighth of an inch in width. The first process of stripping the leaves on the folds was paid for at the rate of ten cents per one hundred leaves. I devoted my leisure to the work, and thus earned a small sum of money. Heywood was a shoemaker by trade, and an end of the store was used as a shop. There one man and sometimes two men were employed. From much seeing I was able to make a pair of shoes for myself—rather for the amusement of the thing than from any advantage. While at Heywood's store, probably about 1834, I had a disagreeable experience, the recollection of which has often returned. A blacksmith, named Choate, died, and with another boy, whose name I do not recall, I was summoned to watch the body during a night. We occupied an adjoining room, and once an hour we were required to bathe the face of the corpse in spirits of camphor. To this day I have never been able to understand why two half-grown boys were put to such service.

Heywood was more of an inventor than a trader, and becoming interested in the manufacture of nail kegs he made an invention in connection with Dr. Bard for sawing staves concave on one side and convex on the other. In the year 1834 they obtained a patent for the invention. As a consequence the business of the store was neglected. The invention did not yield a large return in money, as it was soon superseded by other devices. The saw, a hoop-saw, was set up in a mill two miles away, and from time to time I tended the saw, and thus I began a training in mechanics which has been useful to me in my profession as a patent lawyer. Heywood also invented a wheel for bringing staves to a bevel and taper, for the construction of barrels systematically. Mr. Heywood remained in town eight or ten years, when he moved to Claremont, N. H., where he died at the age of eighty years or more. He was thoroughly upright, but he had too many schemes for a successful business man. During my term with Mr. Heywood, I had charge of the post-office, keeping the accounts, which were then cumbrous, and I made the returns once in three months.

During a