28 MR. OBER'S paper. MR. TUCK'S FILE OF LETTERS. 



trated this reading with anecdote and incident of a local 

 nature, and with bits of local history, showing the marked 

 changes which two centuries have brought in personal and 

 domestic habits and modes of living. 



Mr. Joseph Dane Tuck then exhil)ited a file of papers 

 containing autograph letters of much interest, together 

 with other antiquarian matters. There were letters of his 

 great uncle, Nathan Dane, of whom Mr. Webster said in 

 the senate in 1830 that, for securing freedom to the North- 

 west Territory, he would take rank with the great law- 

 givers of antiquity, — letters of George Cabot, in 1798, the 

 first Secretary of the Navy of the United States, — of Hugh 

 Hill, a cousin of Andrew Jackson, the redoubtable priva- 

 teersman of the Revolution, — of Dr. Fisher, a founder of 

 the Philosophical Library and of the Salem Atheufeura, — 

 of William Gray, the great ship owner, — of Joseph White, 

 of William Prescott, of Ebenezer Francis, of George 

 Crowninshield, of Joseph Lee, of Israel Thorndike, and 

 of Patrick T. Jackson. 



Mr. Tuck also showed admirably-done counterfeit notes 

 on the Beverly Bank, printed at New Boston, New Hamp- 

 shire, in 1804, on very thin, strong, linen paper made in 

 Danvers. The ornamentation of the bills, at that early 

 day, was unique. The $30 denomination bore both a hand 

 loom and a power loom, symbolic of the high expecta- 

 tions then entertained of Beverly's pioneer venture in the 

 spinning and weaving of linen, wool and cotton. Other 

 issues were decorated with figures of "Rectitude" and 

 of "Plenty," twin patronesses of finance, — with the ele- 

 phant and the cod, types of Asiatic and of New World opu- 

 lence, while commerce and the fisheries Avere still further 

 symbolized by a schooner and a barque, both under full 

 sail. It will not be amiss to print a portion of the cor- 

 respondence touching this interesting case of early fraud, 



