192 NATURAL HISTORY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF GROTON, MASS. 



The particulars given in this advertisement suggest many 

 contrasts between the means of travelling seventy-five years 

 ago and the present time. During this period of three-quar- 

 ters of a century, the facilities of public conveyance have 

 wonderfully improved, but not more than the ordinary com- 

 forts of life have increased in the average household. It 

 may be an interesting question to ask whether the human 

 family has improved to the same degree in all those traits and 

 qualities which make up character. 



JOHN BOYDEN. 



The American Antiquarian Society has recently published 

 a Diary kept by Christopher C. Baldwin, one of its former 

 Librarians, wherein he gives an account of a visit made in 

 Boston during the month of January, 1834. While in the 

 city he tarried at the Tremont House, a hotel which then 

 had been open only for a few years. In describing the noted 

 hostelry, he says : — 



The Keeper of this splendid House is Dwight Boyden. His 

 father, Mr. Simeon Boyden, was born in Deerfield, Mass., and is 

 now near 60 years old and lives with his son Dwight. The father of 

 Simeon was John Boyden who was born in Groton, Mass., and died 

 at the age of 88, having for his wife a daughl. of Col. [James] Fry 

 of Andover, that old Col. Fry who fought the French and Indians 

 (p. 260). 



DR. CHARLES JEWETT WOOD. 



It may interest some of your readers to know that Dr. 

 Charles Jewett Wood, the father of Major General Leonard 

 Wood, formerly Governor of Cuba, and now Chief of Staff, 

 United States Army, studied his profession at Groton. Dur- 

 ing a part of the years 1857 and 1858 he was a student under 

 the instruction of Dr. Miles Spaulding, in whose family he 

 lived. At that time Dr. Spaulding occupied the house next 



