1 8 FACTS RELATING TO GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS. 



ing my Latin lesson, after which we discussed other matters. 

 Upon my return to the store, I prepared myself for the next 

 evening's recitation. In this way I read Caesar and Virgil. 

 In a closet in Bancroft's office there was a skeleton. That 

 skeleton had a history, and possibly there may be a sequel to 

 it. It was understood to have been the skeleton of a man 

 named Jack Frost, who was tried, convicted and executed at 

 Worcester for the crime of murder committed at or near 

 Princeton. Dr. Bancroft, Sr., had been the owner of the 

 skeleton. Oftentimes I rode Sundays with Dr. Amos. On 

 the occasion of one of these drives, and after the death of Dr. 

 Bancroft, Sr., we passed the house of a waggish old man named 

 Asa Tarbell. After a little conversation Tarbell said, " I shall 

 be over soon for Frost's skeleton." Dr. Amos, amazed, 

 looked over and through his glasses, and said, at length: 

 " Why, what do you mean ? " Said Tarbell : " Some years 

 ago, your father and I were playing, and I proposed to put 

 up my uncle Ben against Frost. Your father agreed to the 

 game, and I won. I told him I had no use for Frost at that 

 time, and he might keep him." Tarbell's Uncle Ben was a 

 man of inferior size, hardly more than a dwarf, who had been 

 a drummer boy in the Revolution. 



I bought the Bancroft estate in 1873, and my foreman, Mr. 

 William A. Chase informed me that he had found a skeleton 

 in a barrel in a shed, and that he had buried it on the place. 

 If again found it may lead to the suspicion that it is the, 

 skeleton of a murdered man, and not that of a murderer. 



From 1835 to 1841, I read Locke, Say's Political Economy, 

 Smith's Wealth of Nations, Plutarch, Josephus, Herodotus, 

 Lingard, Hume and Smollett, Cicero, Demosthenes, Homer, 

 Pope, Byron, Shakespeare, Boswell's Johnson, Junius, The 

 Tattler, The Rambler, the English Reviews, French from text- 

 books without a teacher and Rhetoric (Blair's full edition). 

 Much of Blair's Rhetoric I studied carefully and with great 

 benefit. Some of my papers of those days were written and 

 re-written four times. On the law side I read a few text- 

 books : Blackstone, Story on the Constitution, The Federalist, 

 De Lohme on the British Constitution, and some other 



