64 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1892. 



upper part was divided into two halls by a partition running longitudinally 

 from east to west. 



In the south upper hall, late in the summer of 1840, the ladies of the town 

 held what, for want of a better name, was called a fair. The monument on 

 Bunker Hill had then advanced rather higher than the New York monument 

 to Gen. Grant has yet reached, but there it stopped, half-way up, just inside 

 the old trenches of the revolution, which were then still visible. That was 

 the " Tippecanoe and Tyler, too " year, and a great whig convention was to 

 convene in Boston in September. The ladies of Massachusetts conceived the 

 idea of taking advantage of the great assemblage to hold a fair to raise funds 

 to complete the monument. The fair in the upper town hall in Worcester 

 was held for the purpose of getting together materials to make the Worcester 

 county table at the Boston fair a proper representative of the county. The 

 leading and influential men of the town were there. Both your father and 

 mine were there. So was Frederick W. Paine, a man of great reading and 

 few words, a lover of flowers, whose garden ranked with your father's in 

 completeness. So was John Milton Earle, the editor of the Spij, who, as I 

 remember him, was devoted to horticulture, but especially to the culture of 

 fruit. There was also your uncle, Wm. Lincoln, antiquarian, editor, lawyer, 

 statesman, poet, a most public spirited citizen, a most lovable man; and 

 Benjamin F. Thomas, young, brilliant, full of wit, giving ample promise of 

 the future which he realized ; and Col. John W. Lincoln, sober, sedate, with 

 an eye twinkling with fun ; and the two Greens — Dr. John and his brother 

 James; and Stephen Salisbury the second, always interested in what was for 

 the public good; and your brother Daniel Waldo Lincoln, in those days a 

 practical horticulturist; and Alexander H. Bullock, then in the heyday of 

 youth ; and many others whom I will not stop to name. All, all have gone 

 before, leaving you and me. 



There was a display of flowers at the fair, unless my memory is at fault. 

 The idea of a horticultural exhibition later in the season, in connection with 

 the exhibition of the Agricultural Society, may have been suggested by 

 that. Be that as it may, my recollection is that there was a connection 

 between the two, and that the gentlemen whom I have named were 

 actively interested in both. My recollection that there was a horticultural 

 exhibition in that year is confirmed by your letter, Avhich fixes October 14 as 

 the date of it. As I have already said, I do not remember that I had any- 

 thing to do with that exhibition. You say that I M'as on the " committee on 

 paintings." I was certainly fitted to be an impartial judge of them, for I 

 knew nothing about them. I do not remember serving on such a committee, 

 nor can I imagine where paintings could have been found in those days in 

 Worcester for exhibition, unless they were possibly the productions of a 

 landscape painter who lived there for a few months about that time, and who 

 afterwards acquired great and deserved distinction in his profession, 

 George L. Brown. 



As to the exhibition of the following year, 1841, I have no recollection 

 about it. You express surprise that it should have been held in the "south 

 end of the South meeting-house." I can suggest a theory which may explain 

 that fact, if the parish records do not show dates which upset it. The old 



