12 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



January, 1842, 



toil of gunpowder iind a ton of candles were con 

 sunied every week for two and n lialf years, and 

 1,100 men and 250 horses were kept constantly 

 eniploved. For u considerable distance the tun 

 nel passes through freestone rock, from the fissure_ 

 of which there was iit times an immense influx of 

 water. This formed such an impediment that the 

 work \vas on one occasion discontinued for a long 

 time. But the water was finally pumped on 

 llnough the agency of a steam engine of .50 horse 

 power, which threw it out at the rate of 32,000 

 hogsheads a day. The contractors, Messrs Bremer 

 and Lewis, deserve immense praise for their ' 

 detiitigabie exertions 



' Enfield, Jan'y 22, ]841 



Friend Hill:— Having taken your valuable 

 paper, the Monthly Visitor, from the coinmence- 

 inent, up to ihis time, and being aware of its 

 rirciil:itiou particularly in Vermont, where we 

 vend our garden seeds ; for the information of 

 tijose who purehnse them I wish you to favor me 

 with the iiisertion of tlie following: 



We have added some few new and useful 

 kinds of g.irdeu seeds to our former assortment, 

 which we intend to improve every opportunity 

 we have. 



The Mammoth Squash, a very good and large 

 vegetable of that species, having weiilied one 

 ton from six hills, and one squash of one hun- 

 die(\ and forty-six pounds. 



The French Pumpkin, very sweet and good for 

 pies. 



The SiBset Potafoe Squash, good for b:iking. 



Likewise, some new kinds of Pea, which will 

 be found to be very nice : I will name the Black 

 Chit and Ilie French — these take the pla<'e of the 

 Mnrroicfals. 



From your friend, 



CALEB M. DVER. 



From Graham's Mag.izine for Januiry. 



The Daughters of Dr. Byles. 

 A SKETCH OF REALITY. 



BV MISS LESLIE. 



On my first visit to Boston, about nine years 

 since, I was offereil, by a lady of that kind and 

 hospitable city, (the paradise of strangers,) an 

 iutroduction to the two daughters of the cele- 

 brated Mather Byles ; and I gladly availed my- 

 self of this opportunity of becoming aer]uaiuted 

 with these singular women, whom I had been 

 told, were classed among the curiosities of the 



Their father, a native Bustonian, (born in 1706, 

 during the reign of Queen Anne.) was couiiected 

 with ^he family of Cotton Mather. His educa- 

 tion was completed in England, where he studied 

 theology at Cambridge, and was afterwards or- 

 daiiieii a minister of the gospel according to the 

 Episcopal failh. On his return to Boston, Ma- 

 ther Byles was inducted into the first p.istor-ship 

 of the Hollis sheet church, then a newly erected 

 edifice, cojistrucled entirely of wood, as were 

 most .\meric:m churches of that period. He be- 

 came proprietor of a house and a stnall piece of 

 ground near the junction of Tremont and Nas- 

 sau streets. lu this house all his children were 

 born, aiul here the two that survived were still 

 living. His wife was a daughter of Governor 

 Taylor. 



'the position of Dr. Byles as a clergyman, bis 

 literary actpiirements, his shrewd sense, and his 

 ready wit, caused him to be highly popular at 

 home, anil brought him into personal acquaint- 

 ance or epistolary correspondence with many of 

 the principal men of his time, on both sides of the 

 Atlantic. He frequently exchanged letters witli 

 Pope and with Dr. Watts; and among the visi- 

 tors at his " modest mansion," might be enumer- 

 ated »!im3 of tlio most distingiiislied persons of 

 his native proviiice — .while strangers of note ea- 



All went smoothly with Dr. Byles till America 

 became imiiatieiit of her dependence on the 

 oiowii of IJritain : and, unfortunately for him, 

 hi^ sympathies were on the side of the mother 

 country. He could not be persuaded that her 

 ohildren of the new world hud sufficient cause 

 lor ubrogaliug the authority of the nation from 

 whence they had sprung ; and he considered 

 their alleged grievances as mere pretexts for 

 throwing off a chain which, in his opinion, had 

 pressed but lightly on them ; and that, in short, as 

 Fatsfiifl" raid of the Terey and Monimcr insur- 



rection, — " Rebellion lay in their way, and they 

 found it." His congregation had warmly and al- 

 most unanimously espoused the jiopular cause, 

 and, consequently, were much irritated at the 

 ultra royalist feelings and opinions of their pastor, 

 whose difficulties with his flock seeming daily 

 to increase. Dr. Byles eventually thought it best 

 to resign his situation as minister of HoJIis street 

 church. 



The war broke out ; the battle of Bunker Hill 

 was fought, and Boston was subsequently occu- 

 pied by the British army, and besieged by the 

 Americans, who cst.iblished themselves in hostile 

 array upon the heights that commanded the town, 

 — and, with a view of dishnlging the enemy, they 

 vigilantly exerted thrniMlves in stopping all sup- 

 plies of fi.'el and prmi>i.)iis. After holding out 

 against the patriots dnrini; a leaguer of more 

 than eight months, the British finally withdrew 

 their forces, and embarked them to carry the war 

 into another section of the country. Now, that 

 something like order was again restored in the 

 town of Boston and its vicinity, it was thought 

 time to punish those who had rendered th 

 selves obnoxious by aiding and abetting ttie c; 

 of the enemy. Some of the most noted royalists 

 were expelled from the province and took refuge 

 in Nova Scotia, others went into voluntary exile 

 and repaired to Enghiiul, where they preferred a 

 claim of indemnification for the los.ses they had 

 sustained by adhering to the cause of monarchy. 

 Among others, Dr. Mather Byles was denounced 

 at a town-meeting, for his unconcealed toryism; 

 for having persisted in praying lor the king: and 

 for interchanging visits with the Bi itish office 

 mo.st of whom were received familiarly at his 

 hou.se. Upon these charges he was tried before 

 a special court, and at first sentenced to hiive his 

 property coiifi.sciited, and him.self and family 

 transported to England. But Ihe board of war, 

 out of respect to his private character, commuted 

 his punishment to a short iinprisomiient in his 

 own house, under the gnanl of sentinels, and al 

 lowed him to retain his possessions. 



The rebellion eventn.iied in a successful revo 

 Intion ; and honor, timie, and the gratitude of 

 their country rewarded those who hail ussiste 

 the gloriouscontest for independence ; while all 

 who had held back, and all who had sided with 

 the enemy, were contiimeliously cast into the 

 shade, regarded with contempt by their for 

 associates, or ccmpelled to wear out their 1 

 in exile from the land of their birth. Most of 

 the connections of the Byles family quitted tl 

 States. But the doctor remained, and finding 

 that he could not regain his fbrtner place among 

 his townsmen, he lived in retirement during the 

 residue of his life, and died at his own house ir 

 Boston, in 1788, in the 82d year of his age. Hf 

 was interred beneath the pavement of the chan- 

 cel ill Trinity church, having worshipped there 

 with his family after quilting that of llollis street. 



In the old family house liis two survi^ ' 

 daughters had ever since continued to reside, 

 steadily refiising to sell either the building or the 

 lot of ground attached to it, though liberal offer: 

 for its purchase hail repeatedly been niiide to 

 them. So deep-rooted was their attachment to 

 this spot, where they had been born anil where 

 they had always live'd, that they considered it im- 

 possible for them to exist in any other place, con- 

 tinually asserting that a removal from it would 

 certainly kill them. They had a trifling source 

 of income which brought them two hundred dol- 

 lars annually, and they contrived to save nearly 

 the whole of this little sum. Also, they possess- 

 ed a tolerable quantity of old-fashioned plate, 

 which they had put away in a chest up stairs, 

 never to lie used or sold while they lived. In the 

 mean time their wants were chiefly supplied, (and, 

 indeed, many little luxuries were furnished them,) 

 by the benevolence of certain ladies of Boston, 

 who, in the goodness of their hearts, overlooked 

 the anomaly'of two women who had the means 

 of a comfortable independence within their reach, 

 submitting to receive assistance from elemosyna- 

 ly bounty rather than reliiiqiiish the indnlgeni;e 

 of what, in those matter-of-fact times, would, by 

 most persons, be regarded as a mere morhiJ liin- 

 cy. But on this point of feeling they believed 

 their happiness to depend; and their tolerant 

 benefactresses kindly enabled them to be happy 

 in their own way. 



The Miss Bylcses kept no domestic; but a 

 man oainc every morning to attend to the wood 



and water part of their Hi*»icrgc, and to go their er- 

 rands — and a woman was employed every week 

 to do up the Saturday work. A newspaper was 

 sent to them gratuitously — books were lent them, 

 for the youngest was something of a reader, and 

 also wrote verses; and they frequently received 

 little presents of cakes, sweetmeats, and other del- 

 icacies. 'I'hey rarely went out, exce|)t to Trinity 

 church. Then they put on their everlasting suits 

 of the same Sunday clothes; their fiices being, on 

 these occasions, shaded with deep black veils sus- 

 pended from their bonnets, not so much for con- 

 cealment as for gentility. 



The lady who volunteered to introduce ine to 

 the daughters of Dr. Byles, was, as I afterwards 

 understood, one of those who assisted in affording 

 them some of the comforts which they denied 

 to themselves. We set out on our visit on one of 

 the loveliest mornings of a Boston summer, the 

 warmth of the season being delightfully temper- 

 ed by a cool breeze from the sea. After passing 

 the beaiilifiil Common, (why has it not a better 

 name?) my eompanion pointed out to me, at what 

 seemed the tei iiiinalion of the long vista of Tre- 

 mont street, an old black looking ti-nme-house, 

 which, at the distance from whence 1 saw it, seem- 

 ed to block up the way by standing directly across 

 il. It was the ancient residence of Mather Byles, 

 and the present dwelling of his aged daughters ; 

 one of whom was in her eighty-first and the other 

 in her seventy-ninth year. This part of Ti^emont 

 street, which is on the south-eastern declivity of a 

 hill, carried us far from all vicinity to the aristo- 

 cratic section of Boston. 



At length we arrived at the domain of tlie two 

 antique maidens. It was surrounded by a board 

 fence, which had once been a very close one, but 

 time and those universal depredators, "the boys," 

 had made numerous cracks and chinks in it. 

 The house (which stood with the gable end to 

 the street) looked as if it had never been painted 

 in its life. Its exposure to the sun and rain, to 

 the heats of a hundred summers and the snovvs 

 of a hundred winters ; had darkened its whole 

 outside nearly to the blackness of iron. Also, it 

 had, even in its best days, been evidently one of 

 the plainest and most unbeautified structures in 

 the town of Bo.ston, where many of the old frame- 

 houses can boast of a redolence of quaint orna- 

 ment about the doors, and windows, and porches 

 and balconies. Still, there was something not 

 unpleasant in its aspect, or rather in its situation. 

 It stood at the upper end of a green lot, whose 

 long thick grass was enamelled with field flow- 

 ers. It was shaded with noblo horse-chestnut 

 trees relieved against the clear blue sky, and 

 whose close and gracefiil clusters of long jagged 

 loaves, fanneil by the light summer breeze, threw 

 their chequered and quivering shadows on the 

 grass beneath, and ou the mossy roof of the ven- 

 erable mansion. 



We entered the enclosure by a board gate, 

 whose only fastening was a wooden latch with a 

 leather string ; like that which secured the wick- 

 et of Little Red Ridinghood's grandmother. — 

 There was a glimpse of female figures hastily 

 flitting away from a front window. We ap- 

 proached the house by a narrow [lathway, worn 

 by frequent feet, in the grass, and a few paces 

 brought us to the front door with its decayed and 

 tottering wooden steps. My companion knocked, 

 and the door was immediately opened by a rath- 

 er broad framed and very smiling old lady, habi- 

 ted in a black worsted petticoat and a white short 

 gown, in the neck of which was tucked a book- 

 muslin kerchief — Her silver hair was smoothly 

 arranged over a wrinkled but well-formed fore- 

 head, beneath which twinkled two small blue 

 eyes. Her head was covered with a close full- 

 bordered white linen cap, that looked equally 

 conve'nient for night or for day. She welcomed 

 us with much apparent pleasure, and my com- 

 panion introduced her to me as Miss Mary Byles. 

 She was the eldest of the two sisters. 



Miss Mary ushered us into the parlor, which 

 was without a carpet, and its scanty furnituro 

 seemed at least a century old. Beneath a sur- 

 prisingly high mantel piece was a very low fire- 

 place, from whence the andirons having bffen re- 

 moved for the summer, its only accoutrement 

 was a marvellous thick cast iron btick-plate, of a 

 pattern antique even to rudeness. There were a 

 few straight tall-backed chairs, some with bot- 

 toms of flag-rush, and others with bottoms of list- 

 ing ; and theie was one /aii/oii'V, to be described 



