February, 1842. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR 



21 



tioiia on Doicliester lieights, in the hope that ev- 

 ery ball might destroy a red-coaled visitor. Also 

 that the caiinoii-shot, still sticking in the to%ver 

 of Brattle-street church, was aimed by the Cam- 

 bridge rebels at General Howe, who "had estab- 

 lished his head-quarters at the old Province 

 House. Unpractised artillerymen as they then 

 were, it is ditficidt to believe that, if the Province 

 House was really their mark, they could have 

 missed it so widely. 



The Miss Byleses related many anecdotes of 

 their father, some of which were new to me, 

 and with others I had long been fitmiliar. For 

 the benefit of such of my readers as have not 

 yet met with any of these old-fashinned jenx rf'- 

 espril, I will insert a few samples of their qua- 

 lity. 



For instance, his daughters told me of the 

 doctor walking one day with a whig gentleman, 

 in the vicinity of the Common, where a division 

 of the British troops lay encamped. His com- 

 {lanion pointing, to the soldiers of the crown, 

 said — "you see there the cause of all our evils" 

 — " But you cannot say that our evils are not 

 red dressed" remarked Dr. Byles. "Your pun is 

 not a good one," observed his companion, " you 

 have mis-spelt the word by adding another d." 

 " Well," replied the clerical joker, " as a doc- 

 tor of divinity, am I not entitled to the use of 

 two D's .'" N 



They spoke of their father's captivity in his 

 own mansion. And one of them repeated to me 

 the well known story of Dr. Byles coming out 

 to the sentinel who was on guard, in a porch 

 tliat llieu ran along the front of the liouse, and 

 requesting him to go to the street pump and 

 bring a bucket of cold water, as the day was 

 warm, and the doctor very thirsty. The soldier, 

 it seems, at first declined, alledging his reluc- 

 tance to violate the rules of the service by quit- 

 ting his post before the relief came round. The 

 doctor assured the man that he would take bis 

 place, and be bis own guard till the water was 

 brought. The sentinel at last complied, and 

 took the bucket and went to the pump, first re- 

 signing his musket to Dr. Byles, who shouldered 

 it in a very soldier-like manner, and paced the 

 porch, guarding himself till the sentry came 

 back, to whom, on returning his piece, he said — 

 "Now, my friend, you see I have been guarded 

 re-guardeu, and dis-regarded." 



The Miss Byleses also referred to the anec- 

 dote of their father having once paid his address- 

 es to a lady who refused him, and afterwards 

 married the Mr. Qtiincy of that time, a name 

 which then, as now, is frequently in Boston pi-o- 

 noiuiced Quinsy. The doctor afterwards meet- 

 ing the lady, said to her jocosely — "Your taste in 

 distempers must be very bad, when it has led 

 you to prefer the Qifuisy to Byles." 



In front of the house was in former times a 

 large deep slough, that had been suffered by the 

 municipal authorities to remain there for several 

 winters, with all its inconveniences, which in 

 wet weather rendered it nearly impassable. One 

 day Dr. Byles observed from" his window that a 

 chaise, containing two of the selectmen, or reg- 

 ulators of the town, had been completely arrest- 

 ed in its i>rogress by sticking fhst in the thick 

 heavy tnud, and they were both obliged to get 

 out, and putting their shoulders to the wheel, 

 work almost knee deep in the mire before they 

 could liberate their vehicle. The doctor came 

 . out to his gate, and bowing respectfully, said to 

 them — " Gentlemen, I have frequently represent- 

 ed that slough to you as a nuisance to the street, 

 but without any effect. Therefore I am rejoiced 

 to see you sibring iu the n/alter at last." 



Certain fanatics who called themselves New 

 Lifjlits had become very cbno.\ious to the more 

 rational part of the commmiitv, and were re- 

 garded with much displeasure by the orthodox 

 churches. A woman of this sect, who lived in 

 the neighborhood, came in as usual one morning 

 to annoy Dr. Byles, by a long argiimefttaiive, or 

 • rather vituperative visit. " Have you heard the 

 news?" asked the doctor, immediately on the 

 entrance of his unwelcome guest; he having just 

 learnt the arrival, from London, oftlue.: hundred 

 street lamps. 



She replied in th§ negative. 



" Well, then," resumed the doctor — "not less 

 than three hundred new lights have just arrived 

 from England, and the civil authorities are going 

 immediately to have them all put in irons." 



The lady was shocked to hear of the cruel 

 treatment designed for her sectarian brethren 

 that had just cotne over, and she hastened away 

 directly, to spread the intelligence among all her 

 acquaintances, in the hope, as she said, that 

 something might be done to prevent the inflic- 

 tion of so unmerited a punishment. And the 

 doctor congrat(dated himself on the success of 

 the jest by which he had gotten rid of a trouble- 

 some visitor. 



A sou of Dr. Byles, that retired to Halifax, 

 must have probably inherited a portion of his fa- 

 ther's mantle ; ior his sisters repeated to me one 

 of his conundrums, the humor of which almost 

 atones for its coarsenes.s. " Why xlo the leaders 

 of insurrections resemble men that like sausa- 

 ges ? Because they are (bud of intestine broils." 

 ' The Jliss Byleses told me much of the scarci- 

 ty of provisions and fire-wood, throughout Bos- 

 ton, during the winter of 1775, when the British 

 and their adherents held out the town against 

 the Yankee rebels, as they called them, and who 

 had invested it every where on the land side, 

 taking especial care that no supplies should pass 

 in. Jt was then that the old North Church was 

 torn down by order (Sf General Howe, that the 

 soldiers might convert into fuel the wood of 

 which it was built. 



Several yeais elapsed before I again was in 

 Boston. In the interim, I heard something of 

 the Miss Byleses from ladies who knew and vis- 

 ited them. I understood that, at length, .they 

 had found it impossible to prevent what they 

 bad so long dreaded, the opening of a street that 

 would take in their little green lawn, their old 

 horse-chesnut trees, and that part of their house 

 that stood directly across the way. For this sur- 

 render of their property, they received from the 

 city an ample compensation in money; also, their 

 house was made as good or rather better than 

 ever, besides being new roofed and thoroughly 

 repaired. The despoiled sisters, though another 

 and more comfortable residence was ottered to 

 them during the time of their destruction, as 

 they termed it, steadily persisted in remaining on 

 their own domain during the whole pi-ocess of 

 its dismemberment. Their house, as they said, 

 was cut in half; that part wliicli faced the end 

 of Tremont .street being taken away. • They 

 niournrd over the departure of rvi ly beam and 

 plank as if each was an old iVieiid — and so thi.^y 

 tridy were. And deep indeed was the affliction 

 of the aged sisters when they saw (idling beneath 

 the remorseless axe their noble horse-chesnut 

 trees whose scattered branches, as they lay on 

 the gra.«s, the old ladies declared, seemed to 

 them like the dismembered limbs of children. 

 At this juncture, their grief and indignation 

 reached its climax: and they excited much sym- 

 pathy even among professed utilitarians. There 

 were many indulgent hearts in Boston that felt 

 as if the improvement of this part of the city 

 might yet have been delayed for a few short 

 years, till after these venerable and harmless fe- 

 males should have closed their eyes forever upon 

 all that could attach them to "this side of the 

 grave. And that even if the march of public 

 si)irit shoidd in consequence have allowed itself 

 to i>ause a little longer in this part of its road, 

 " neither hea\ en nor earth would have grieved 

 at the mercy." 



Miss Mary Byles, wlio with more spriijhlliuess 

 had less strength of mind than licr ynuii^'cr sis. 

 ter, never, as the saying is, held up her head 

 again. Her health and spirits declined from that 

 time — she sunk slowly but surely : and after lin- 

 gering some months, a ihw days of severe bodily 

 suffering terminated all her afHictions, and con- 

 signed iier mortal remains to their final resting 

 pUice beside her father. In the meantime she 

 had lost her nephew, Mather Brown, the painter, 

 w iio died at an advanced age in London and 

 who was to have been the heir of all that his 

 aunts possessed. 



In addition to the rest of their little wealth, the 

 Miss Byleses had in a sort of strong hold up 

 stairs a chest of old-fashioned plate, no article 

 of which was on any occasion used by them. 

 Also, they retained some rare and valuable books 

 thaj had belonged to their lather, and a tew cu- 

 rious and excellent mathematical instruments 

 brought by him from England, and which the 

 University of Haivard had vainly endeavored to 

 purchase from them. Among other articles was 

 an immense burning-glass, ssiid to be one of the 



largest in the world, and which the old ladies 

 kept locked up in a closet, and carefully covered 

 with a thick clotli, lest, as they said, it should set 

 the house on fire. 



On a subsequent visit to the metropolis of the 

 American east, t went to see the surviving Miss 

 Byles; and when I reached the accustomed 

 place I could sc.^rcely recognize it. The main 

 part of the old house was yet standing; but the 

 loss of one end had given it quite a different as- 

 pect. There was no longer the green inclosure, 

 the fence-gate, and the narrow path through tlie 

 grass — the door opened directly upon a brick 

 pavement and on the dusty street. To be sure 

 there was a fresh-looking wooden door-step. 

 New tenements had been run up all about the 

 now noisy vicinity, which had entirely lost its air 

 of quiet retirement. All was now sym])toniatic 

 of bustle and business. The ancient dwelling- 

 place of the Byles family had ceased to be pic- 

 turesque. It had been repaired and made com- 

 fortable ; but denuded of its guardian trees there 

 was nothing more to screen from liill view its 

 extreme unsightliness. Above its weather-black- 

 ened walls (w hich the sisters woidd not allow to 

 be painted, lest it should look <oto% unlike itself) 

 the new shingles of the roof seemed out of keep- 

 ing — I thought of all the poor ladies must have 

 suffered during the transformation of their pa- 

 ternal domicile. 



On knocking at the door, it was opened for 

 me by an extremely good-looking, neatly dressed 

 matron, who conducted me into a room which 1 

 could scarcely believe was the original old par- 

 lor. The homely antique furniture had disap- 

 peared, and was replaced by some very neat and 

 convenient articles of modern form. The floor 

 was nicely carpeted; there were new chairs and 

 a new table,— a bed with white curtains and 

 counterpane, and window curtains to match. 

 Nothing looked familiar but the antique crown 

 chair and the pictures. 



I found Miss Catharine Byles seated in a rock- 

 ing chair with a pillow at her back. She looked 

 paler, thinner, sharper, and much older than 

 when I last saw her. She was no longer in a 

 white short gown, but wore a whole gown of 

 black merino, with a nice white muslin collar 

 and a regular day-cap trinmied with black rib- 

 bon. 



Though ghid to find her so much improved as 

 to comfort, J take shame to myself when I con- 

 fess that I felt something not unlike disappoint- 

 ment, at seeing such a change in the ancient 

 lady and her attributes. The quaintness, and I 

 may say the picturesqueness of the old mansion, 

 and its accessories, and also that of its octogena- 

 rian mistress, seemed gone forever. I am sorry 

 to acknowledge that at the moment I thought of 

 the French artist Lebrun, who meeting in the 

 street an old tattered beggar-man with long gray 

 locks and a venerable silver beard, was struck 

 wilh the idea of his being a capital subject for 

 the pencil, and engaged him to come to him 

 next day and have his likeness transferred to 

 canvass. The beggar came; but thinking that 

 all people who sit for their pictures should look 

 spruce, he had bedizened himself in a very gen- 

 teel suit of Sunday clothes, with knee-buckles 

 and silk stockings ; his face and hands nicely 

 washed ; his chin shaved clean, and his hair 

 dressed and powdered ; the whole man looking 

 altogether as impaintable as possible. All artists 

 will sympathize with the disappointed Lebrun, 

 as he contemplated his beggar witli dismay, and 

 exclaimed — "oh! you are spoiled! — you are 

 spoiled!" 1 suppose it is because I am a pain- 

 ter's sister, that 1 caught myself nearly on the 

 point of making a similar ejaculation on seeing 

 the new-modelling of Miss Catharine Byles, and 

 her domicile. 



But a truce with such unpardonable thoughrs 

 — Miss Catharine recog-nized me at otice, "and 

 seemed very glad to see me. She soon began to 

 talk about her troubles, and her sorrows, and al- 

 luded in a very affecting manner to the loss of 

 her sister, who she said had died of a broken 

 heart in consequence of the changes made in 

 their little patrimony, having always hoped to 

 die, as she had lived, in her lather'"s house just 

 as he had left it— "But the worst of all," pursued 

 Miss Catharine, " was the cutting down of the 

 old trees. Every stroke of the axe seemed like 

 a blow upon our hearts. Neither of us slept a 

 wink all thnt night. Poor sisfr Mnry ; she -=o<,n 



