NEW ENGLAND 223 



the appreciation and love which she so well 

 deserves. 



A first cousin. Professor Levi Sumner Bur- 

 bank, was a man of strong scientific proclivities, 

 and was in part responsible for stimulating my 

 love of nature, inasmuch as he lived with us at 

 times, and I often rambled with him in the woods 

 and gained from him a knowledge of the names 

 of rocks and flowers and trees. Another first 

 cousin on my mother's side, Silas Emerson 

 Harthan, is acknowledged to have invented, con- 

 structed, and operated the first electric railroad 

 ever seen on this earth. This was at Worcester, 

 Massachusetts, in 1865, and hu-ndreds of people 

 who patronized this first of all electric roads are 

 now living. He also invented the heel-making 

 machines for boots and shoes, which did the work 

 of one himdred men. The royalties for this 

 invention were enormous. When he introduced 

 the electric lights in Worcester, many of the 

 inhabitants expected to see the city go up in 

 smoke and perhaps with some reason, as these 

 old-time electric lights used to flicker, sputter, 

 sizzle, and shoot blue sparks. The bankers and 

 business men gave it the "melancholy hoot" and 

 declared it was the most dangerous thing ever 

 invented. It was 1883 before the streets were 

 again lighted with electricity. 



