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place formed the locality of a liighly agreeable meeting of 

 the Institute this day. As usual, a small, but perhaps more 

 industrious party made their way to the vicinity by an early 

 train over the Essex Railroad, and appropriated the first 

 and coolest part of the day to the somewhat active re- 

 searches ; but the most of the company were set down from 

 the train about noon in what seems to a stranger to be a 

 mere nook cut out in the middle of the forest with hardly a 

 building in sight to attest the neighborhood of any town or 

 settlement whatever. A short walk, though a very warm 

 one, corrected this idea by introducing the party to the 

 " village green " of Middleton, for so many years an adjunct, 

 like so many of its class in New-England, of the village 

 tavern ; in this case known as " Batchelder's." " Batchel- 

 elder's Tavern" however, after having been for an indefinite 

 period the favorite caravansera of every drover or teamster 

 who plied his weary calling between Salem and New-Hamp- 

 shire, has lapsed from its earlier dignity, and only figures 

 now as a plain, substantial, and orderly looking residence. 



Passing across the green, the theatre, no doubt, of many 

 a village exploit that made the actors famous in their time, 

 but which is now only a convenient spot from which to study 

 the signs of several shoe manufactories and country stores, 

 the attention of some rested on a fine old ruin of a grist 

 mill, another village institution of other days, but like all 

 the rest, modified and outworn by the joint pressure of time 

 and progress. Yery few more picturesque old mill-ruins 

 than this are to be found in New-England. The little stream 

 that used to turn its now decaying wheel still wanders 

 cheerfully down from the disused dam above and to-day afford- 

 ed " good picking " of botanical and animated varieties to 

 the ramblers of the Institute, along its borders. 



By traveling a short distance, apparently straight into 

 the woods, the party reached the banks of Middleton Pond, 

 a beautiful sheet of placid water, enclosed on nearly every 



