The Locust. 



But my Locust posts came safely to London, and I came 

 soon after them, with the following memorandums in my 

 pocket. 



Plandoyne, 23 August, 1819. 



335. I HAVE this day given to William Cobbett a Locust post six feet long-, 

 and squaring three inches by three and a half, which is perfectly sound in all 

 its parts, and which has stood in the ground, as part of a fence, in front of 

 my house, from the year 1791 until about five weeks ago, when the fence 

 was taken up. 



Singleton Mitchell. 



Bayside, Flushing, 25 Oct. 1819. 



336. My brother, Effingham Lawrence, has this day taken up out of the 

 ground, and given to William Cobbett, a hog-gallows post ; that is, a post 

 having a fork at the top, for the purpose of lodging a pole on, and on which 

 pole hogs are, when killed, hanged up by the heels. This post is of Locust 

 Wood ; it was a single tree, and the whole of the lower part of that tree ; it 

 is, from extreme point to extreme point, eight feet eight inches long ; from 

 the tip of one fork to that of the other, from outside to outside, it is seventeen 

 and a half inches ; there is a knot, the middle of v/hich is fourteen and a half 

 inches from the end of the butt ; there is another knot eleven inches from the 

 middle of the fork; the circumference of the post, at the mid-distance from 

 the ends, is eighteen inches. I have known this post standing as a hog-gal- 

 lows post during forty-four years. When I first knew it, it was a very old 

 post. 1 remember hearing my father say, that it was a wonderfully old post 

 then. I should suppose it to have been a post upwards of fourscore years. 



Henry Lawrence, 



337. I have before mentioned, that Doctor Townsend 

 was with us at Bayside. The Doctor was acquainted with 

 a Mr. Smith, of Smith's Town in Long Island, and he had 

 heard that there was a Locust post at Smith's Town, which 

 could be proved, by unquestionable testimony, to have 

 stood, without injury, for upwards of a hundred years. I 

 begged of the Doctor to get me proof of this, and to send it 

 to me to England. This he did, very punctually, as will 

 appear from the following documents. 



n2 



