Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/71

Rh by them at a small advance in my pay, to sell the stock of goods, and close the business of the store. After such sales as could be made, the remainder of the stock was sold at auction the 23d day of November. During the preceding night there was a fall of snow, and the company came to the village in sleighs. The winter was severe, and the snow continued to cover the ground until the 18th of April, when the stage coaches for the north went on runners for the last time. The summer of 1836 was so cold, that the corn crop was a failure. During the year following corn brought from New Jersey sold for $2.50 per bushel.

In 1835 the town of Groton was a place of much importance relatively. It was the residence of several men of more than local fame. Timothy Fuller, the father of Margaret, was living there. He was a lawyer of considerable distinction, and he had held important public positions. He had been a representative and senator in the Massachusetts Legislature, speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and a member of Congress from the Cambridge district from 1817 to 1825. He died in October, 1835.

Mr. Fuller was a man of regular and careful habits, indeed he belonged to a family noted for their devotion to the profession of law, and for their odd manners and styles of dress.

Mr. Fuller’s eldest son, Eugene, was afterwards a student in the law office of George F. Farley. He was a good debater as a young man, but as a student rather irregular. He went to New Orleans to reside, became an editor of, or writer on, the Picayune, and on a return voyage from Boston he was lost overboard.

Margaret Fuller continued to reside in Groton with her mother and the other members of the family for several years—until about 1841, I think. In the meantime I met her frequently, although she was several years my senior. She was a teacher in the Sunday school, and at the Sunday-evening