Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/363

 The First JVew Ens;] and Witch.

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��educated at the U. S. Naval Scliool at Annapolis, and who served two years in tlie navy, but is now ensjaged in business in Florida; and William Cheney Weeks, who tills the farm that has so long been in the Weeks name, and is so beautiful.

Judge Weeks was a thoughtful, kind, and considerate husband and father. His house was as open as his heart, and no one with a tale of

��sorrow or disti'ess went away from his door wilhout SN'mpathy and aid : he showed iiis *" faith by his works." He entertained friends as few know how to do, lii)erally witliout ostenta- tion, sincerely without affectation, hos[)itably without gi'udgiug, welcom- ing guests with quiet dignity and heartfelt cordiality.

His death occurred February 27, 1885.

��THE FIRST NEW ENGLAND " WITCH."

An Unjnihlished Page of New England History. By Willaed H. Morse, M. D.

��At the beginning of the seventeenth century, in an English country dis- trict, two lads romped on the same lea and chased the same butterflies. One was a little brown-eyed boy, with red cheeks, fine round form, and fiery temper. The other was a gentle child, tall, lithe, and blonde. The one was the son of a man of wealth and a noble lady, and carried his cap- tive butterflies to a mansion house, and kept them in a crystal case. The other ran from the fields to a farm- house, and thought of the lea as a grain field. It might have been the year 1605 when the two were called in from their play-ground, and sent to school thus to begin life. The farmer's boy went to a common school, and his brown-eyed playmate entered a grammar school. From that time their paths were far apart.

The name of the tall blonde boy was Samuel Morse. At fifteen he Jeft school to help his father on the

��home farm. At twent}' he iiad be- come second tenant on a Wiltshire holding, and begun to be a prosperous farmer. Before he had attained the age of forty he was the father of a large family of children, among tiiera five sons, whose names were Samuel, William, Robert, John, and Anthon}'. William, Robert, and Antliony ulti- mately emigrated to America, while Samuel, Jr., and John remained in England. Young Samuel went to London, and became a merchant and a miser. When past his fiftieth year he married. His wife died four years later, leaving a baby daughter and a son. Both children were sent up to Marlboro', wheie the}' had a home with their Uncle John who was living on the old farm. There they grew up, and became the heirs both of John and their father. The boy was named Moigan. He received a finislied ed- ucation, embraced the law, and mar- ried. His only child and daughter,

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