Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/385

Rh their hospitalities to public patronage.

Among the guests seeking hospitality at Perkins' Tavern was the eccentric Mrs. Royal, well know for her assumed interest in the political conduct of our great and mighty nation. Mrs. Royal's sense of privilege implied the exercise of private judgment of the qualities of her acquaintances, who were respectively recorded in either her "red book" or her "black book," as, in her estimation, they were either good or bad. Being at one time a visitor at Perkins' Tavern, this model critic allowed her sense of privilege to extend to the voluntary appropriation of a portion of a fowl unremoved from the vessel for cooking, and which she abstracted with her naked fingers; and when the landlady, who formerly figured more prominently than now in the domestic affairs of the public house, looked remonstratingly at her, she only replied, "Its Mrs. Royal to whom you have the pleasure of addressing yourself.", However, the presumption of Mrs. Royal was outstripped in an eminent degree by a plain, unassuming wayfarer who called at Captain Perkins' on a wintry day, and in a pathetically pleading voice, said, addressing the landlady:

"Good lady, will you be kind enough to give me a few potatoes to eat with my cold meat?"

It was a frequent custom in those days for travelers to carry a portion or all of their provision on their way, and this fact doubtless prevented any surprise at the implied dietary situation of the suppliant visitor, who, in the apprehension of the landlady, appeared as only a person of partial charitable needs. With a heart full of sympathy for want, she supplied the applicant for charity with a stock of potatoes sufficient for a generous meal. The needy individual received them, buried them in the hot embers of the ancient fireplace, watched them during the progress of roasting, removed them when done, and finally brushed and blew off the clinging ashes nicely. Then he resumed his former suppliant attitude again and said:

"Good lady, will you be so kind as to give me a little cold meat to eat with my roasted potatoes?"

Though a person of resolute mind, the landlady was more impressed by the ingenuity of the presumptive guest than by his perpetrated imposition, and she allowed him to partake of a repast of cold meat and roasted potatoes at the expense of the house.

From a short time subsequently to the incorporation of Hillsborough county, in 1771, till the erection of Merrimack county, in 1823, Hopkinton was one of the shire towns of Hillsborough. Consequently, in this town occurred courts, trials, convictions and commitments, the county jail being located in the southerly outskirts of the village, the edifice, outwardly unchanged, being now the residence of Mr. B. O. Kimball. A series of legal events memorable in the history of this town embraces the detention, trial, conviction and execution of Abraham Prescott, who killed the wife of Chauncey Cochran of Pembroke, in the year 1833. The execution of Prescott was the only event of the kind occuring in Hopkinton during its career as a shire town, and was attended by peculiarly lamentable circumstances.

Prescott was a feeble minded youth, who, being a kind of protege of the Cochran family, conceived, as the story goes, that by getting rid of the responsible heads of the Cochran household he should surely inherit their property. In fulfillment of a stupid though tragical project, he succeeded in decoying Mrs. Cochran into a secluded place where he stealthily dealt her a fatal blow. For this crime, he was convicted of murder at the September term of the Superior Court, at Hopkinton, in the year 1834. An alleged irregularity secured a motion for a new trial, which took place at the September term of court of 1835, when the accused was again convicted, and sentenced to be hung on the 23d of the following December.

Very strenuous efforts were made for