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Rh A large amount of building was done here last season, including the erection of one of the finest business blocks in the State—Tilton's Opera Block—at a cost of nearly $50,000, together with about sixty dwellings. Considerable building is also in progress the present season, and the outlook for the future growth and prosperity of the place is most flattering. The valuation of the town for purposes of taxation the present year is $1,271,987. The town debt, which was quite large at the close of the war, and for some years subsequently, has been greatly reduced, and will undoubtedly be entirely extinguished in the next five years. The present town officers are Wm. M. Taylor, Isaac Calhoun, and T. L. Parker, selectmen; George E. Lovejoy, clerk; Alonzo Weeks, treasurer; and Rev. F. H. Lyford, superintending school committee.

MONG the clergymen of Lowell there have been at different times many able representatives of the Granite State. Rev. Dr. A. A. Miner, of Boston, and Rev. J. G. Adams, both distinguished Universalist divines and natives of New Hampshire, preached several years each in that city; and the Rev. Dr. Eden B. Foster, pastor emeritus of the John St. Congregational church, who long ranked among the ablest orthodox clergymen in New England, and whose long and useful career was closed by death on the tenth day of April last, was also born and reared upon New Hampshire soil. Dr. Foster was born in Hanover, May 26, 1813; graduated at Dartmouth in the class of 1827; was for a time Principal of Pembroke Academy; studied theology at Andover Seminary; was settled as pastor of the Congregational church in Henniker in 1841; afterward, preached several years in Pelham; and in 1852 was installed pastor of the John St. church in Lowell, in which relation he remained until 1861, when he retired, seeking rest from arduous labor, on account of foiling health. He subsequently located in Springfield, where he preached some time, but returned to Lowell and assumed his former pastorate in 1866, occupying the desk until 1878, when he retired, holding the relation of pastor emeritus until his recent decease.

One of the most popular, enthusiastic, and devoted clergymen of Lowell at the present time is the Rev. Josiah Lafayette Seward, a native of the town of Sullivan, but whose home, during most of his early life was in the beautiful village—now city—of Keene. Mr. Seward was born April 17, 1845; received his preparatory education at the Westminster (Vt.) Valley, and Phillips Exeter, academies, graduating from the latter institution in 1864, and from Harvard College in 1868. He then engaged in teaching one year at Frankfort, West Virginia; and then, in 1870 and 1871, as the first principal of the Conant Free Academy in Jaffrey, which institution—established through the liberality of that well-known friend of education, Hon. John Conant,—was organized under his direction. He received the degree of, in course, from Harvard