LITMIR.BIZ

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as the story of that vagrant Betsy, whose girlhood was passed in a Rutland shanty, and who, after she married in New York the wealthy Frenchman, Stephen Jumel, and was left a widow, then married Aaron Burr.

      St. Edmundsbury, in old Suffolk, where Robert Browne first preached independency, has an air so bracing and salubrious that it has been called the Montpellier of England. Old Rutland might well be called the Montpellier of Massachusetts. Indeed, when a few years ago the State of Massachusetts decided to establish a special hospital for consumptives, the authorities asked the opinions of hundreds of physicians and scientific men in all parts of the State as to where was the best place for it, the most healthful and favorable point; and a vast preponderance of opinion was in behalf of Rutland. On the southern slope, therefore, of Rutland’s highest hill the fine hospital now stands; and until people outgrow the foolish notion that a State must have all its State institutions within its own borders, – until Massachusetts knows that North Carolina is a better place for consumptives than any town of her own, – there could not be a wiser choice. The town is so near to Worcester, and even to Boston, that its fine air, broad outlook and big hotel draw to it hundreds of summer visitors; and latterly it has grown enterprising, – for which one is a little sorry, – and has water-works and coaching parades.

      The central town in Massachusetts, Rutland is also the highest village in the State east of the Connecticut. From the belfry of the village church, from the dooryards of the village people, the eye sweeps an almost boundless horizon, from the Blue Hills to Berkshire and from Monadnock to Connecticut, and the breezes on the summer day whisper of the White Hills and the Atlantic. It is not hard for the imagination to extend the view far beyond New England, to the town on the Muskingum which the prophetic eye of Putnam saw from here, and to the great States beyond, which rose obedient to the effort which began with him; it is not hard to catch messages borne on winds from the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific.

      Just at the foot of the hill, – to the west, as is fitting, – stands the old Rufus Putnam house, the church clock telling the hours above, Wachusett looming beyond the valley, the maples rustling before the door, to the west the sough of the pines. Its oaken timbers are still as sound as when Murray put them in place before the Revolution, each clapboard still intact, the doors the same, the rooms but little altered. Could Putnam return to earth again and to Rutland, he would surely feel himself at home as he passed through the gate.

      In 1893, when the enthusiasm re-inforced by our Old South lectures on “The Opening of the West” was strong, I wrote these words about the Rufus Putnam house:

      “This historic house should belong to the people. It should be insured against every mischance. It should be carefully restored and preserved, and stand through the years, a memorial of Rufus Putnam and the farmers who went out with him to found Ohio, a monument to New England influence and effort in the opening and building of the great West. This room should be a Rufus Putnam room, in which there should be gathered every book and picture and document illustrating Putnam’s career; this should be the Ordinance room, sacred to memorials of Manasseh Cutler and all who worked with him to secure the great charter of liberty; this the Marietta room, illustrating the Marietta of the first days and the last, binding mother and daughter together, and becoming the pleasant ground for the interchange of many edifying courtesies. There should be, too, a Rutland room, with its hundred objects illustrating the long history of the town, – almost every important chapter of which has been witnessed by this venerable building, – with memorials also of the old English Rutland and of the many American Rutlands which look back reverently to the historic Massachusetts town; and a Great West library, on whose shelves should stand the books telling the story of the great oak which has grown from the little acorn planted by Rufus Putnam a hundred years ago. We can think of few memorials which could be established in New England more interesting than this would be. We can think of few which could be established so easily. It is a pleasure to look forward to the day when this shall be accomplished. It is not hard to hear already the voice of Senator Hoar, at the dedication of this Rufus Putnam memorial, delivering the oration in the old Rutland church. Men from the West should be there with men from the East, men from Marietta, from the Western Reserve, from Chicago, from Puget Sound. A score of members of the Antiquarian Society at Worcester should be there. That score could easily make this vision a reality. We commend the thought to these men of Worcester. We commend it to the people of Rutland, who, however the memorial is secured, must be its custodians.”

      Just a year from the time these words were written, the pleasing plan and prophecy – more fortunate than most such prophecies – began to be fulfilled. It was a memorable meeting in old Rutland on that brilliant October day in 1894. Senator Hoar and seventy-five good men and women came from Worcester; and Edward Everett Hale led a zealous company from Boston; and General Walker drove over with his friends from Brookfield, his boyhood home near by, – the home, too, of Rufus Putnam before he came to Rutland; and when everybody had roamed over the old Putnam place, and crowded the big hotel dining-room for dinner, and then adjourned to the village church, so many people from the town and the country round about had joined that the church never saw many larger gatherings. The address which Senator Hoar gave was full of echoes of his great Marietta oration; and when the other speeches had been made, it was very easy in the enthusiasm to secure pledges for a third of the four thousand dollars necessary to buy the old house and the hundred and fifty acres around it. The rest has since then been almost entirely raised; the house has been put into good condition, and is visited each year by hundreds of pilgrims from the East and the West; and a noteworthy collection of historical memorials has already been made, – all under the control of the Rutland Historical Society, which grew out of that historic day, and which is doing a noble work for the intellectual and social life of the town, strengthening in the minds of the people the proud consciousness of their rich inheritance, and prompting them to meet the new occasion and new duty of to-day as worthily as Rufus Putnam and the Rutland farmers met the duty and opportunity of 1787. In the autumn of 1898, there was another noteworthy celebration at Rutland. This time it was the Sons of the Revolution who came; and they placed upon the Putnam house a bronze tablet with the following inscription, written by Senator Hoar, who was himself present and the chief speaker, as on the earlier occasion:

      “Here, from 1781 to 1788, dwelt General Rufus Putnam, Soldier of the Old French War, Engineer of the works which compelled the British Army to evacuate Boston and of the fortifications of West Point, Founder and Father of Ohio. In this house he planned and matured the scheme of the Ohio Company, and from it issued the call for the Convention which led to its organization. Over this threshold he went to lead the Company which settled Marietta, April 7, 1788. To him, under God, it is owing that the great Northwest Territory was dedicated forever to Freedom, Education, and Religion, and that the United States of America is not now a great slaveholding Empire.”

      Many such celebrations will there be at the home of Rufus Putnam, and at the little village on the hill. Ever more highly will New England estimate the place of old Rutland in her history; ever more sacred and significant will it become as a point of contact for the East and West; and in the far-off years the sons and daughters of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin will make pilgrimages to it, as the children of New England pilgrimage to Scrooby.

      SALEM

      THE PURITAN TOWN

      By GEORGE DIMMICK LATIMER

      SALEM is what historical students would call a palimpsest, an ancient manuscript that has been scraped and then rewritten with another and later text. By careful study of the almost illegible characters and sometimes by chemical treatment, great treasures of the ancient learning, such as Orations of Cicero, the Institutes of Gaius and versions of the New Testament, have been discovered under monkish rules and medieval chronicles. Such a charm of research and discovery awaits the historical student in this modern, progressive city. The stranger within our gates is at first impressed by the many good business blocks, the elegant residences amid beautiful lawns on the broad, well-shaded streets, the handsome public buildings, many of them once stately mansions of the old sea-captains, and a very convenient electric-car service that makes the city a famous shopping-place for the eastern half of the county. But here and there the visitor comes upon some memorial tablet or commemorative stone, some ancient cemetery or venerable building – faded characters of an earlier text – that

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