NORTHAMPTON SOCIETY IN 1811

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for sixty years have changed the physical aspect of the times, and removed so many old landmarks, and created so much hurry and bustle, that events formerly marked and distinguished, now chase each other with rapidity; and we can scarcely go back and put ourselves in the rural village where railroads and telegraphs had never been heard of, where one church gathered all the inhabitants, and where the life of each family seemed of vital importance to every other.

There were no very rich people in Northampton; but many persons of elegant culture, refined and aristocratic manners, and possessing a moderate competence, lived there in much ease, envying no one, really believing themselves highly favored, as they were, and practising a generous hospitality at all times. It was a county town, and so seemed a large place to the people on the outskirts; but it really numbered only four thousand inhabitants. If there were no rich people, there was certainly an almost utter absence of poverty, and none of those sad sights to meet the eye reminding one of a destiny entirely different from one's own. Little or no business was done there; but Shop Row contained about ten stores, all of them excellent,-dry-goods and hardware stores, and an apothecary's,— which made a little cheerful bustle in the centre of the town, especially on certain days of the week, when the country-people would come in in their oldfashioned wagons to do their shopping. There were two United States senators residing there for life, three judges, many eminent lawyers and scholars,

retired people who had no connection with the business world, who lived within their moderate incomes, and never dreamed of having more. The matchless beauty of the scenery attracted many visitors. The more wealthy families in Boston were fond of taking carriage journeys of two or three weeks, and would take Northampton in their way as they went into Berkshire. Many a family party came in this way to our two hotels in the summer and autumn, and would stop two or three days to ascend Mount Holyoke or Tom; to drive to Mount Warner or Sugar Loaf; to walk over Round Hill, or round and through the rural streets of our village, which were so lined with magnificent elms that, from the mountain, it always looked as if built in a forest. Every morning the stage for Boston — the old-fashioned, yellow stage-coacn, with a driver who was the personal friend of the whole village-drew up in front of Warner's tavern, with a great flourish of whipping up the four horses; and every evening the stage from Boston was known to be approaching about. sunset, by the musical notes of the stage bugle-horn in the distance. I think the driver always wound his horn just after he crossed the great bridge from Hadley.

There was a story told very often of our dear stage-driver of that period. He had a wonderful memory, and trusted it entirely, and so did all the For they brought him notes and messages and errands of every description, to attend to all the way to Boston; and he never took any memorandum, yet always returned with the long list of things

town.

THE BOSTON STAGE-COACH

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properly attended to. Once he took his wife with him to Boston, the plan being that she should come back the next week. After he was on the stage-box on his return home, he carefully made his estimate of all the commissions intrusted to him by the town of Northampton, and could not see that he had forgotten any thing. Yet all the way to Worcester he was haunted by the impression that he really had forgotten something, though what he could not tell; till, just as he whipped up his horses to leave that town, it suddenly came to him, and he exclaimed, "Oh! it's my wife; I've left my wife!" Of course it was too late for him to return for her, and of course he never heard the last of it in Northampton.

My father was one of the most industrious of men; all through winter's cold and summer's heat he labored faithfully at his law business, from morning till night, for the maintenance of his large family. If ever man fulfilled the injunction, "not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord," he did. Social enjoyment was his great, in fact his only, recreation; and the sound of the stagehorn at even-tide was like martial music to a warhorse. His face would glow in the evening light, his step become alert. He reached his hat from the tree in the hall, and hastened out to be at the tavern before the stage appeared. With a shining countenance, he would return and tell of the fine people who had arrived; how he had offered his carriage and horses to Mr. A., or Mrs. B. and her daughters, to go up the mountain next day; how he had invited this friend to breakfast with him, another to