Excerpt: .a pit filled with stones, water and growing alders. He then made some additions to the house as demanded by his growing family. He also built near it a barn. His house was still on the cold, bushy land which slopes to the north-east, and is now only occupied for pasturage. Here seven young children occupied with him his pioneer home. The tradition used to be, that at first he incurred somewhat the derision of his neighbors, better skilled in backwoodsman's lore than himself, by hacking all around a tree, in order to get it down. It is said that some imagined his land would soon be in the market, and sold cheap; that the city bred farmer, better taught in navigation and surveying, than in clearing forests and in agriculture, would become tired and discouraged and abandon his undertaking.

But he remained and persevered, and his good Puritan qualities, industry, frugality, good management, and persistency for the first ten or fifteen years, determined his whole subsequent career and that of his family. He was never rich, but he secured a good home, dealt well with his Pg 35 children, and became independent for the remainder of his life. Indeed, like most New England Puritans, of resolute and conscientious industry, and of moderate expenditures, he was always independent after he was of age. A man of such character, and of so fair an education would, of course, soon be valued in any community, and be especially useful in a new settlement where skill with the pen and the compass are rarer than in older places. He was appreciated and was soon made town clerk of Rutland, and county surveyor for Rutland county. He was also in time made captain of the militia, in recognition perhaps, in part, of his Revolutionary services. He was also made clerk of the Congregational church, I have some of his church records. On Nov.

20th, 1805, he was elected a deacon. He was also on the committee to revise the Articles of Faith and Rules of Discipline. About 1792, .