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 R154.Sa1 M89 A sketch of Dr. John 
 
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A SI^ETOH 
 
 -OF- 
 
 DR. JOHN SHITH 5AGE 5 
 
 N. Y= 
 
 -by- 
 
 ANNA >lULFOF?D, 
 
 — WITH AN- 
 
 /MPF>E]S[E>IX. 
 
 Containing some interesting letters of his father, Dr. Eb- 
 
 enezer Sage, written in the early part of the century, 
 
 and other matters relating to Sag- Harbor. 
 
 SAG-HAEBOE : 
 3. H. HUNT, PEINTEE. 
 
 1S97 
 
-; • : ;, ,. - 
 
 \t> 
 
©OJSCTBJVTS. 
 
 — :o: — 
 
 CHAPTER. PAGE. 
 
 I. ANCESTORS, ------ i 
 
 II BOYHOOD, ------ 3 
 
 III. MANHOOD, ------ 13 
 
 IV. DECLINING DAYS, - 20 
 
 V. APPENDIX, ------ 28 
 
IjM!T]RO]DU©TJOj\:. 
 
 -:o:- 
 
 To the Eeadek : 
 
 While thinking of by-gone days, Dr. Sage and my aunt 
 
 Eliza Gracie Dering seem to appear as clear as a dew-drop 
 
 glittering in the light of an early sun-beam. 
 
 This sketch was written for my own gratification, but 
 
 if you knew the Doctor something of interest may be found 
 
 within these leaves. 
 
 A. M. 
 
JDYl. JOH]SC SftQE. 
 
 -:o: 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 ANCESTORS. 
 
 On the east bank of the Connecticut river, where it 
 sweeps around a bend opposite the city of Middletown, 
 Conn., the picturesque town of Portland is situated. In 
 Colonial times it was called Chatham. About fifty years 
 since, when the Portland stone, which is found here, was be- 
 coming popular, the name was changed to that of Portland, 
 after a place in England, famous for freestone quarries. 
 
 Chatham was the home of John Sage's American ances- 
 tors. It is claimed by descendants that they came from 
 France and were Huguenots, also that the name has been 
 corrupted from La Sarge. David Sage, his grandfather, 
 was its first Representative to the General Assembly, and 
 held that position from 1768 to Oct. 1775. It is recorded 
 that in 1803, when eighty-six years old, he was one of the 
 Justices. A brother was one of the victims of the prison- 
 ship cruelties during the Revolution. Comfort Sage (a 
 relative) it is said commanded a comoanv of light-horse at 
 the battle of Lexington, 1775. 
 
 Ebenezer Sage, son of David and father of John, was 
 born in Chatham, 1755, He graduated from Yale College, 
 1788, in the same class with Joel Barlow and Noah Web- 
 ster. He was a physician, and in 1784 settled in East- 
 Hampton, N. Y. He was a skillful doctor and a gentleman 
 of scholarly attainments. He was of the Jefferson school 
 of politics, and was Member of Congress from Suffolk Co., 
 
2 DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 N. T., from 1809-1817, also a delegate to the Convention, 
 1821, for amending the Constitution of the State of New- 
 York. He died in Sag-Harbor, N. T., greatly lamented, 
 1835. 
 
 Ruth Smith, the daughter of Dr. William Smith, of South- 
 ampton, N. Y., became the wife of Dr. Ebenezer Sage and 
 the mother of John. She belonged to the family descend- 
 ed from Richard Smith, who settled in Smithtown, Long 
 Island, N. Y., 1663. This family is commonly known as 
 the "Bull Smiths" and thus distinguished from the "Tan- 
 gier Smiths." 
 
 Richard Smith was a Patentee of immense tracts of land 
 both in New-York and Rhode Island. He was a soldier in 
 Cromwell's wars, and the gun with which he fought and 
 afterwards did good execution amoiig the Indians, is a 
 treasured relic in the family at the ancient homestead near 
 Smithtown, where his grave and that of his wife still may 
 be seen. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BOYHOOD. 
 
 Q 
 
 John Sage was bom in East-Hampton, N. Y., 1781. His 
 parents lived on the quaint, shady street, in the house 
 which Albert M. Payne modernized, and in which he now 
 resides. He inherited sterling qualities of integrity, pru- 
 dence and intelligence. These traits of character still dis- 
 tinguish persons of the same pedigree. 
 
 He did not remember the time wh en he could not read 
 nor write, but never forget how, when five years old, he 
 was sent to "Dame Filer's" school. "Dame Filer" took 
 little children (principally) to relieve their busy mothers, to 
 to her house which stood r till recently near the south end 
 (if the village. "Dame Filer" essayed to teach the rudi- 
 ments. Her methods, or rather ways of so doing, left a 
 strong and long impression upon this pupil, which in old 
 age, when recalled to mind, afforded amusement to himself 
 and hearers. Suffice it. to say, the road to knowledge one 
 hundred years ago was not enlivened as at the present day, 
 by kindergartens or athletics. The Bible was often the 
 text book from which was taught the alphabet, easy spell- 
 ing and first reading lessons. Indeed, bible, birch and 
 bench were the essential furniture of a school room, and 
 did not make it a cheerful place for little Puritans. 
 
 "When John was seven years old his father returned to 
 Chatham, Ct., but after living there five years was induced 
 to settle in Sag-Harbor, N. Y., and practice his profession. 
 During the following five years John was a pupil at Clinton 
 Academy, East-Hamrton, N. Y. He was prepared at this 
 school for Dartmouth College, which he entered in 1808, in 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 his 18th year. He graduated, third in his class, and lived 
 to see himself the last but one, who had not been "starred," 
 as the Doctor expressed it. In old age he used to search 
 the College catalogue to find a name of a college mate with 
 an asterisk. It did not seem to be in any degree a depress- 
 ing occupation, and when assured that Le was the last 
 living, but one other, of his class, would often repeat the 
 fact to us children. It seemed to us, as perhaps to him, 
 a position of dignified consideration. 
 
 Two letters written by the boy during the beginning of 
 his college life, are by the changes and chances with which 
 the whirligig of time often preserves and wields the destiny 
 of inanimate objects, at my disposal. They were written 
 to his father's friend, Mr. Henry Packer Dering. The 
 first is dated : 
 
 Dartmouth College, January, 1808. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I am infinitely obliged to you for the favor you do me in 
 frankiiig my sister's letter. I should have written you last 
 week but want of time must be my plea, and it was at the 
 end of the term. 
 
 Vacation has now commenced, and of course now I am 
 free from all exercises, but as there is a good library be- 
 longing to the College I shall never be out of business. 
 
 I saw by the papers which my father sent me the account 
 of the death of Mr. Gelston ; this is a melancholy instance 
 of the uncertainty of human life ; no one had better hopes 
 of a long life than he could have, but fatal diversion put 
 an end to his career. 
 
 The embargo which I hear has been laid on our ports 
 is a strong measure ; but I suppose the Tories will not 
 blame Mr. Jefferson for rashly plunging into war, when but 
 just uoav they grumbled at his want of energy. Seemingly 
 inconsistencies are easily reconciled by them ; let Mr. Jef- 
 ferson do what he will, they without reason will always 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 dislike him. Indeed their only reason amounts to no more 
 than this : 
 
 "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, 
 
 The reason why I cannot tell, 
 
 But I don't like thee Dr. Fell.'' 
 
 I hardly know what to think of the present ministry of 
 England. It is my oj inion that they want to put off a war 
 with us 'till they can have time to equip the Danish fleet. 
 Perhaps the Tories who justified them in taking Copenha- 
 gen will see the fruits of that victory employed in burning 
 down their own houses. They may then sing another 
 song. It is very rarely that we can come across much 
 news, especially at this season of the year. If anything 
 extraordinary happens in Canada we shall soon hear of it 
 here. Adieii. To your family present the compliments of 
 vour humble servant, 
 
 JOHN S. SAGE. 
 
 David G-eiston, while hunting deer on Gardiner's Island, 
 in company with the proprietor of the island, Mr. Henry 
 P. Dering, Capt. David Hand and others from Sag Harbor, 
 was accidentty shot by Capt. Hand. The hunters were or- 
 dered to stand still, but this young man moved and there- 
 by received a death wound. He was son or nephew of Mr. 
 David Gelston, who was Collector of the port of New-York, 
 and after whom he was named. 
 
 The second letter is extremely interesting after the lapse 
 of eighty-nine years, and such a vivid description of the 
 faculty of Dartmouth College at that early date, written 
 by one of its students, must be rare in its annals. 
 
 It is dated : 
 
 Dartmouth College, April 2d, 1808. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I gave you in my last some account of our President, 
 and now to complete fcne picture, I will say a few words 
 concerning the other members of the Government. 
 
 Our eldest Professor is John Smith, D. D., Prof, of Latin, 
 
b DE. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 Greek, Hebrew and the Oriental tongues. B> is a man of 
 very tenacious memory, and blessed with a considerable 
 show of application, which qualities are the only requisites 
 to obtain a knowledge of the tongues. He is perfect mas- 
 ter of Latin and Greek, which are his hobby-horses, but 
 when he gets into the pulpit he sinks into nothing. He is 
 never properly in his element unless at liic, hac, hoc. He 
 is a miserable composuist, and indeed miserable at every- 
 thing except the languages ; he is ven jealous of his dig- 
 nity, and is continually lecturing the class for some fault 
 in that respect ; he is a rank Fed. and when he gets upon 
 politics talks more like a mad man than anything else ; he 
 is in continual fear of Bonaparte, and already imagines the 
 French bayonets at his side ; and finally, to say the least, 
 he is a perfect ignoramus in everything except what relates 
 immediately to the languages. His Latin grammar is the 
 best extant, and has been much approved of in Europe as 
 the most useful work of the kind ever published. So much 
 for Prof. Smith. 
 
 Dr. Nathan Smith, Prof, of Chemistry and Medicine, is 
 pel haps the most skillful man in his profession of any in 
 the U. S. He is the most active man I ever saw ; he rides 
 continually, allows himself scarcely any time to sleep, and 
 perhaps his practice is the most extensive of any in the U. S. 
 He has risen to his present eminence mainly by his own 
 exertions ; he never received a liberal education, and what 
 learning he has he picked up himself. His profits are im- 
 mense, and were he as frugal as the President of the Col- 
 lege he might be as wealthy as any man in the IJ. S. 
 
 John Hubbard, Prof, of Natural Philosophy and Mathe- 
 matics, is the most amiable of all the College Government. 
 There is no man in this country who possesses so great a 
 knowledge of philosophy. His knowledge is most of it 
 picked up from his own observations, for he never lets any 
 phenomenon pass by him without explaining it if possible. 
 He is rather deficient in mathematics, but he posesses the 
 most geographical knowledge of any man I ever saw. He 
 was a soldier during the Revolution, and was I believe in 
 almost every battle that took place, 
 
DE. JOHN SAGE. 7 
 
 Our last Prof, is Eosuelf Shirtleff, Prof, of Theology. 
 He is talked of for President, but if the present President 
 can prevent his stepping into his shoes he will do it. They 
 have been at variance ever since Shirtleff was chosen, and 
 the only reason for it is because Shirtleff is rather inde- 
 pendent. He won't submit to everything the President 
 says, as Profs. Smith and Hubbard will, but asserts his 
 own opinion sometimes. Shirtleff is in principle a Hop- 
 kintonian. He has the strongest reasoning powers that I 
 most ever saw, but has a very bad delivery. He is pretty 
 austere, and if he ever should be president a new leal' 
 would be turned over. 
 
 Upon the whole, sir, tane our government together, there 
 is not another to be compared to it in the U. S. There is 
 not one which is so much respected by the students, and 
 though they are very wild here, and backward to punish, 
 there is not another College where there are so few capers 
 cut or faults committed. 
 
 I am yours sincerely, 
 
 JOHN S. SAGE. 
 
 His early years were passed in the quiet village of Sag- 
 Harbor, N. Y., but the political agitations of the period 
 pervaded hamlets as well as cities. The spirit of the 
 American Pie volution tempered the ideas of men with as 
 keen a ring of patriotism as the blades of their swords had 
 sounded in the clash of victory. They had not yet grown 
 rusty in the scabbard and were familiar objects in the 
 household. 
 
 Primitive methods of travel prevented political leaders 
 from massing their followers, or indeed having any head- 
 quarters, and the day of Clubs and Leagues had not 
 dawned. 
 
 Honorable Ebenezer Sage lived in the house, still stand- 
 ing, at the rear of the Masonic Hall, in Sag-Harbor, N. Y. 
 It was built by him, and much of the furniture he made 
 
8 DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 with his own hands, as he was very fond of amusing him- 
 self with carpenter's tools, also rather proud of having his 
 house furnished in the simplest manner, which he judged 
 to be in accordance with life in a young Republic. 
 
 Men who were participants in National affairs gathered 
 by the hospitable fireside, such as : 
 
 Thomas Dering, of Shelter Island, N. Y., a member of 
 the Provincial Convention, 1775, also the convention in 
 1777, for the purpose of forming the constitution of the 
 State of New-York ; Ezra L'Hommedieu, who had been a 
 member of the Continental Congress and (with Thomas 
 Deiing) was elected to the same convention in 1777 ; Jon- 
 athan Havens, a member of some of the early Congresses, 
 also of the convention in 1783, which adopted the Consti- 
 tution of the United States ; Rev. Lyman Beecher, who 
 lived in East-Hamplon, N. Y., and was an orator and di- 
 vine who was fond of displaying his intellectual ability of 
 hurling into the midst of this coterie as well as from the 
 pulpit, metaphysical propositions with powerful theolopi- 
 cal dexterity. (Without doubt, Priest Buell, his predeces- 
 sor, who lived in East-Hampton during the exciting times 
 of the Revolution, laid his hand in baptism and blessing 
 on the head of John when an infant.) 
 
 General Sylvester Dering, of Shelter Island, N. Y., who 
 was noted for tender piety and patriotic fidelity ; he was a 
 member of the State Assembly and served for the interests 
 of Suffolk County ; Henry Packer Dering, brother cf Syl- 
 vester, who was appointed Collector of the port of Sag- 
 Harbor by Cen. Washington ; (Sylvester and Henry were 
 sons of Thomas Dering) ; Dr. Abel Huntington, of East- 
 Hampton, N. Y., a member of Congress ; Abraham Rose, 
 of Bridge-Hampton, and others, with names of estimation, 
 were the associates of his father. 
 
BE. JOHN SAGE. \) 
 
 Intercourse with such men influenced the young mind of 
 John Sage, which retained the impress so given, that in 
 mature life his society was sought by persons of high posi- 
 tion in State affairs, who listened with the keenest appre- 
 ciation to interesting, pithy and truthful assertions regard- 
 ing events and schemes of the days of Jefferson, Madison, 
 Burr and cotemporaries. 
 
 The following incident of school days the Doctor often 
 told to the boys and girls of our family, and we children 
 thought it so good that we called it "The Bell Story." 
 
 Clinton Academy is one of the oldest in the State of New 
 York. It was founded 1784, and named in honor of George 
 Clinton, Governor of the State. During his second term 
 he presented the bell, and for this purpose visited East- 
 Hampton. The occasion was one of celebration and Gov. 
 Clinton was entertained with much ceremony by East- 
 Hampton people. The Doctor related the story in the 
 following style : 
 
 THE BELL STORY. 
 
 "I remember the Governor's visit to East-Hampton. It 
 made a great stir in the town, and as the Academy was the 
 first place at which he was to present himself, of course it 
 was there that the people congregated. I was a very ab- 
 sent-minded boy of twelve or thirteen years of age. My 
 skin was very white and I well remember the freckles. 
 My hair was red, my eyes dark brown, so you see that I 
 was not a pretty boy. The teachers assiduously, but inef- 
 fectually, tried to induce me to dress up, so that by my 
 personal appearance I might express a due respect for his 
 'Excellency.' The boys were ordered to be in line on the 
 street in front of the Academy, and everybody was await- 
 ing the great arrival which was to be heralded by the 
 blowing of a horn as the stage entered Buell's Lane. 
 
 "Seeing mv comrades dressed in their best clothes 
 
10 DB. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 caused me to reflect, and I decided that I ought in some 
 fashion to acknowledge the demands of the day. I was 
 barefooted, as we boys generally were week days during 
 the summer, (always on Town Meeting day in the spring 
 boys were allowed to go without their shoes and stockings) 
 and in a spirit of enthusiasm off 1 ran to the town pump 
 and showered my feet under the spout. / have ever since 
 regretted this act, because I made myself more conspicuous 
 by their whiteness, and the boys set up such a laugh ; yes, 
 and some girls. 
 
 "The stage horn sounded, the bell rung, and the stage 
 came into view at the turning of the lane into the street ; 
 the scholars waved their caps and hurrahed ! hurrahed ! 
 hurrahed! After this a boy stepped forward and pro- 
 nounced an address of welcome to the Governor. Colonel 
 Samuel Huntting was the proud orator. He was a hand- 
 some boy, and he did it admirably. 
 
 "We had to be* very respectful to our elders. Boys 
 were fined for not raising their caps to the teachers, and 
 parents were fined if we were seen on the street after nine 
 o'clock at night." 
 
 Mrs. Lyman Beecher, the mother of Henry Ward Beech- 
 er and Harriet Beecher Stowe, had a boarding School for 
 young ladies in East-Hampton, N. Y. Fanny Sage, John's 
 only sister, was one of the pupils. They were taught the 
 accomplishments then fashionable, and in painting and em- 
 broidery a degree of excellence was attained quite equal to 
 that of the present day. Samples of exquisite needlework 
 done by some of these girls are occasionally to be seen in 
 the homes of descendants. The subjects often were classi- 
 cal, such as "Hector's Parting with Andromache." The 
 stitches of various colored silks give the effect of painting 
 on black or white satin. The date, with name and age of 
 worker, preserved under glass, in a frame of antique device, 
 adds to the interest of these treasured heirlooms. Mrs. 
 Beecher painted miniatures, and she was a lady of superior 
 
DR. JOHN .SAGE. 11 
 
 mind and graces. (See an account of this school in Auto- 
 biography of Dr. Lyman Beecher, London, 1863, Chap. 22, 
 Vol. I. 
 
 Extracts from a Manuscript Account of the Opening 
 of Clinton Academy. 
 
 "The Academy was opened January, 1785. The exer- 
 cises began with psalmody suited to the occasion, which 
 was followed with prayer and sermon by Key. Dr. Buell, 
 from Acts vii, 22. 
 
 "Miss Fanny Bysam,* with more than usual elegance, 
 pronounced 'The Messiah,' by Mr. Pope, and was succeed- 
 ed by Mr. John Gardiner, who with a dignity of eloquence 
 superior to his age pronounced the following oration." 
 
 We cannot give the oration, as it is too lengthy, but copy 
 some of his expressions in regard to the improved accom- 
 modations : 
 
 "The house in which we are now met is by far the most 
 elegant that many of us have ever seen." 
 
 "The apartments to which we are this day introduced 
 are every way calculated for our delight, our comfort, our 
 convenience." 
 
 "To be thus accommodated, you must be sensible, is 
 greatly to our advantage, yet they are but outlines of that 
 attention which is to be bestowed on our education." 
 
 "Now say, my ingenuous mates, what are your feelings 
 who have heretofore thought it a preciou* opportunity to 
 get but one month's schooling in our little dark forsaken 
 
 cell r 
 
 As he looks forward he sees going forth from the insti- 
 tution "the dexterous clerk, the competent accountant, the 
 renowned orator, the eminent physician, the judicious 
 statesman, the venerable divine, and with them the accom- 
 plished fair to give society its highest tastes." 
 
 This oration was written on between three and four 
 
 My grand mother. 
 
12 DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 sheets of foolscap, and after speaking of the Revolutionary 
 struggle which was recently passed, giving due honor to 
 Otis, Franklin and Adams, not forgetting the "Age of Rea- 
 son," he closed with appropriate addresses to his school- 
 mates and to the citizens through whose efforts the insti- 
 tution was founded. 
 
 The prophecies of John Gardiner have been fulfiled. 
 Many who have occupied honorable positions in merchan- 
 tile, professional, political and literary careers were pupils 
 at Clinton Academy. Among the "accomplished fair" are 
 ladies who have graced society's highest circles. 
 
 One of the teachers was the father of John H. Payne, 
 the author of "Home, Sweet Home," whose childhood was 
 passed in this peaceful village, and no doubt impressed 
 his mind with the spirit of that world-wide known song. 
 
 This digression is made because of the connection of 
 John Sage's boyhood with Clinton Academy. The build- 
 ing is still standing and visited with interest by sojourners 
 in this summer retreat. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MANHOOD. 
 
 After graduating from Dartmouth, Sage studied medicine 
 with his father ; also in the city of New-York. At this 
 date colleges where the study of theology, medicine and 
 law could be pursued, as now, were uuknown in America. 
 It was the custom for a person desiring one of these pro- 
 fessions to study with some one of these callings, pass an 
 examination, and receive a license to practice or follow the 
 vocation of a minister. 
 
 John Sage was a close student of mathematical tastes. 
 His vigorous mind did not shrink from solitary research in 
 science, while love for his mother seemed to satisfy his 
 heart's desires. 
 
 At this period his father was considered with the highest 
 esteem throughout Suffolk County, N. Y., and Congression- 
 al life in Washington made him known to various persons 
 of distinction. He desired his son to accept some position 
 more advantageous for his abilities than available in a re- 
 tired and almost isolated locality like the eastern part of 
 Long Island at that date. He wanted him to have a polit- 
 ical career. He was exceedingly displeased and deeply 
 regretted that the young man declined the position of 
 private secretary to Gallatin, then our minister to the 
 Court of France. He had given him the best advantages 
 of education to be obtained in America. 
 
 Though John was eccentric in manners, yet a talent for 
 humor, brilliant and instructive conversational capacity 
 made the young man a most agreeable companion. 
 
 His scientific and literary tastes were within the range 
 
14 DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 of mathematics, chemistry and languages ; but such was 
 his retiring disposition, bashfuiness, and sensitiveness to 
 public opinion, that the combination in temperament 
 amounted almost to an affliction. His friends were indig- 
 nant at his scorn of the "pomps and vanities," and still 
 more at the extreme shyness of fellow beings. 
 
 Dr. Sage said that a crowd was a bete noir always for 
 him. How different might have been his life and renowned 
 his reputation if he had not chosen to be a recluse. 
 
 His sister, Fanny Sage, married Dr. Lawton and settled 
 in Mobile, Ala., and Dr. Sage, influenced by this circum- 
 stance, went there to begin the practice of medicine. 
 Strange to say, it was very distasteful to him, but the study 
 of the healing art was the charm. Profound thought, cau- 
 tion and skill were the marked characteristics of the prac- 
 titioner. 
 
 His experience in Mobile was very sad. Mrs. Lawton 
 and her husband took the yellow fever, from which they 
 died. Dr. Sage also had it, but when sufficiently recovered 
 returned to his father's house in Sag-Harbor, N. Y. For 
 months his health in consequence suffered. When able to 
 walk the short distance between the house and that of the 
 intimate neighbor, Henry P. Dering, (now the Douglass 
 house on Union street) he was obliged to support himself 
 step by step by holding to the fence. 
 
 When he became better he aided his father for awhile in 
 the care of the sick. Subsequently he spent quite a period 
 of time in New -York, Philadelphia and other cities. 
 
 He took a voyage to the Isle of France, where the ro- 
 mance of Paul and Yirginia was laid, and he always enjoyed 
 recalling the scenes of the -visit to this beautiful isle. 
 In these sojourns a knowledge of the world was gained 
 and his character became more reliant. 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 15 
 
 A serious love affair in New- York, with a southern lady, 
 which unfortunately proved "that the course of true love 
 does not run smooth," (sometimes) was the only one which 
 ever came to light. He was not "a ladies' man," yet ladies 
 enjoyed his society and felt honored and flattered by any 
 attention from him. Once in extreme old age, when ban- 
 tered as to his bachelorhood, he replied in a light hearted 
 manner, "I once had a deary." It was a surprise, and the 
 thought came to mind : 
 
 "The past is not, but memory gives 
 Her brightest hues to days gone by." 
 
 "When asked why he never married, the usual reply was : 
 "It is not in my power to make a woman happy, and surely 
 I do not wish to make any woman unhappy." As to the 
 popular opinion that a physician was more sought after 
 when a married man, he said : "that is a fallacy not worth 
 disputing when compared with real professional merit." 
 
 Dr. Sage believed that most sickness was the result of a 
 fault or imprudence regarding general laws of health, be- 
 cause of the pravailing ignorance of these laws. Other- 
 wise folly and accidents were the causes. Among his 
 opinions the following come to mind : 
 
 "Most drugs effect more harm than good." 
 
 "Most ailments could be alleviated, and in many cases 
 cured, by diet and rest." 
 
 "Each person has his own degree of tempeiature for 
 comfort : sixty degrees for one, eighty for another. Noth- 
 ing is more irritating than arbitrary methods in this mat- 
 ter." 
 
 "The fear of pain should not be encouraged. Bodily 
 rain and mental suffering were for the good of humanity 
 and a guide to the physician in his diagnosis." 
 
 Anesthetics and narcotics were only to be used in ex- 
 treme cases, and their frequent use, as at the present day, 
 deeply deplored. 
 
16 I>K. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 "Never disregard the crying of a child. Try at once to 
 make it comfortable. Care for its body and govern its 
 temper." 
 
 He thought that the preparation of medical prescrip- 
 tions was a part of a physician's duties, and should be of 
 his medical education. The few remedies that he used 
 were compounded with care by himself. He said, "Phar- 
 macy would not have attained so lucrative a place in busi- 
 ness, if doctors had continued the old fashioned way of 
 making pills, powders, salves, jalaps and drops. 
 
 Dr. Sage was very fond of music, and played the violin 
 with grace and skill. He was an accomplished whistler. 
 He was familiar with the operas and dramas of the day, 
 and when in the city frequented the opeia house and the 
 theatre. He was a superior whist player. "When oppor- 
 tunity offered he liked to listen to ministers of repute. 
 The Presbyterian Church was his choice, however his mind 
 was well stored with knowledge of different forms of relig- 
 ions and with bible truths. 
 
 In the village home only his intimates suspected or 
 knew of these traits. Here he studied, composed, trans- 
 lated and experimented, and within the rich resources of 
 his mind found employment. 
 
 In conversation he excelled and in company he was the 
 leading man. His personal appearance inspired respect 
 and deference. He was a tail man of large frame, well 
 proportioned. 
 
 With intimate friends he was often absent-minded, and 
 Mrs. William E. Sleight relates, that one evening, when at 
 her father's house, (H. P. Dering) with her young brothers 
 and sisters, he withdrew from the genial group into a cor- 
 ner and for an hour watched the flame of a candle which 
 he held. None of the company thought of interfering or 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 17 
 
 criticising, for they knew that some scientific puzzle was 
 "being investigated. "It was one of John's ways," 
 
 This lady also tells that he undertook to construct a 
 balloon. Her brother Thomas was taken into his confi- 
 dence and aided him. The lower story of the old Arsenal, 
 which stood on Union street, near the Presbyterian Church, 
 was used for the workshop. He made various instruments 
 for mathematical measurements, such as barometer, ther- 
 mometer, and time-keeper. These were of his own inven- 
 tion. Books were not as common as now, especially trans- 
 lations, and he translated for friends stories from Latin 
 and French writers. 
 
 He loved to impart knowledge, but rot display his in- 
 ventions. "We children, with whom he was associated, can 
 never forget how gracious was his manner when he helped 
 u. sometimes with our lessons. Not anything like the 
 pedant scared us, and names might be mentioned of men 
 and women who have told us that to Dr. Sage they owe a 
 debt of gratitude for their culture in literature. 
 
 The mathematics of LePlace he studied in the French, 
 and discovered and corrected some errors of calculation, 
 which were shown and proved to a few who were able to 
 comprehend the work. 
 
 A gentleman told me that an intricate account involving 
 a large sum of money connected with the settlement of a 
 whaling voyage caused much disagreement, and it seemed 
 necessary that an expert accountant would have to be em- 
 ployed to adjust it. Some one suggested that it be shown 
 to Dr. Sage. This was done, and in an incredibly short 
 time the computations were made correct and satisfactory 
 to all concerned. The Doctor would not receive any re- 
 muneration, saying it was a simple matter to him and gave 
 him great pleasure to be of any assistance. Otherwise it 
 
18 DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 would have cost a good deal and involved perhaps a lawsuit. 
 
 A LETTER. 
 
 In concluding this chapter we give the following inter- 
 esting letter regarding Doctor Sage irom Judge Charles P. 
 Daly, President of the American Geographical Society : 
 Miss Mulford. 
 
 You no doubt know that there was a period in the world's 
 history when the icy region of the Arctic had a warm clim- 
 ate, equivalent to that of South Carolina, as is attested by 
 the fossil remains of large trees that grew there, specimens 
 of the trunks of which are to be seen in European museums. 
 Trees still grow there and attain considerable age, but so 
 very small that Dr. Hays told me that he could cover a 
 forest of them with his hat. 
 
 Since the discovery that the Arctic had once a warm 
 climate, some six or seven theories have been advanced by 
 scientific men, to account for a state of things there in the 
 past which now seems so extraordinary, among whom was 
 an English Colonel of scientific attainments, who wrote a 
 book to establish that a warm climate formerly in the Arc- 
 tic was owing to what is known as the Precession of the 
 Equinoxes, a slow, continual change of the position of the 
 earth toward the sun, from east to west ; a spiral move- 
 ment which occupies about 25,000 years, and this move- 
 ment, which has been known from the time of the Greeks, 
 he undertook to establish by a series of astronomical cal- 
 culations founded upon observations, brought the Arctic at 
 one period of this spiral rotation, so directly under the 
 sun's rays and heat as to give it the warm climate which 
 undoubtedly it formerly possessed. 
 
 Being interested in the subject I got the book, and after 
 reading it I thought if the theory were probable, if all the 
 computations and facts stated in it were correct, of which 
 I was not competent to judge and knowing that Dr. Sage 
 was not only a profound mathematician but a man of ex- 
 tensive astronomical knowledge, I sent the book to him to 
 knoAV what he should say to it, and the following day he 
 returned it, with a memorandum stating that some of the 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 19 
 
 computations were numerically incorrect ; that others were 
 founded upon conjectural observation that astronomically 
 were of no value, as the instruments did not then exist by 
 which accurate observations could be made, and that the 
 boon therein did not prove anything. 
 
 That he should have come to this conclusion was not in 
 itself remarkable, but that he should within twenty-four 
 hours have not only read the book, which was a good-sized 
 duodecimo, but have mastered it going over all its compu- 
 tations and testing all its astronomical statements, shows 
 what a mathematician he was and how thorough his knowl- 
 edge of astronomy. 
 
 I once told him that he was the first person I had met 
 who had read LaPlace's Mecanique Celeste entirely through 
 and his answer was : "that was a pleasure to be enjoyed 
 but once." 
 
 I took Baron Osten Sacken, the Russian Charge, and 
 afterwards the Russian Consul General in New-York, and 
 a distinguished entomologist, who was visiting me, to see 
 the Doctor, and he was struck as I have been, with his in- 
 tellectual appearance and lofty forehead, for he was in ap- 
 pearance more like Baron Alexander Humbolt than any 
 man I have ever seen. Baron Osten Sacken had a long 
 and interesting conversation with him and when he came 
 away said : 'I was never more surprised than to find such 
 a looking man with such acquirements in a little place like 
 this, where you say, or its vicinity, he has passed his whole 
 life. The place where you would expect to see such a man 
 would be in the Prussian Senate." 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Chas. P. Daly, 
 
 Sept. 1896. North Haven. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DECLINING DAYS. 
 
 When about sixty years old Doctor Sage gave up the ac- 
 tive practice of medicine and zealously sought seclusion to 
 enjoy study and repose. He built for himself a small 
 house of his own peculiar plan, on the street at the rear of 
 the Presbyterian Church, at that time a quiet by-street. 
 His laboratory, sleeping room, library and "living room," 
 were arranged as to be convenient, just for liis own com- 
 fort. He was the last of his family. His nearest relatives, 
 the Spencers and Seldens, from Middletown, Ct., made 
 yearly visits, which were mutually enjoyed. 
 
 Old friendships were not relinquished, and when the 
 Doctor made a call by the fireside of those who had been 
 friends for years his hearty laugh and reminiscenses made 
 the visit very welcome. If his strongest attachments were 
 for men, he confessed to enjoying ladies' society. His 
 manners were of the olden times and very courteous. 
 
 Among those with whom he was accustomed to visit in- 
 formally and socially might be mentioned the families of 
 Sleights, Hunt tings, Derings, Mrs. John Fordham, Mr. 
 John Sherry, Mulfords, Nicolls, Gardiners and L'Homme- 
 dieu. Among the last occasions at which he appeared in 
 society was at the marriage of Miss Mary Sherry to Col. 
 Peter French. There was dancing at the wedding. The 
 Doctor was watching and probably comparing the modern 
 style with that of former days, when Mrs. Dering asked : 
 "Well, Doctor, what do you think of it ?" He gravely re- 
 plied : "It looks like a' very serious affair." 
 
 Without doubt he was on the most intimate terms in the 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 21 
 
 Dering family. After the death of his father, which left 
 the hearth desolate, while continuing to live in the old 
 home until breaking up, he took his meals with the Derings. 
 In 1840 Lodowick Dering, a son of H. P. Dering, married 
 Eliza Gracie Mulford. Her family and the Doctor were 
 old friends as well as that of her husband. When the 
 young couple went to housekeeping in the house on Hamp- 
 ton street, where Mrs. Dering always lived, the three took 
 the first meal together, and for forty-four years Doctor was 
 the daily companion at the table. 
 
 Until about 1870, when infirmities began to prevent at 
 times, no matter what the weather, he went to and fro from 
 his house ; and so exact the path and methodical the hour, 
 that one could safety regulate a watch at 8,12 and 6 o'clock 
 as the aged man passed for breakfast, dinner and supper. 
 This long intercourse was without one episode of discord. 
 It resembled that between father and daughter, and re- 
 minds one of the long friendship and solicitude of Mrs. 
 Unwin for the poet Cowper. It was like what Emerson 
 meant by — 
 
 "Happy the house that shelters a friend !" 
 also — 
 
 "The elements of friendship are truth and tenderness!" 
 
 We children saw its beautiful existence, and it is with a 
 kind of emotion of reverence that any details are related. 
 
 Mrs. Dering's qualities of mind and person could entice 
 a student from books and charm a recluse into a genial and 
 entertaining companion. Her thorough belief in the Doc- 
 tor's superiority of knowledge, and assuming the humble 
 attitude of pupil, won his confidence so that he would often 
 think aloud in her presence. 
 
 Thus it was that many a scientific matter which is vet 
 not known or undeveloped was unfolded to h«r. Her real 
 and often pretended ignorance of obtruse subjects, united 
 
22 DE. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 with witty and whimsical comments, gave the pleasure like 
 that Mozart enjoyed when explaining musical composition 
 to his unmusical housekeeper. 
 
 After three-score and ten years old Dr. Sage deliberately 
 burnt up the greater part of his written calculation and 
 translations. This deed destroyed works on mathematics, 
 chemistry, astronomy and languages. When remonstrated 
 with and the loss lamented, he replied : "When the time 
 that they are wanted comes someone will find out for them- 
 selves." 
 
 THE FIRE. 
 
 One morning the bachelor home took fire and burned 
 down. It was thought that its solitary occupant would 
 mourn it as a great loss. He was about eighty-five years 
 old. He refused to leave the blazing house until he got 
 ready, saying, "I know what I am about." With wonder- 
 ful composure he directed the work of saving what was 
 possible, and from time to time would feel of the hot walls 
 in order to judge how much longer it was wise to tarry. 
 The crowd outside said, "The old man won't come out ; he 
 means to burn up." Mrs. Dering had come and repeated- 
 ly warned him of danger ; at last, covered with the ancient 
 looking camlet cloak, with velvet collar and silver clasp, 
 the broad brimmed hat on his head, the Doctor with the 
 faithful friend appeared. 
 
 Through the throng, assembled as usual on such occa- 
 sions, and to whom the venerable man was looked upon 
 with curiosity or regard, they walked, silently, dignified, 
 to her house, apparently not affected by the circumstance 
 ot a little house being destroyed. At noon his dinner was 
 heartily eaten and the matter treated as an accident liable 
 to happen "in the course of human events." 
 
 The following seven years this was his home. Early in 
 married life Mrs. Dering had become a widow, with two 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 23 
 
 sons. These boys grew to manhood, while their mother 
 seemed still to the Doctor's eyes the cheery, girlish com- 
 panion as of old. This role was from habit unconsciously 
 sustained while striving to make these days happy. 
 
 His faculties were unimpaired until about eighty-nine 
 years old, when failing memory as to recent events, and 
 frequent hallucinations, made the hours weary for him and 
 anxious for her. 
 
 There is a French proverb, "That without woman the 
 two extremities of life would be devoid of succor, and the 
 middle of pleasure." It seemed as if Sage had somewhat 
 boasted of being independent of the latter clause, but in 
 youth and in age a mother and friend contributed to his 
 comfort. The clever and witty tricks to which Mrs. D. re- 
 sorted when making; believe to fall in with his hallucina- 
 tions and gently leading the feeble mind back to reality 
 was a trial and strain to nerves, only comprehended by 
 those who have had a like experience. We will try to des- 
 cribe one or two of these occurrences just to show the re- 
 sources of this charming lady on such occasions. 
 
 The Doctor became so childish that he did not like to 
 be alone, except for a few moments at a time, but constant- 
 ly followed Mrs. Dering or was seeking her. One evening 
 they were sitting by the fireside. The Doctor wore his hat 
 and seemed to be in deep meditation, while Mrs. Dering 
 was busy knitting. The time was silently and peacefully 
 prssing when three friends called. They were asked to sit 
 in the hall, just by the open door. In this way she could 
 enjoy the "running in" of neices and neighbors, without 
 disturbing the reveries of the Doctor, who had become 
 quite blind and deaf. They were spectators to the follow- 
 ing off-hand drama. During a social converse with the 
 visitors, Doctor slowly turned toward her and said : 
 
24 DR. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 "Liizy, where are we now ?" 
 
 This remark sounded like delirium, but equally so did 
 her immediate reply : 
 
 ''Why, Doctor, we're aground." 
 
 "Oh," was his placid comment, and he arranged his po- 
 sition to a poise as of one sailing when becalmed and the 
 boat gets aground, and there is nothing to do but wait pa- 
 tiently for a breeze. 
 
 Conversation was resumed without an allusion to the 
 side act. At the end of about a quarter of an hour Doctor 
 began to look leisurely around the room, and remarks : 
 
 "Liizy, our accommodations are very comfortable in this 
 packet." (This word packet for sloop is obsolete.) 
 
 Falling again into the hallucination she at once replied : 
 "Yes ; those bunks look very clean. It is tedious being- 
 becalmed, but we shall get off soon, for there comes a puff 
 of wind." 
 
 Doctor thought they were sailing across the sound from 
 New London to Sag-Harbor. He was living over some by- 
 gone day. Gradually and tenderly he was led to imagine 
 that the wind had changed and was floating them into port. 
 
 Another time, during a blinding snow stoim, after dark, 
 he had an hallucination that he was about to start from 
 Brooklyn by stage for home, as fifty years previous was the 
 way to travel. To have opposed him would have aroused 
 a fury more dangerous with the mental feebleness than ex- 
 posure to the storm. He insisted upon going out of doors 
 and she was puzzled how to manage the case. Soon the 
 bright eyes beamed with a brilliant idea ; at least it was an 
 expedient. Calling a maid to her assistance she said : 
 
 "Show this gentleman to the stage. It storms so against 
 the front door that he must go out of the back door, around 
 the house to the front gate, where the stage is waiting." 
 
DR. JOHN SAGE. 25 
 
 Doctor followed the maid, and after floundering in the 
 snow his brain became cooler than his body and the hallu- 
 cination vanished. In the meantime she hastened to the 
 front door, ready to act the part of welcoming a traveller, 
 but it was not necessary. 
 
 Realizing the situation and the artifice, he praised her 
 quick wit, laughed at the ruse, but pitifully lamented the 
 necessity, saying : 
 
 "I never thought that my mind would fail before my 
 body. That was an illusion." 
 
 Contrary to the usual manner of old age he did not lose 
 interest in current topics. When told of inventions and 
 discoveries he did not doubt nor ridicule but was pleased 
 with accurate descriptions. He would describe and foretell 
 its possibilities and commonly remark, with animation : 
 ' Indeed ! the deuce ! "Well, if the fellows have found out 
 that secret the world will be greatly benefitted." 
 
 He was very particular in business dealings and at this 
 period would so often say to any one doing him a favor, 
 no matter how trifling, "Allow me to recompense you," and 
 perhaps recklessly hand a greenback or coin without any 
 appreciation of its value, that it came into Mrs. Bering's 
 mind to substitute some imitation bills in his pocket-book 
 with which he could be lavish in generosity ; therefore she 
 cut out of green tissue paper these imitation bills. He 
 found them in his vest pocket but they did not answer the 
 purpose very long. Afrer a day of feeling and scrutinizing 
 the paper he came to Mrs. D. with one in his hand and 
 said, "JLiizy, this is not money ; what have you been do- 
 ing V Sou are very smart, but I am too much for you, I 
 am afraid." 
 
 Often by himself, he was fond of repeating long passages 
 from the poets, and well do we remember hearing page af- 
 
26 DK. JOHN SAGE. 
 
 ter page from Hudibras, arjd tlie heart}' laugh at the satire, 
 just as if it was a recent production. 
 
 Thus declining days "were brightened until the weary one 
 was relieved of the burden of his earthly life. Dr. John 
 Sage died in 1882, in his ninety-third year. 
 
 The cessation of the companionship, friendship and so- 
 licitude which had existed for so long a time as forty-four 
 years made a void in the life of Eliza Gracie Dering. Her 
 sons had gone into world for business, one in Chicago and 
 one in Philadelphia, and the occupation of watching the 
 steps and cheering the hours of her charge had passed. 
 Friends noticed that she began "to fail and age." 
 
 About four years after the death of Dr. Sage, one Sun- 
 day evening while the purple, scarlet and gold of a June 
 sunset colored the shy with opaline tints and the hushed 
 air of twilight was tremulous with chimes of church bells, 
 watchers saw a love-glow spread over her face. Was it the 
 reflection of the clebtial light in realms of bliss as angelic 
 music from the choir invisible welcomed her spirit when it 
 entered the Eternal City ? We who had tenderly cared for 
 her during a short illness said : "She is dead." 
 
 THE END. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
Cooper the Novelist and Dr. Ebeimezer Sage. 
 
 The Sea Lions, the last but one of Cooper's thirty-three 
 novels, and one among his best, begins with an account of 
 Sag-Harbor as it was in 1819 and 1820. It is not a des- 
 cription drawn from the novelist's imagination, but from 
 actual observation, for Cooper at that period was tempora- 
 rily a resident there. He had resigned from the navy and 
 had married a lady named Delancy, from Westchester Co., 
 N. Y., who was a connection of the Nicoll's family, of Shel- 
 ter Island, N. Y. While on a visit to this family and in 
 company with Charles T. Dering, a shipping merchant of 
 Sag-Harbor and the husband of Miss Eliza Floyd Nicoll, 
 his attention was drawn to the whale fishery, Sag-Harbor 
 being then one of the principal whaling ports of the coun- 
 try, with a population in 1820 of 1,646, nearly half of what 
 it is now. He became so much interested in this industry, 
 and being then without any pursuit or occupation, he re- 
 solved to engage in that business and purchased a ship in 
 which he had the controlling interest, called the Union, 
 commanded by Capt. Jonathan Osborne, of Wainscott, 
 one of the most noted of the whaling captains that sailed 
 then from Sag-Harbor. Judge Hedges, in his recent His- 
 tory of East-Hampton, N. Y.* in referring tc Captain Os- 
 borne, says : "he had sailed from Sag-Harbor on voyages 
 in command of a ship from thence, owned by J. Fennimore 
 Cooper, the novelist," from which it might be inferred that 
 the vessel was owned by Cooper, but it appears from infor- 
 
 *Hectges' History of East-Hampton, p. 178, Sag-Harbor, 1897. 
 
29 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEB SAGE. 
 
 niation derived from old residents who are familiar with 
 the facts that Cooper and C. T. Dering, the husband of his 
 wife's cousin, formed a company composed of several per- 
 sons, the controlling interest in which vessel, as has been 
 said, belonged to the novelist. 
 
 The Judge gives a vivid description of the capture of a 
 whale off East-Hampton by two boats led by this fam- 
 ous Captain Osborne, a contest which lasted from seven in 
 the morning until two in the afternoon, which he witnessed 
 as a boy seventy years ago from his father's farm. He 
 describes the victors "towing the whale to the shore, the 
 joyful faces of the crew, the tall and stalwart form of the 
 Captain clad in his red flannel shirt, his face and hands 
 almost equally red," looking "the incarnation of the whale 
 fighter fame had reported him to be," and the Judge adds, 
 Cooper's "creation of Long Tom Coffin out of Capt. Jona- 
 than Osborne would be a slight dilation of the reality." 
 
 Cooper, as being the largest shareholder, took charge on 
 behalf of the others of whatever was incidental to the "fit- 
 ting out" of the vessel and the general management of the 
 business. It is said he was the first to originate, at least 
 in Sag-Harbor, the scheme of an association of several per- 
 sons who united in purchasing and sending out a vessel on 
 a whaling voyage, or what was thereafter called "company 
 ships." Whaling vessels before this time, in that port, be- 
 ing owned either by an individual or a business firm. 
 
 While in Sag-Harbor engaged in this business Cooper 
 resided in a tavern at the bottom of Main street, near the 
 site of the present Kailroad depot, a noted place of resort 
 in the early part of the present century, kept by one Pele- 
 tiah Fordham, who from his personal peculiarities and self 
 importance, was known by the sobrequet of "Duke Ford- 
 ham." Here, according to a tradition that has descended 
 
COOPEK THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 30 
 
 both from the Nicolls and Dering families,* Cooper wrote 
 his first novel, "Precaution," which may have been, for he 
 was residing in Sag-Harbor when the novel was published, 
 in 1819, that being the year when • the Union, under his 
 business management, sailed upon a voyage to the coast of 
 Brazil, which at that time was the part of the South Seas 
 chiefly resorted to by whalers, and having, both before and 
 after her departure much leisure, it may have been that he 
 sought to fill it up by the writing of this work, which was 
 not written with any serious expectation then of devoting 
 himself to a literary career. 
 
 It is said that after reading a recent English novel called 
 Discipline, which he brought from New-Yoik, aloud to his 
 wife and her cousin, Miss Anne Nicoll, he remarked that 
 he could write a better novel himself. The ladies express- 
 ed their doubt. They, and especially Miss Nicoll, chal- 
 lenged him to do so, and Precaution was written to prove 
 it, which it did not, as the novel was unsuccessful. 
 
 Judge Hedges in an interesting paper, recently read be- 
 fore the Sag-Harbor Historical Society, after stating that 
 he was told by a person who knew the fact, that Cooper 
 stopped at Peletiah Fordham's tavern, on Main street, adds 
 this respecting the tradition that it was in that tavern that 
 he wrote his first novel, Precaution. "Strangely and late- 
 ly there came into my hands a copy of a letter written by 
 his daughter, the late Susan Fennimore Cooper, dated Jan- 
 uary 7th, 1891, to the Rev. William Eemson Mulford, of 
 New Haven, in which she states that at the time the novel 
 was written her father resided at Angevine, Westchester 
 County, N. Y., and when a child she heard him read the 
 manuscript to her mother, which was written there." 
 
 * See also note by Win. S. Pelletreau in the Kecords of Southamp- 
 ton, Vol. Ill, p. 240. 
 
31 COUPEE THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 
 
 This does not necessarily disprove the statement that it 
 was written in Fordham's tavern, in Sag-Harbor. The cir- 
 cumstance which led to its being written occurred at the 
 residence of his wife's cousin, Miss Anne Mcoll, on Shelter 
 Island ; the anecdote having been frequently told by her 
 both before and after Cooper became famous. 
 
 Precaution was published in 1819, and in the summer of 
 that year the Union returned from her first voyage, under 
 Cooper's superintendence, to Sag-Harbor, and was again 
 fitted out for another whaling voyage, under the same mas- 
 ter, from which she returned in the summer of the follow- 
 ing year. During these three years Cooper, in the dis- 
 charge of the duties he had undertaken, must have, as the 
 manager of this whaling adventure, passed a considerable 
 portion of his time in Sag-Harbor, especially during the 
 fitting out for these two cruises, and the business attendant 
 upon the disposition of the cargoes she brought back, 
 which would make him temporarily a resident there, while 
 his permanent residence or home may have been in West- 
 chester County, N. Y., where he married his wife. 
 
 It is stated that when Mrs. Cooper was in the eastern 
 part of Long Island, it was either as the guest of her 
 relatives, in the Nicoll mansion on Shelter Island, or with 
 her cousin, Mrs. Charles T. Dering, in Sag-Harbor, the 
 residue of her time probably being passed at the permanent 
 residence or home in Westchester County, so that it may 
 have been that this first novel was written at Fordham's 
 tavern in Sag-Harbor, and that Cooper brought the manu- 
 script to his residence at Angevine to read it to his wife. 
 If Miss Cooper had heard, either from her father or her 
 mother, that the novel was written at Angevine, it would 
 have a weight, which merely saying "which was written 
 there" has not. She was at the time a child, and as her 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 32 
 
 parents had been married but a few years, a young child, 
 and her saying "which was written there" may have been 
 simply her impression and belief, from having heard her 
 father read it there, from the manuscript, to her mother. 
 
 As the circumstance that led to its being written occurred 
 at Shelter Island, and as the business he had to do in Sag- 
 Harbor left him with much leisure on his hands, it would 
 seem very natural, after the challenge he had received, that 
 he should at once, having the leisure to do so, have set 
 about doing what he declared he could do, and that the 
 novel was written at Fordhani's tavern, according to tradi- 
 tion, which from inquiries made by the writer has existed 
 there for a long time, and believed, and that when com- 
 pleted he brought the manuscript to his wife in West- 
 chester County to read to her. 
 
 The Union returned from her voyage on the loth of 
 July, 1820, with 900 barrels of oil, the capture of twelve 
 whales, about half a cargo for a vessel of her tonnage, which 
 was not what was then considered a very good voyage. 
 
 Note. — Mrs. Mary Balfour Brunton was the wife of the Rev. Alexan - 
 der Brunton and the authoress of two novels, "Self-Control" and "Dis- 
 cipline," which were very successful, especially the first, "Self-Control." 
 It was published anonymously in 1811, and what is very unusual in any 
 book, the first edition was sold in a month, and especially so in the case 
 of a first publication by an unknown author; its second and third edi- 
 tion followed. It was written, as the authoress afterward stated, to 
 show that the maxim is untrue that a reformed rake make the best 
 husband. "Discipline," which was published in 1814, it is said, also 
 met with great buccess. She left another novel, "Emmeline," unfin- 
 ished at the time of her death, four years afterwards. Many of her 
 writings have been translated into Erench, and she is said to have been 
 highly esteemed on the continent, and that among the pleasing ex- 
 pounders of morality that she £tood prominent as well for the good 
 taste and style as for the soundness of her works.— (Alibone's Diction- 
 ary of Authors, Vol. I, p. 259.) The fact that her two novels were so 
 successful, when she had as competitors, in the field of fiction, Miss 
 Edgworth, Lady Morgan, flannan More, Jane Austin and Sir Walter 
 Scott, is a sufficient commentary on Cooper's wai.t of appreciation of 
 the last of her two novels, who did not justly esteem the merits of oth- 
 ers, for after Scott's death he wr->te an article upon him in a New-York 
 magazine, in which all the merit he allowed him as a novelist was tact. 
 
88 COOPEK THE KOT9BLIST AND EBENEZEE SAGE. 
 
 To illustrate what was, Captain David Yail of Sag-Har- 
 bor, in 1836, returned to that port in the Cadmus, the 
 Havre packet ship that brought LaFayette to this country 
 in 1824, as a guest of the nation, and afterwards becrme a 
 whaling vessel owned by the shipping firm of Mulford & 
 Sleight, of Sag-Harbor, which brought back after an absence 
 of only seven months, 2,000 barrels of oil. 
 
 The Union made two successive voyages thereafter with 
 Captain Osborne as master, to the coast of Patagonia, re- 
 returning to Sag-Harbor respectively on the third of July 
 1821, and the 24th of June, 1822, with what results has 
 not been ascertained. If they had been largely profitable 
 it may reasonably be surmised that Cooper would have 
 continued in the business, and if the investment had not 
 been much of a success that he would have availed him- 
 self of anything better and equally congenial that may 
 have offfered, and about this period something of the 
 kind may have taken place. As respects that business he 
 himself says in the Sea Lions, "None became rich in the 
 strict signification of the term, though a few got to be 
 in reasonably affluent circumstances ; many were placed 
 altogether at their ease, and more were made humbly 
 comfortable." 
 
 The Union continued to be employed in the whaling 
 trade of Sag-Harbor for some years thereafter, but on her 
 next voyage, which was in 1823, she was no longer com- 
 manded by Captain Osborne, but by a Captain Griffing, 
 and about the same period an important event happened 
 in respect to Cooper. It has been stated that the first 
 novel he published was a failure ; that it had no success. 
 Such however was not the case with the second. A person 
 then living in the vicinity where Cooper had married his 
 wife, named Enoch Crosby, had played an important part 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEK SAGE. d& 
 
 in the American Revolution, in keeping Washington sup- 
 plied with valuable information respecting the enemy, with 
 whose perilous adventures, many disguises and hair-breadth 
 escapes Cooper became acquainted, and considering this as 
 supplying excellent material for a work of fiction, he pro- 
 duced and published in 1821 his novel of The Spy, which 
 had a wide-spread popularity, was re-printed in England, 
 was translated into many languages, and established his 
 reputation as a successful writer of fiction. 
 
 It would seem that at or about this period he withdrew 
 from the whaling business, for the Union continued to be 
 employed for several years thereafter, commanded by dif- 
 ferent masters. There is a record in the Sag-Harbor Cus- 
 tom House of her return from a whaling voyage on the 16th 
 of June, 18z7, but nothing indicating that he had any con- 
 nection with her. He had in the intervening seven years 
 evidently devoted himself wholly to the pursuit of litera- 
 ture, having published during that time The Pioneers, The 
 Pilot, The Last of the Mohicans, (generally considered his 
 masterpiece), The Prairie, The Eed Rover, and had become 
 one of the world's prominent novelists. Balsac admired 
 him greatly and Victor Hugo thought that as a writer of 
 romance, he was superior to Scott. 
 
 A small seaport town as Sag-Harbor was then, where the 
 whole industry of the place was connected with ships and 
 shipping, would necessarily bring together curious, excen- 
 tric and striking personages, of which a writer of fiction, to 
 aid him in portraying character, could avail himself, or, 
 as Cooper expresses it, use as "auxiliaries," and that he 
 did so is highly probable, at least in one case. He says : 
 '•That the character of Leather Stocking is a creation ren- 
 dered possible by such auxiliaries as were necessary to 
 produce the effect." The description of the personal ap- 
 
35 COOPEB THE HOVEMSl AND EBENEZEE SAGE. 
 
 pearance and peculiar laugh of Natty Buropo, of tLe Pio- 
 neers, nicknamed Leather Stocking, was recognized at the 
 time of the publication of the novel to be that of Captain 
 Hand, of Sag-Harbor. 
 
 From the first part of the book we quote the following 
 description of Natty Bnmpo, which, in the recollection of 
 persons now Hying, is an exact delineation of Capt. Hand's 
 personality in old age* : 
 
 "His face was skinny and thin almost to emaciation ; but 
 yet it bore no signs of disease ; on the contrary it had every 
 indication of the most robust and enduring health. The 
 cold and the exposure had, together, given it a color of uni- 
 form red. His gray eyes were glancing under a pair of 
 shaggy brows, that overhung them in long hairs of gray 
 mingled with their natural hue ; his scraggy neck was bare 
 and burnt to the same tint as his face." 
 
 A few -pages beyond we read that Leather Stocking 
 laughed thus : " * * then Natty stretched out his long 
 and bonv neck and straightened his body, as he opened his 
 mouth, which exposed a single tusk of yellow bone, while 
 his eves, his face, even his whole frame seemed to laugh, 
 although no sound was emitted except a kind of hissing, 
 as he inhaled his breath in quavers." This "remarkable 
 laugh," as Cooper calls it, is identified throughout the 
 Leather Stocking series. 
 
 Captain Hand, of whom mention elsewhere is made, was 
 a seaman in privateers and vessels of the navy during the 
 revolution, and before reaching his 20th year had seen 
 Washington, been a prisoner of war five times, and was 
 one of the exchanged prisoners from the Jersey prison 
 ships. He was distinguished by the further circumstance 
 that he had five wives. These were interred in a row, each 
 
 * He was the maternal grandfather of the present Capt. David Vail, 
 of Sag-Harbor. 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 36 
 
 with a headstone, in the old burying ground of the Presby- 
 terian church in Sag Harbor, at the end of the ground fac- 
 ing Madison St., where as he walked along the street he 
 could easily see the tombstones of his five wives, of which 
 at his death in 1840, at the age of 81, his was the sixth, 
 placed at the head of the row. On the stone at the grave 
 of the third wife is this curious epitaph, probably of his 
 own composition : 
 
 "Behold ye living mortals passing by, 
 How thick the partners of one husband lie ; 
 Vast and unsearchable are the ways of God, 
 Just but severe His chastening rod." 
 
 They have been removed to Oakland cemetery where they 
 are placed as formerly they were, in a row. Howell, in his 
 History of Southampton, says of him : "Having survived 
 all the dangers of war, he lived long, a man of note and re- 
 spectability, honored by his fellow citizens for his bravery 
 and manly virtues." 
 
 There is this further interest in the Sea Lions that Dr. 
 Ebenezer Sage is one of the personages introduced in the 
 opening part of the tale, whose character, in the opinion of 
 persons still living, is faithfully delineated, and it was 
 thought that in addition to the early account given by 
 Cooper of Sag-Harbor it would be interesting in connec- 
 tion with the letters written by Dr. Ebenezer Sage in the 
 earlier part of this century, to reprint so much of Cooper's 
 novel as relates to him. 
 
 The novelist's description of Sag-Harbor and its vicinity 
 and the habits, character and pursuits of the people of the 
 eastern end of Long Island, seventy-eight years ago, are so 
 interwoven that much of the opening part of the novel has 
 to be re-printed nearly entire. The description opens as 
 follows : 
 
 Every one at all familiar with the map of America knows 
 
37 COOPER TEE KOVELIST AJSD EBENEZER SAGE. 
 
 the position and general form of the two islands that shel- 
 ter the well-known harbor of the great emporium of the 
 commerce of the country. These islands obtained, their 
 names from the Dutch, who called them Nassau andStaten; 
 but the English, with little respect for the ancient house 
 whence the first of these appellations is derived, and consult- 
 ing only the homely taste which leads them to a practical 
 rather than to a poetical nomenclature in all things, have 
 since virtually dropped the name of Nassau, altogether sub- 
 stituting that of Long Island in its stead. 
 
 Long Island, or the island of Nassau, extends from the 
 mouth of the Hudson to the eastern line of Connecticut ; 
 forming a sort of sea-wall to protect the whole coast of the 
 latter little territory against the waves of the broad Atlan- 
 tic. Three of the oldest New-York counties, as their names 
 would implv, Kings, Queens and Suffolk, are on this island. 
 Kings was originally peopled by the Dutch, and still pos- 
 sesses as many names derived from Holland as from Eng- 
 land, if its towns, which are of recent origin, be taken from 
 the account. Queens is more of a mixture, having been 
 early invaded and occupied by adventurers from the other 
 side of the Sound ; but Suffolk, which contains nearly, if 
 not quite, two-thirds of the surface of the whole Island, is 
 and ever has been in possession of a people deiived origi- 
 nally from the Puritans of New England. Of these three 
 counties, Kings is much the smallest, though, next to New- 
 York itself, the most populous county in the State ; a cir- 
 cumstance that is owing to the fact that two suburban off- 
 sets of the great emporium, Brooklyn and Williamsburg, 
 happen to stand within its limits, on the waters of what is 
 improperly called tue East River ; an arm ot the sea that 
 has obtained this appellation in contradistinction to the 
 Hudson, which, as all Manhattanese well know, is as often 
 called the North River as by its proper name. In conse- 
 quence of these two towns, or suburbs of New- York, one of 
 which contains nearly one hundred thousand souls, while 
 the other must be drawing on toward twenty thousand, 
 Kings County has lost all it ever had of peculiar or local 
 character. The same is true of Queens, though in a dimin- 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 38 
 
 isked degree ; but Suffolk remains Suffolk still, and it is 
 with Suffolk alone that our present legend requires us to 
 deal. Of Suffolk, then, we propose to say a few words by- 
 way of preparatory explanation. 
 
 Although it has actually more sea-coast than all the rest 
 of New-York united, Suffolk has but one seaport that is 
 ever mentioned beyond the limits of the county itself. Nor 
 is this port one of general commerce, its shipping being 
 principally employed in the hardy and manly occupation 
 of whaling. As a whaling town, Sag-Harbor is the third 
 or fourth port in the country, and maintains something 
 like that rank in importance. A whaling haven is nothing 
 without a whaling community. Without the last it is al- 
 most hopeless to look for success. New- York can, and has 
 often fitted whalers for sea, having sought officers in the 
 regular whaling ports ; but it has been seldom that the en- 
 terprises have been rewarded with such returns as to induce 
 a second voyage by the same parties. 
 
 It is as indispensable that a whaler should possess a cer- 
 tain esprit de corps, as that a regiment, or a ship of war, 
 should be animated by its proper spirit. In the whaling 
 communities, this spirit exists to an extent and in a degree 
 that is wonderful, when one remembers the great expansion 
 of this particular branch of trade within the last five-and- 
 twenty years. It may be a little lessened of late, but at 
 the time of which we are writing, or about the year 1820, 
 there was scarcely an individual who followed this particu- 
 lar calling out of the port of Sag-Harbor, whose general 
 standing on board ship was not as well known to all the 
 women and girls of the place as it was to his shipmates. 
 Success in taking the whale was a thing that made itself 
 felt in every fibre of the prosperity of the town ; and it was 
 just as natural that the single-minded population of that 
 part of Suffolk should regard the bold and skilful harpooner 
 or lancer with favor, as it is for the belie at a watering- 
 place to bestow her smiles on one of the young heroes of 
 Cottreras or Cherubusco. His peculiar merit, whether 
 with the oar, lance, or harpoon, is bruited about, as well as 
 the number of whales he may have succeeded in "making 
 
39 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEB SAGE. 
 
 fast to," or those which he caused to "spout blood." It is 
 true that the great extension of the trade within the last 
 twenty years, by drawing so many from a distance into its 
 pursuits, has in a degree lessened this local interest and 
 local knowledge of character; but at the time of which we 
 are about to write both were at their height, and Nantucket 
 itself had not more of this "intelligence office" propensity, 
 or more of the true whaling esprit de co?ys, than were to 
 be found in the district of country that surrounded Sag- 
 Harbor. 
 
 Long Island forks at its eastern end, and may be said to 
 have two extremities. One of these, which is much the 
 shortest of the two legs thus formed, goes by the name of 
 Oyster Pond Point ; while the other, that stretches much 
 farther in the direction of Block Island, is the well-known 
 cape called Montauk. Within the fork lies Shelter Island, 
 so named from the snug berth it occupies. Between Shel- 
 ter Island and the longest or southern prong of the fork 
 are the waters which compose the haven of Sag-Harbor — 
 an estuary of some extent ; while a narrow but deep arm 
 of the sea separates this island from the northern prong, 
 that terminates at Oyster Pond. 
 
 The name of Oyster Pond Point was formerly applied 
 to a long, low, fertile, and pleasant reach of land that ex- 
 tended several miles fiom the point itself, westward, toward 
 the spot where the two prongs of the fork united. It was 
 not easy, during the first quarter of the present century, to 
 rind a more secluded spot on the whole Island than Oyster 
 Pond. Recent enterprises have since converted it into the 
 terminus of a railroad ; and Green Port, once called Ster- 
 ling, is a name well known to travelers between New-York 
 and Boston ; but in the earlier part of the present century 
 it seemed just as likely that the Santa Casa of Loretta 
 should take" a new flight and descend on the point, as that 
 the improvement that has actually been made should in 
 truth occur at that out-of-the-way place. It required, in- 
 deed, the keen eye of a railroad projector to bring this 
 spot in connection with anything ; nor could it be done 
 without having recourse to the water by which it is almost 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZE* SAGS. 40 
 
 surrounded. Using the last, it is true, means have been 
 found to place it in a line between two of the great marts 
 of the country, and thus to put an end to all its seclusion, 
 its simplicity, its peculiarities, and we had almcst said, its 
 happiness. 
 
 It is to us ever a painful sight to see the rustic virtues 
 rudely thrown aside by the intrusion of what are termed 
 improvements. A railroad is certainly a capital invention 
 for the traveller, but it may be questioned if it is of any 
 other benefit than that of pecuniary convenience to the 
 places through which it passes. How many delightful 
 hamlets, pleasant villages, and even tranquil country towns 
 are losing their primitive characters for simplicity and con- 
 tentment by the passage of these fiery trains, that drag 
 after them a sort of bastard elegance, a pretension that is 
 destructive of peace of mind, and an uneasy desire in all 
 who dwell by the wayside to pry into the mysteries of the 
 whole length and breadth of the region it traverses ! 
 
 We are writing of the year of our Lord one thousand 
 eight hundred and nineteen. In that day Oyster Pond 
 was, in one of the best acceptations of the word, a rural 
 district. It is true that its inhabitants were accustomed 
 to the water, and to the sight of vessels, from the two- 
 decker to the little shabby-looking craft that brought ashes 
 from town to meliorate the sandy la] ids of Suffolk Only 
 five years before an English squadron had lain in Gardin- 
 er's Byy, here pronounced "Gar'ner's," watching the Race, 
 or eastern outlet of the Sound, with a view to cut off the 
 trade and annoy their enemy. That game is up forever. 
 No hostile squadron, English, French, Dutch, or all united 
 will ever again blockade an American port for any serious 
 length of time — the young Herculese passing too rapidly 
 from the gristle into the bone any longer to suffer antics of 
 this nature to be played in front of his cradle. But such 
 was not his condition in the war of 1812, and the good 
 people of Oyster Pond had become familiar with the 
 checkered sides of two-deck ships, and the venerable and 
 beautiful ensign of Old England, as it floated above them. 
 
 Nor was it only by these distant views, and by means of 
 
41 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 
 
 hostilities, that the good folk of Oyster Pond were ac- 
 quainted with vessels. New-York is necessary to all on the 
 coast, as a market and as a place to procure supplies ; and 
 every creek, or inlet, or basin, of any sort, within a hundred 
 leagues of it, is sure to possess one or more craft that ply 
 between the favorite haven and the particular spot in ques- 
 tion. Thus was it with Oyster Pond. There is scarce a 
 better harbor on the whole American coast than that which 
 the narrow arm of the s^a that divides the point from Shel- 
 ter Island presents ; and even in the simple times of which 
 we are writing Sterling had its two or three coasters, such 
 as they were. But the true maritime character of Oyster 
 Pond, as well as that of all Suffolk, was derived from the 
 whalers, and its proper nucleus was across the estuary, at 
 Sag-Harbor. Thither the youths of the whole region re- 
 sorted for employment, and to advance their fortunes, and 
 generally with such success as is apt to attend enterprise, 
 industry, and daring, when exercised with energy in a pur- 
 suit of moderate gains. None became rich in the strict 
 signification of the term, though a few got to be in reason- 
 ably affluent circumstances; many were placed altogether 
 at their ease, and more vere made humbly comfortable. 
 A farm in America is well enough for the foundation of 
 family support, but it rarely suffices for all the growing 
 wants of these days of indulgence, and of a desire to enjoy 
 so much of that which was formerly left to the undisputed 
 possession of the unquestionably rich. A farm, with a few 
 hundreds per annum derived from other sources, makes a 
 good base of comfort ; and if the hundreds are converted 
 into thousands, your farmer or agriculturist becomes a man 
 not only at his ease, but a proprietor of some importance. 
 The farms on Oyster Pond were i either very extensive, nor 
 had they owners of large incomes to support them ; on the 
 contrary, most of them were made to support their owners ; 
 a thing that is possible, even in America, with industry, 
 frugality, and judgment. In order, however, that the names 
 of places we mav have occasion to use shall be understood 
 it may be well to be a little more particular in our prelim- 
 inary explanation. 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 42 
 
 The reader knows that we are now writing of Suffolk 
 County, Long Island, New-York. He also knows that our 
 opening scene is to be on the shorter, or most northern, of 
 the two prongs of that fork which divides the eastern end 
 of this island, giving it what are properly two capes. The 
 smallest territorial division that is known to the laws of 
 New- York, in rural districts, is the "township," as it is 
 called. These townships are usually larger than the Eng- 
 lish parish, corresponding more properly with the French 
 canton. They vary, however, greatly in size, some contain- 
 ing as much as a hundred square miles, which is the largest 
 size, while others do not contain more than a tenth of that 
 surface. 
 
 The township in which the northern prong, or point of 
 Long Island, lies, is named Southold, and includes not only 
 all of the long, low, narrow land that then went by the com- 
 mon names of Oyster Pond, Sterling, etc., but several 
 islands also which stietch off in the Sound, as well as a 
 broader piece of territory near Riverhead. Oyster Pond, 
 which is tJ'-e portion of the township that lies on the "point," 
 is, or was — for we write of a remote period in the galloping 
 history of the State — only a part of Southold, and probably 
 was not then a name known in the laws at all. 
 
 We have a wish, also, that this name should be pro- 
 nounced properly. It is not called Oyster Pond, as the un- 
 initiated would be very apt to get it, but Oyster Pund, the 
 last word having a sound similar to that of the cocknev's 
 "pound" in his "two pund two." This discrepancy between 
 the spelling and the pronunciation of proper names is agree- 
 able to us, for it shows that a people are not put in leading 
 strings by pedagogues, and that they make use of their own 
 in their own way. "We remember how great was our satis- 
 faction once, on entering Holmes' Hole, a well-known bay 
 in this very vicinity, in our youth, to hear a boatman call 
 the port "Hum'ses Hull." It is getting to be so rare to 
 meet with an American, below the higher classes, who will 
 consent to cast this species of veil before his schoolday ac- 
 quisitions, that we acknowledge it gives us pleasure to hear 
 
43 COOPEE THE NOVELIST A2TD EBESTEZEB SAGE. 
 
 such good, homely, old-fashioned English as "Gar'ner's 
 Island." ••Hnni'ses Hull"' and "Oyster Pund." 
 
 This plainness of speech was not the only proof of the 
 simplicity of former days that was to be found in Suffolk, 
 in the first quarter of the century. The eastern end of 
 Lcng Island lies so much out of the track of the rest of the 
 world, that even the new railroad cannot make much im- 
 pression on its inhabitants, who get their pigs and poultry, 
 butter and eggs, a little earlier to market than in the ..lavs 
 o! the stage-wage s. :: is true, but they fortunately, as yet, 
 bring little back except it be the dross that sets everything 
 in motion, whether it be by rail, or through the sands, in 
 the former toilsome mode. 
 
 The season, at the precise moment when we desire to 
 take the reader with us to Oyster Pond, was in the delight- 
 ful monta of September, when the earlier promises of the 
 vear are fast maturing into performance. Although Suffolk, 
 as a whole, can scarcely be deemed a productive county, 
 being- generally of a thin, light soil, and still covered with 
 a growth of small wood, it possesses, nevertheless, spots of 
 exceeding fertility. A considerable portion of the northern 
 prong of the fork has this latter character, and 0} ster 
 Pond is a sort of garden compared with much of the ster- 
 ility that prevails are una it. Plain but respectable dwell- 
 ings, with numerous out-buildings, orchards and fruit- 
 trees, fences carefully preserved, a paintaking tillage, good 
 roads, and here and there a "meeting-house," gave the fork 
 an air of rural and moral beauty that, aided by the water 
 bv which it was so nearly surrounded, contributed greatly 
 - relieve the monotony of so dead a level. There were 
 heights in view, on Shelter Island, and bluffs toward Kiv- 
 erhead, which, if they would not attract much attention in 
 Switzerland, were by no means overlooked in Suffolk. In 
 a word, both the season and the place were charming, 
 though most of the flowers had already faded; and the ap- 
 ple, and the pear, and the peach, were taking the places cf 
 the inviting cherry. Fruit abounded, notwithstanding the 
 close vieinitv of the district to salt water, the airs from the 
 
COOPEP THE NOVELIST AND EEENEZEP, SAGE. 4A 
 
 sea beii g broken, or somewhat tempered, by the land that 
 lay to the southward. 
 
 We have spoken of the coasters that ply between the 
 emporium and all the creeks and bays of the Sound, as well 
 as of the numberless rivers that find an outlet for their 
 waters between Sandy Hook and Pockaway. Wharves 
 were constructed, at favorable points, inside the prong, and 
 occasionally a sloop was seen at them loading its truck, or 
 discharging its ashes or street manure ; the latter being a 
 very common return cargo for a Long Island coaster. At 
 one whari, however, now lay a vessel of a different mould, 
 and one which, though of no great size, was manifestly in- 
 tended to go outside. This was a schooner that had been 
 recently launched, and which had advanced no farther in 
 its first equipment than to get in its two principal spars, 
 the rigging of which hung suspended over the mast-heads, 
 in readiness to be "set up" for the first time. The day be- 
 ing Sunday, work was suspended, and this so much the 
 more, because the owner of the vessel w^s a certain Deaeon 
 Pratt, who dwelt in a house within half a mile of the wharf, 
 and who was also the proprietor of three several parcels of 
 land in that neighborhood, each of which had its own build- 
 ings and conveniences, and was properly enough dignified 
 with the name of a farm. To be sure, neither of these 
 farms was very large, their acres united amounting to but 
 little more than two hundred ; but, owing to their condition 
 the native richness of the soil, and the mode of turning 
 them to account, they had made Deacon Pratt a warm man 
 for Suffolk. 
 
 There are two great species of deacons ; for we suppose 
 they must all be referred to the same genera. One species 
 belong to the priesthood, and become priests and bishops : 
 passing away, as priests and bishops are apt to do, with 
 more or less of the savor of godliness. The other species 
 are purely laymen, and are sui generis. They are. ex omc-io, 
 the most pious men in the neighborhood, as they sometimes 
 are, as it would seem to us. ex-onicio, also the most grasp- 
 ins; and mercinarv. As we are not in the secrets of the 
 sects to which these lay-deacons belong, we shall not pre- 
 
45 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEB SAGE. 
 
 suine to pronounce whether the individual is elevated to 
 the deaconate because he is prosperous, in a worldly sense, 
 or whether the prosperity is a consequence of the deacon- 
 ate ; but, that the two usually go together is quite certain ; 
 which being the cause, and which the effect, we leave to 
 wiser heads to determine. 
 
 Deacon Pratt was no exception to the rule. A tighter- 
 fisted sinner did not exist in the county than this pious 
 soul, who certainly not only wore, but wore out the "form 
 of godliness," while he was devoted, heart and hand, to the 
 daily increase of worldly gear. No one spoke disparaging- 
 ly of the deacon, notwithstanding. So completely had he 
 got to be interwoven with the church — "meeting," we ought 
 to say — in that vicinity, that speaking disparagingly of him 
 would have appeared like assailing Christianity. It is true, 
 that many an unfortunate fellow citizen in Suffolk had been 
 made to feel how close was the gripe of his hand, when he 
 found himself in its grasp ; but there is a way of practising 
 the most ruthless extortion, that serves not only to deceive 
 the world, but which would really seem to mislead the ex- 
 tortioner himself. Phrases tane the place of deeds, senti- 
 ments those of facts, and grimaces those of benevolent 
 looks, so ingeniously and so impudently that the wronged 
 often fancy that they are the victims of a severe dispensa- 
 tion of Providence, when the truth would have shown that 
 they were simply robbed. 
 
 "We do not mean, however, that Deacon Pratt was a rob- 
 ber. He was merely a hard man in the management of his 
 affairs, never cheating, in a direct sense, but seldom conced- 
 ing a cent to generous impulses, or to the duties of kind. 
 He was a widower, and childless, circumstances that ren- 
 dered his love of gain still less pardonable ; for many man 
 who is indifferent to money on his own account, will toil 
 and save to lay up hords for those who are to come after 
 him The deacon had only a niece to inherit his effects, 
 unless he might choose to step beyond that degree of con- 
 sanguinity, and bestow a portion of his means on cousins. 
 The church — or, to be more literal, the "meeting" — had an 
 eve to his resources, however ; and it was whispered it had 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 46 
 
 actually succeeded, by means known to itself, in squeezing 
 out of his tight grasp no less a sum than one hundred dol- 
 lars, as a donation to a certain theological college. It was 
 conjectured by some persons that this was only the begin- 
 ning of a religious liberality, and that the excellent and 
 goodly-minded deacon would bestow most of his property 
 in a similar way, when the moment should come that it 
 could be no longer of any use to himself. This opinion 
 was much in favor with divers devout females of the dea- 
 con's congregation, who had daughters of their own, and 
 who seldom failed to conclude their observations on this 
 interesting subject with some such remark as, "Well, in 
 that case, and it seems to me that everything points that 
 way, Mary Pratt will get no more than any other poor 
 man's daughter." 
 
 Little did Mary, the only child of Israel Pratt, an elder 
 brother of the deacon, think of all this. She had been left 
 an orphan in her tenth year, both parents dying within a 
 few months of each other, and had lived beneath her uncle's 
 roof for nearly ten more years, until use, and natural affec- 
 tion, and the customs of the country, had made her feel 
 absolutely at home there. A less interested, or less selfish 
 being than Mary Pratt, never existed. In this respect she 
 was the very antipodes of her uncle, who often stealthily 
 rebuked her ior her charities and acts of neighborly kind- 
 ness, which he was wont to term waste. But Mary kept 
 the even tenor of her way, seemingly not hearing such re- 
 marks, and doing her duty quietly, and in all humility. 
 
 Suffolk was settled originally by emigrants from New 
 England, and the character of its people is to this hour of 
 modified New England habits and notions. Now one of the 
 marked peculiarities of Connecticut is an indisposition to 
 part with anyrhing without a quid pro quo. Those little 
 services, offerings and conveniencies that are elsewhere 
 parted with without a thought of remuneration, go regular- 
 ly upon the day-book, and often reappear on a "settlement," 
 years after they have been forgotten by those who received 
 the favors. Even the man who keeps a carriage will let it 
 out for hire ; and the manner in which money is accepted, 
 
47 COOPEE THE NOVELIST AM) EBEMfZER SAGE. 
 
 and even asked for by persons in easy circumstances, and 
 for things that would be gratuitous in the Middle States, 
 often causes disappointment, and sometimes disgust. In 
 this particular Scottish and Swiss thrift, both notorious, 
 and the latter particularly so, are nearly equalled by New 
 England thrift ; more especially in the close estimate of 
 the value of services rendered. So marked, indeed, is this 
 practice of looking for requitals, that even the language is 
 infected with it. Thus, should a person pass a few months 
 by invitation with a friend, his visit is termed "boarding;" 
 it being regarded as a matter of course that he pays his 
 war. It would scarcely be safe, indeed, without the pre- 
 caution of "passing receipts" on quitting, for one to stay 
 anv time in a New England dwelling, unless prepared to 
 pay for his board. The free and frank habits that prevail 
 among relatives and friends elsewhere, are nearly unknown 
 there, everv service having its price. These customs are 
 exceedinglv repugnant to all who have been educated in 
 different notions ; yet they are not without their redeeming 
 qualities, that might be pointed out to advantage, though 
 our limits will not permit us, at this moment so to do. 
 
 Little did Mary Pratt suspect the truth ; but habit, or 
 covetousness, or some vague expectation that the girl might 
 vet contract a marriage that would enable him to claim all 
 Iris advances, had induced the deacon never to bestow a 
 cent on her education, or dress, or pleasures of any sort, 
 that the money was not regularly charged against her in 
 that nefarious work he called his "day-book." As for the 
 self-respect, and the feelings of cast, which prevent a gen- 
 tleman from practising any of these tradesmen's tricks, the 
 deacon knew nothing of them. He would have set the 
 man down as a fool who deferred to any notions so unprof- 
 itable. With him not only every man, but every thing, 
 "had its price," and usually it was a good price too. At 
 the very moment when our tale opens, there stood charged 
 in his book, against his unsuspecting and affectionate niece 
 items in the way of schooling, dress, board, and pocket 
 monev, that amounted to the considerable sum of one 
 thousand dollars., money fairly expended. The deacon was 
 
COOPEE THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEK SAGE. 48 
 
 only intensely mean and avaricious, while lie was as honest 
 as the day. Not a cent was overcharged ; and, to own the 
 truth, Mary was so great a favorite with him that most of 
 his charges against her were rather of a reasonable rate 
 than otherwise. 
 
 On the Sunday in question, Deacon Pratt went to meet- 
 ing as usual, the building in which divine service was held 
 that day, standing less than two miles from his residence : 
 but, instead of remaining for the afternoon's preaching, as 
 was his wont, he got into his one-horse chaise, the vehicle 
 then in universal use among the middle classes, though 
 now so seldom seen, and skirred away homeward as fast as 
 an active, well-fed, and powerful switch-tailed mare could 
 draw him ; the animal being accompanied in her rapid pro- 
 gress by a colt of some three months existence. The resi- 
 dence of the deacon was unusually inviting tor a man of his 
 narrow habits. It stood on the edge of a fine apple-orch- 
 ard, having a door-yard of nearly two acres in its front. 
 This door-yard, which had been twice mown that summer, 
 was prettily embellished with flowers, and was shaded by 
 four rows of noble cherry-trees. The house itself was of 
 wood, as is almost uniformly the case in Suffolk, where lit- 
 tle stone is to be found, and where brick constructions are 
 apt to be thought damp ; but it was a respectable edifice, 
 with five windows in front, and of two stories. The siding 
 was of unpainted cedar shingles ; and, although the house- 
 had been erected long previously to the Revolution, the 
 siding had been renewed but once, about ten years before 
 the opening of our tale, and the whole building was in a 
 perfect state of repair. The thrift of the deacon rendered 
 him careful, and he was thoroughly convinced of the truth 
 of the familiar adage which tells us that "a stitch in time 
 saves nine." All around the house and farm was in perfect 
 order, proving the application of the saying. As for the 
 view, it was sufficiently pleasant, the house having its front 
 toward the east, while its end windows looked, the one set 
 in the direction of the Sound, and the other in that of the 
 arm of the sea, which belongs properly to Peconic Bay, we 
 believe. All this water, some of which was visible over 
 
49 COOPEE THE NOYELIST AND EBENEZEE SAGE. 
 
 points and among islands, together with a smiling and fer- 
 tile, though narrow stretch of fore-ground, could not fail of 
 making an agreeable landscape. 
 
 It was little, however, that Deacon Pratt thought of views, 
 or beauty of any sort, as the mare reached the open gate of 
 his own abode. Mary was standing in the stoop, or porch 
 of the house, and appeared to be anxiously awaiting her 
 uncle's return. The latter gave the reins to a black, one 
 who was no longer a slave, but who was a descendant of 
 some of the ancient slaves of the Pratts, and in that char- 
 acter consented still to dawdle about the place, working 
 for half price. On alighting, the uncle approached the 
 niece with somewhat of interest in his manner. 
 
 "Well, Mary," said the former, "how does he get on 
 now r 
 
 "Oh ! my dear sir, he cannot possibly live, I think, and 
 I do most earnestly entreat that you will let me send across 
 to the Harbor for Dr. Sage." 
 
 Bv the Harbor was meant Sag's, and the physician named 
 was one of merited celebrity in old Suffolk. So healthy 
 was the country in general, and so simple were the habits 
 of the people, that neither lawyer nor physician was to be 
 found in every hamlet, as is the case to-day. Both were 
 to be had at Biverhead, as well as at Sag-Harbor ; but, if 
 a man called out "Squire," or "Doctor," in the highways of 
 Suffolk, sixteen men did not turn round to reply, as is said 
 to be the case in other regions ; one half answering to the 
 one appellation, and the second half to the other. The 
 deacon had two objections to yielding to his niece's earnest 
 request ; the expense being one, though it was not in this 
 instance the greatest ; there was another reason that he 
 kept to himself, but which will appear as our narrative 
 proceeds. 
 
 A few weeks previously to the Sunday in question, a sea 
 going vessel, inward bound, had brought up in Gardiner's 
 Bay, which is a usual anchorage for all sorts of craft. A 
 worn-out and battered seaman had been pat ashore on 
 Oyster Pond, by a boat from this vessel, which sailed to 
 the westward soon after, proceeding most probably to New 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 50 
 
 York. The stranger was not only well advanced in life, 
 but lie was obviously wasting away with disease. 
 
 The account given of himself by this seaman was suffi- 
 ciently explicit. He was bcrn on Martha's Vinyard, but, 
 as is customary with the boys of that island, he had left 
 home in his twelfth year, and had now been absent from the 
 place of his birth a little more than half a century. Con- 
 scious of the decay which beset him, and fully convinced 
 that his days were few and numbered, the seaman who 
 called himself Tom Daggett, had felt a desire to close his 
 eyes in the place where they had first been opened to the 
 light of day. He had persuaded the commander of the 
 craft mentioned to bring him from the West Indies, and to 
 put him ashore as related, the Vineyard being only a hun- 
 dred miles or so to the eastward of Oyster Pond Point. 
 He trusted to luck to give him the necessary opportunity 
 of overcoming these last hundred miles. 
 
 Daggett was poor, as he admitted, as well as friendless 
 and unknown. He had with him, nevertheless, a substan- 
 tial sea-chest, one of those that the sailors of that day uni- 
 formly used in merchant-vessels, a man-of-war compelling 
 them to carry their clothes in bags, for the convenience of 
 compact stowage. The chest of Daggett, however, was a 
 regular inmate of the forecastle, and, from its appearance, 
 had made almost as many voyages as its owner. The last 
 indeed, was heard to say that he had succeeded in saving 
 it from no less than three shipwrecks. It was a reasonably 
 heavy chest, though its contents, when opened, did not 
 seem to be of any great value. 
 
 A few hours after landing this man had made a bargain 
 with a middle-aged widow, in very humble circumstances, 
 and who dwelt quite near to the residence of Deacon Pratt, 
 to receive him as a temporary inmate ; or, until he could 
 get a "chance across to the Vineyard." At first Daggett 
 kept about, and was much in the open air. While able to 
 walk he met the deacon, and singular — nay, unaccountable 
 as it seemed to the niece — the uncle soon contracted a spe- 
 cies of friendship for, not to say intimacy with, this stranger. 
 In the first place, the deacon was a little particular in not 
 
51 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEE SAGE. 
 
 having intimates among the necessitous, and the Widow 
 White soon let it be knowu that her guest had not even a 
 "red cent." He had chattels, however, that were of some 
 estimation among seamen ; and Boswell Gardiner, or "Gar- 
 'ner," as he was called, the young seaman par excellence of 
 the Point, one who had been not only a- whaling, but who 
 had also been a-sealing, and who at that moment was on 
 board the deacon's schooner, in the capacity of master, had 
 been applied to for advice and assistance. By the agency 
 of Mr. Garner, as the young mate was then termed, sundry 
 palms, sets of sail-needles, a fid or two, and various similar 
 articles, that obviously could no longer be of any use to 
 Daggett, were sent across to the "Harbor," and disposed of 
 there, to advantage, among the many seamen of that port. 
 By these means the stranger was, for a few weeks, enabled 
 to pay his way, the board he got being both poor and 
 cheap. 
 
 A much better result attended this intercourse with Gar- 
 diner than that of raising the worn-out seaman's immediate 
 ways and means. Between Mary Pratt and Eoswell Gar- 
 diner there existed an intimacy of long standing for their 
 years, as well as of some peculiar features, to which there 
 will be occasion to advert hereafter. Mary was the very 
 soul of charity in all its significations, and this Gardiner 
 knew. When, therefore, Daggett became really necessitous 
 in the way of comforts that even money could not command 
 beneath the roof of Widow White, the young man let the 
 fact be known to the deacon's niece, who immediately pro- 
 vided sundry delicacies that were acceptable to the palate 
 of even disease. As for her uncle, nothing was at first 
 said to him on the subject. Although his intimacy with 
 Daggett went on increasing, and they were daily more and 
 more together in long and secret conference, not a sugges- 
 tion was ever made by the deacon in the way of contribut- 
 ing to his new friend's comforts. To own the truth, to give 
 was the last idea that ever occurred to this, man's thoughts. 
 
 Mary Pratt was observant, and of a mind so constituted 
 that its observations usually led her to safe and accurate 
 deductions. Great was the surprise of all on the Point 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEB SAGE. 52 
 
 when it became known that Deacon Pratt had purchased 
 and put into the water the new sea-going craft that was 
 building on speculation at Southold. Not only had he 
 done this, but he had actually bought some half-worn cop- 
 per, and had it placed on the schooner's bottom, as high as 
 the bends, ere he had her launched. While the whole 
 neighborhood was "exercised" with conjectures on the mo- 
 tive which could induce the deacon to become a ship-owner 
 in his age, Mary did not fail to impute it to some secret 
 but powerful influence that the sick stranger had obtained 
 over him. He now spent nearly half his time in private 
 communications with Daggett; and, on more than one oc- 
 casion, when the niece had taken some light article of food 
 over for the use of the last, she found him and her uncle 
 examining one or two dirty and well-worn charts of the 
 ocean. Not only was the schooner purchased, and cop- 
 pered and launched, and preparations made to fit her for 
 sea, but "young Gar'ner" was appointed to command her. 
 
 Here follows an account of Roswell Gardiner and his 
 ancestry, and more about him and Mary Pratt, which is 
 omitted. 
 
 Such was the state of things when the deacon returned 
 from meeting, as related in the opening chapter. At his 
 niece's suggestion of sending to the Harboi for Dr. Sage, 
 he had demurred, not only on account of the expense, but 
 for a still more cogent reason. To tell the truth, he was 
 exceedingly distrustful of any one's being admitted to a 
 communication with Daggett, who had revealed to him 
 matters that he deemed to be of great importance, but who 
 still retained the key to his most material mystery. Never- 
 theless, decency, to say nothing of the influence of what 
 folks "would say,' the Archimedean lever of all society of 
 puritanical origin, exhorted him to consent to his niece's 
 proposal. 
 
 "It is such a roundabout road to get to the Harbor, 
 Mary," the uncle slowly objected, after a pause. 
 
 "Boats often go there, and return in a few hours." 
 
 "Yes, yes — boats ; but I'm not certain it is lawful to work 
 boats of a Sabbath, chill." 
 
53 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEK SAGE. 
 
 "I believe, sir, it was deemed lawful to do good on the 
 Lord's day." 
 
 "Yes^ if a body was certain it would do any good. To 
 be sure, Sage is a capital doctor — as good as any going in 
 these parts — but, half the time, money paid for doctor's 
 stuff is thrown away. 
 
 "Still, I think it our duty to try to serve a fellow-creature 
 that is in distress ; and Daggett, I fear, will not go through 
 the week, if indeed he go through the night." 
 
 •'I should be sorry to have him die !" exclaimed the dea- 
 con, looking really distressed at this intelligence. "Eight 
 sorry should I be to have him die — just yet." 
 
 The last two words were uttered unconsciously, and in a 
 way to cause the niece to regret that they had been uttered 
 at all. But they had come, notwithstanding, and the dea- 
 con saw that he had been too frank. The fault could not 
 now be remedied, and he was fain to allow his words to 
 produce their own effect. 
 
 "Die he will, I fear, uncle," returned Mary, after a short 
 pause ; "and sorry should I be to have it so without our 
 feeling the consolation of knowing we had done all in our 
 power to save him, or to serve him." 
 
 "It is so far to the Harbor, that no good might come of 
 a messenger; and the money paid him would be thrown 
 away, too." 
 
 "I dare say Koswell Gar'ner would be glad to go to help 
 a fellow-creature who is suffering. He would not think of 
 demanding any pay." 
 
 "Yes, that is true. I will say this for Gar'ner, that he 
 is as reasonable a young man, when he does an odd job, as 
 any one I know. I like to employ him." 
 
 Mary understood this very well. It amounted to neither 
 more nor less than the deacon's perfect conscientiousness 
 that the youth had, again and again, given him his time and 
 his services gratuitously ; and that, too, more than once, 
 under circumstances when it would have been quite proper 
 that he should look for a remuneration. A slight color 
 stole over the face of the niece as memory recalled to her 
 mind these different occasions. Was that sensitive blush 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 54 
 
 owing to her perceiving the besetting weakness of one who 
 stood in the light of a parent to her, and toward whom she 
 endeavored to feel the affection of a child ? We shall not 
 gainsay this, so far as a portion of the feeling which pro- 
 duced that blush was concerned ; but, certain it is, that the 
 thought that Boswell had exerted himself to oblige her 
 uncle, obtruded itself somewhat vividly among her other 
 recollections. 
 
 "Well, sir," the niece resumed, after another brief pause, 
 "we can send for Eoswell, if you think it best, and ask him 
 to do the poor man this act of kindness." 
 
 "Tour messengers after doctors are always in such a 
 hurry ! I dare say Gar'ner would think it necessary to hire 
 a horse to cross Shelter Island, and then perhaps a boat to 
 get across to the Harbor. If no boat was to be found, it 
 might be another horse to gallop away round the head of 
 the Bay. Why, five dollars would scarce meet the cost of 
 such a race !" 
 
 "If five dollars were needed, Eoswell would pay them 
 out of his own pocket, rather than ask another to assist 
 him in doing an act of charity. But, no horse will be nec- 
 essary ; the whale-boat is at the wharf, and is ready for 
 use at any moment." 
 
 "True, I had forgotten the whale-boat. If that is home 
 the doctor might be brought across at a reasonable rate, 
 especially if Gar'ner will volunteer. I dare say Daggett's 
 effects will pay the bill for attendance, since they have an- 
 swered, as yet, to meet the Widow White's charges. As I 
 live, here comes Gar'ner at this moment, and just as we 
 want him." 
 
 "I knew of no other to ask to cross the bays, sir, and 
 sent for Boswell before you returned. Had you not got 
 back as you did, I should have taken on myself the dutv 
 of sending for the doctor." 
 
 "In which case, girl, you would have made yourself lia- 
 ble. I have too manv demands on my means to be scat- 
 tering dollars broadcast. But, here is Gar'ner, and I dare 
 say all will be made right." 
 
 Gardiner now joined the uncle and niece, who had held 
 
55 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEE SAGE. 
 
 this conversation in the porch, having hastened up from the 
 schooner the instant he received Mary's summons. He 
 was rewarded by a kind look and a friendly shake of the 
 hand, each of which was slightly more cordial than those 
 that prudent and thoughtful young woman was accustomed 
 to bestow on him. He saw that Mary was a little earnest 
 in her manner, and looked curious, as well as interested, to 
 learn why he had been summoned at all. Sunday was kept 
 so rigidly at the deacon's that the young man did not dare 
 visit the house until after the sun had set ; the New Eng- 
 land practice of commencing the Sabbath of a Saturday 
 evening, and bringing it to a close at the succeeding sun- 
 set, prevailing among most of the people of Suffolk, the 
 Episcopalians forming nearly all the exceptions to the us- 
 age. Sunday evening, consequently, was in great request 
 for visits, it being the favorite time for the young people 
 to meet, as they were not only certain to be unemployed, 
 but to be in their best. Roswell Gardiner was in the prac- 
 tice of visiting Mary Pratt Sunday evenings ; but he would 
 almost as soon think of desecrating a church, as think of 
 entering the deacon's abode, on the Sabbath, until after 
 sunset, or "sundown" to use the familiar Americanism that 
 is commonly applied to this hour of the day, Here he 
 was now, however, wondering, and anxious to learn why he 
 had been sent for. 
 
 "Roswell," said Mary earnestly, slightly coloring again 
 as she spoke, "we have a great favor to ask. You know 
 the poor old sailor who has been staying at the Widow 
 "White's this month or more — he is now very low ; so low, 
 we think he ought to have better advice than can be found 
 on Oyster Pond, and we wish to get Dr. Sage over from the 
 Harbor. How to do it has been the question, when I 
 thought of you. If you could take the whale-boat and go 
 across, the poor man might have the benefit of the doctor's 
 advice in the course of a few hours." 
 
 "Yes," put in the uncle, "and I shall charge nothing for 
 the use of the boat ; so that, if you volunteer, Gar'ner, it 
 will leave so much towards settling up the man's accounts 
 when settling-day comes.' - ' 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEE SAGE. 56 
 
 Roswell Gardiner understood both uncle and niece per- 
 fectly. The intense selfishness of the first was no more a 
 secret to him than was the entire disinterestedness of the 
 last. He gazed a moment, in fervent admiration, at Mary ; 
 then he turned to the deacon, and professed his readiness 
 to "volunteer." Knowing the man so well, he took care 
 distinctly to express the word, so as to put the mind of 
 this votary of Mammon at ease. 
 
 "Gar'ner will volunteer, then," rejoined the uncle, "and I 
 shall charge nothing for the use of the boat. This is 'do- 
 ing as we would be done by,' and is all right, considering 
 that Daggett is sick and among strangers. The wind is 
 fair, or nearly fair, to go and to come back, and you'll make 
 a short trip of it. Yes, it will cost nothing, and may do 
 the poor man good." 
 
 "Now go at once, Roswell," said Mary, in an entreating 
 mariner ; "and show the same skill in managing the boat 
 that you did the day you won the race against the Harbor 
 oarsmen " 
 
 "I will do all that a man can, to oblige you, Mary, as 
 well as to serve the sick. If Dr. Sage should not be at 
 home, am I to look for another physician, Mr. Pratt?" 
 
 "Sage must be at home — we can employ no other. Your 
 old, long-established physicians understand how to consider 
 practice, and don't make mistakes — by the way, Gar'ner, 
 you needn' mention my name in the business at all. Just 
 say that a sick man, at the "Widow White's, needs his ser- 
 vices, and that you had volunteered to take him across. 
 That will bring him — I know the man." 
 
 Again Gardiner understood what the deacon meant. He 
 was just as desirous of not paying the physician as of not 
 paying the messenger. Mary understood him, too, and 
 with a face more sad than anxiety had previously made it 
 she walked into the house, leaving her uncle and lover in 
 the porch. After a few more injunctions from the former, 
 in the way of prudent precaution, the latter departed, hur- 
 rying down to the water-side in order to take the boat. 
 
 The narrative than discloses that the interest which 
 Deacon Pratt had in Daggett, and his many interviews 
 
57 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 
 
 •with him, was owing to the fact that the sick seaman had 
 disclosed to him that he had two important secrets. One 
 was that he had a knowledge of the exact spot in the South 
 Seas where pirates had buried a considerable amount of 
 treasure, and another, that he knew of certain previously 
 unvisited islands, in low southern latitudes, where seals 
 existed in great abundance. When, in consequence of his 
 feeble condition, he had to be put ashore on Oyster Pond 
 Point, he was on his way to Martha's Vinyard, where he 
 belonged, to make an arrangement for the fitting out of a 
 vessel to go to these two important places, and as such a 
 vessel was as easily obtained in Sag-Harbor, it was for the 
 purpose of making this voyage that Deacon Pratt had pur- 
 chased the Sea Lion, which he was then fitting up, and of 
 which Poswell Gardiner was to go out as master. 
 
 No effort, however, or ingenuity on the part of the Dea- 
 con, could procure from the mariner the latitude and long- 
 itude of these two places, in the hope that he might recover 
 and go out in the vessel himself, and give this important 
 information to the master when it became necessary. Th3 
 narrative continues as follows : 
 
 Dr. Sage now arrived ; a shrewd observant, intelligent 
 man, who had formerly represented the district in which he 
 lived in Congress. He was skilful in his profession, and 
 soon made up his mind concerning the state of his patient. 
 As the deacon never left him for a moment, to him he first 
 communicated his opinion, after the visit, as the two walked 
 back toward the well-known dwelling of the Pratts. 
 
 "This poor man is in the last stages of a decline," said 
 the physician, coolly, "and medicine can do him no good. 
 He may live a month ; though it would not surprise me to 
 hear of his death in an hour." 
 
 "Do vou think his time so short !" exclaimed the deacon ; 
 "I was in hopes he might last until the Sea Lion goes out, 
 and that a voyage might help to set him up." 
 
COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZEE SAGE. 58 
 
 "Nothing will ever set him up again, deacon, you may- 
 depend on that. No sea- voyage will do him any good ; and 
 it is better that he should remain on shore, on account of 
 the greater comforts he will get. Does he belong on Oys- 
 ter Pond ?" 
 
 "He comes from somewhere east," answered the deacon, 
 careful not to let the doctor know the place whence the 
 stranger had come, though to little purpose, as will pres- 
 ently be seen. "He has neither friend nor acquaintance 
 here ; though I should think his effects sufficient to meet 
 all charges." 
 
 "Should they not be, he is welcome to my visit," answer- 
 ed the doctor, promptly ; for he well understood the dea- 
 con's motive in making the remark. "I have enjoyed a 
 pleasant sail across the bays with young Gar'ner, who has 
 promised to take me back again. I like boating, and am 
 always better for one of these sailing excursions. Could I 
 carry my patients along, half of them would be benefitted 
 by the pure air and the exercise." 
 
 "It's a grateful thing to meet with one of your tempera- 
 ment, doctor ; but Daggett — " 
 
 "Is this man named Daggett?" interrupted the physi- 
 cian. 
 
 "I believe that is what he calls himself, though a body 
 never is certain of what such people say." 
 
 "That's true, deacon ; your rambling, houseless sailor is 
 commonly a great liar — at least, so have I always found 
 him. Most of their log books m ill not do to read ; or, for 
 that matter, to be written out in full. But if this man's 
 name is really Daggett, he must come from the Vineyard. 
 There are Daggetts there in scores ; yes, he must be a 
 Vineyard man." 
 
 "There are Daggetts in Connecticut, as I Jmow, of a cer- 
 tainty — " 
 
 "We all know that, for it is a name of weight there ; but 
 the Vineyard is the cradle of the breed. The man has a 
 Vineyard look about him, too. I dare say, now, he has not 
 been home for many a day." 
 
 The deacon was in an agony. He was menaced with the 
 
59 COOPER THE NOVELIST AND EBENEZER SAGE. 
 
 very thing lie was in the hope of staving off, or a discussion 
 on the subject of the sick man's previous life. The doctor 
 was so mercurial and quick of apprehension, that, once 
 fairly on the scent, he was nearly certain he would extract 
 everything from the patient. This was the principal reason 
 why the deacon did not wish to send for him ; the expense 
 though a serious objection to one so niggardly, being of 
 secondary consideration when so many doubloons were at 
 stake. It was necessary, however, to talk en boldly, as 
 any appearance of hesitation might excite the doctor's dis- 
 trust. The answers, therefore, came instantaneously. 
 
 "It may be as you say, doctor," returned the deacon ; "for 
 them Vineyard folks (Anglice folk) are great wanderers." 
 
 "That they are. I had occasion to pass a day there, a 
 few years since, on my way to Boston, and I found five wo- 
 men on the island to one man. It must be a particularly 
 conscientious person who -could pass a week there, and es- 
 cape committing the crime of bigamy. As for your bach- 
 elors, I have heard that a poor wretch of that description, 
 who unluckily found himself cast ashore there, was mar- 
 ried three times the same morning." 
 
 As the doctor was a little of a wag. Deacon Pratt did not 
 deem it necessary religiously to believe all that now es- 
 caped him ; but he was glad to keep him in this vein, in 
 order to prevent his getting again on the track of Daggett's 
 early life. The device succeeded, Martha's Vineyard being 
 a standing joke for all in that quartet- of the world, on the 
 subject of the ladies. 
 
 Mary was in the porch to receive her uncle and the phy- 
 sician. It was unnecessary for her to ask any questions, 
 for her speaking countenance said all that was required in 
 order to obtain an answer. 
 
 "He's in a bad way, certainly, young lady," observed the 
 doctor, taking a seat on one of the benches, "and I can give 
 no hope. How long he may live is another matter. If he 
 has friends whom he wishes to see, or if he has any affairs 
 to settle, the truth should be told him at once, and no time 
 lost." 
 
 "He knows nothing of his friends," interrupted the dea- 
 
COOPER TIIE NOVELIST AND EEENEZER SAGE. 60 
 
 eon, quite thrown off his guard by his own eagerness, and 
 unconscious, at the moment, of the manner in which he 
 was committing himself on the subject of a knowledge of 
 the sick man's birth-place, "not having been on the Vine- 
 yard, or heard from there, since he first left home, quite 
 fifty years since." 
 
 The doctor saw the contradiction, and it set him think- 
 ing, and conjecturing, but he was too discreet to betray 
 himself. An explanation there probably was, and he trust- 
 ed to time to ascertain it. 
 
 "What has become of Captain Gar'ner?" he asked, look- 
 ing curiously around, as if he expected to find him tied to 
 the niece's apron-string, 
 
 Mary blushed, but she was too innocent to betray any 
 real confusion. 
 
 "Re has gone back to the schooner, in order to have the 
 boat ready for your return." 
 
 "And that return must take place, young lady, as soon as 
 I have drunk two cups of your tea. I have patients at the 
 Harbor who must yet be visited this evening, aud the wind 
 goes down with the sun. Let the poor man take the draughts 
 I have left for him — they will soothe him, and help his 
 breathing — more than this m\ skill can do nothing for him. 
 Deacon, you need say nothing of my visit — I am sufficiently 
 repaid by the air, the sail, and Miss Maiy's welcome. I 
 perceive that she is glad to see me, and that is something, 
 between so young a woman and so old a man. And now 
 for the two cups of tea." 
 
 The tea was drunk, and the doctor took his leave, shak- 
 ing his head as he repeated to the niece, that the medical 
 science could do nothing for the sick man. 
 
 That night Daggett dies without revealing the latitude 
 and longitude of the places. The Sea Lion goes on the 
 voyage to find them with the aid of an old chart found in 
 the seaman's sea-chest, and a series of adventures follow. 
 
 D. 
 
LETTERS, 
 
 -:o:- 
 
 Tlie following letters and extracts from letters, written 
 by Dr. Ebenezer Sage, in the early part of this century, 
 have been selected from letters of the doctor in possession 
 of ex-Chief Justice Charles P. Daly, being regarded as of 
 sufficient interest to be published : 
 
 An account of Dr. Edenezer Sage, by Wm. S. Pelletreau, 
 
 IN A NOTE TO THE EECORDS OF SOUTHAMPTON, VOL. Ill, 
 PAGE 363. 
 
 Dr. Ebenezer Sage was for many years a prominent citi- 
 zen of Sag-Harbor. He was born in Portland, Ct., 1755. 
 He studied the profession of medicine and came to East- 
 Hampton, N. T., in 1789, where he practiced 13 years. He 
 married Ruth, daughter of Dr. Wm. Smith, of Southamp- 
 ton, in 1790, and went to his native place and remained five 
 years, and from thence removed to Sag-Harbor in 1801. 
 He was elected to Congress in 1809 and served three terms. 
 He was a member of the Convention that formed the State 
 Constitution in 1821, and also held the office of Master in 
 Chancery. He died January 20th, 1834, and his wife Ptuth 
 died in May, 1831, aged 66. Their remains, after resting 
 many years in the old burying ground at Sag-Harbor, were 
 removed to Oakland Cemetery, Sag-Harbor. 
 
 He was a man of elevated chaiacter and utterly above 
 the craft and chicanary which too often characterized poli- 
 ticians Although, he had the faculty of expressing his 
 thoughts in writing with much facility, he had not the com- 
 mand of words which makes the orator, and in his congres- 
 sional career, and as a member of the Constitutional Con- 
 vention, he was never absent from his seat and never failed 
 to vote on every question, and never made a speech. 
 
62 LETTERS. 
 
 He was a descendant of David Sage, who came to this 
 country from Wales about 1660, and died in 1704, and is 
 buried in the old cemetery at Middletown, Ct. David Sage 
 left two sons, John and Timothy ; the latter had a son 
 David who was the father of the subject of the above 
 sketch. Dr. Ebenezer had one son, Dr. John Sage, fcr 
 many years a physician in Sag-Harbor, and lived in the old 
 gamble roofed house east of the Episcopal Church, north 
 side of Sage street, which was named in his honor. 
 
 On Public Aeeairs in Connecticut. 
 
 Chatham, Sept. 13, 1800. 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 Notwithstanding you are two or three letters in my debt, 
 yet as Topping is here I will risque another small item to 
 the account, and just remind you that if the whole is not 
 soon balanced I shall begin to calculate interest. 
 
 The next day after to-morrow will be the great, the im- 
 portant day when the freemen of the state will assemble to 
 choose what they call Deputies to the General Assembly. 
 The state was never before in such agitation, the British 
 federalists fear the republicans will be able to elect a ma- 
 jority of their own sentiments into the State Legislature, 
 which will give Mr. Jefferson 9 Electors, or none for either 
 of the Candidates — they likewise fear 2 or 3 republican 
 characters will find their way into the next Congress, &c. 
 This has roused the ire of half the little petty foggers in 
 the state. Our federal Newspapers have for some weeks 
 teemed with the grossest scurrillity and abuse of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson. That capacious squirt, of political filth, The Cour- 
 ant has for some time past been discharging the most abom- 
 inable torrents of calumny and blaekgardism that ever is- 
 sued from any press in the country, they even suggest that 
 should Mr. Jefferson be elected he would blow down all the 
 Meetinghouses and hang all the priests, and to this our 
 Pulpits resound with the most dreadful Anathemas against 
 those who support such a vile Atheist, and they prove him 
 an Atheist to demonstration, from the amount he has given 
 
LETTERS. 63 
 
 us lie in Ills Notes on Virginia of the Bones, the Oyster 
 Shells, and the Indians — so it goes. I doubt the issue, the 
 old cry, "the Church is in danger" will dupe a great many 
 well meaning men. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 E. SAGE. 
 
 To Henry P. Dering, Sag-Harbor, N. Y., describing the 
 
 INCONVENIENCIES OF TRAVELING AT THAT DATE. 
 
 Washington, Dec. 6th, 1810. 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 I arrived at this place on the 4th, a week from New- 
 York ; through perils by flood and field : foundered in the 
 mud at midnight in New Jersey .and obliged to hire the 
 driver to watch the baggage 'till morning and then send 
 him after a Jersey farmer to come with his ox team and 
 drag the stage out of the mire. The next night befogged 
 and becalmed upon the Deleware, and then caught in a 
 violent tempest of wind and snow and hail upon the Ches- 
 apeak, so dark that our Captain cast anker for fear that he 
 should run upon Pools Island ; his anker dragged and he 
 was obliged to put over his best bower and ride out the 
 storm until morning, when we found oveselves so nea,r the 
 Island and the tempest so violent that our Captain was 
 obliged to slip his cable, and in a short time we were in 
 Baltimore at the rate of 12 nots an hour ; from Baltimore 
 (40 miles) the stages were in many places near hub deep 
 in snow and mud. 
 
 On the Chesapeake I passed a very uncomfortable night. 
 There was 80 passengers and but 18 berths, we drew for 
 them and I unfortunately drew a blank, of course was com- 
 pelled to sleep in my chair or not sleep at all. I should 
 have left New-York a day or two earlier, but Dr. Mitchel 
 persuaded me to take the steamboat line with him, but I 
 lost him at Brunswick and never saw anything more of him 
 
64 LETTEBS. 
 
 until I arrived at the city. My stage companions most of 
 the way from Brunswick were 7 federalists, among whom 
 was Laban Wheaton and notwithstanding our perils and 
 disappointments I never had a more diverting journey. 
 
 The two days I have been here have spent in hearing 
 documents, they are very voluminous, I will send them on 
 as soon as they are printed. I have nothing of news to tell 
 you and cannot at present say what will be the completion 
 of the session, tempestious or calm. I believe however it 
 will be the less storir^ than the last, our course of duty is 
 plain, if we have wisdom and firmness to pursue it. Of all 
 this I can judge better when the battle begins. 
 
 Sawyer has not yet made his appearance. They are tell- 
 ing a good story about him here. That not long since he 
 agreed to marry a young lady, and they appointed a day ; 
 on which day he was observed to be making preparations 
 for a journey ; a friend asked him if he had not forgotten 
 that he must be married on that day ; he started and said 
 it had really slipped his memory, but that he would fulfill 
 his promise, which he accordingly did and set off upon his 
 journey the next day, and has not been heard of since. 
 
 I am anxious how my family will fare, especially if John 
 goes to New Yoik. "Will you be good enough, occasionally 
 to call in and know their wants ? John, when I left him 
 in New York, agreed to return and spend two or three 
 months in the office of Miller and Gardiner and I engaged 
 board for him at Eldredges, as I hope that he will not re- 
 linquish the plan. He appeared to be much pleased with 
 New York especially the Play and steam engine. I took 
 him with me to visit Dr. Jn. C. Osborn who gave him an 
 invitation to visit his house and become acquainted with 
 his young Gent'n and attend Chemecal Lectures, &c. 
 
 Remember me to Mrs. Dering and the. family. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 " E. SAGE. 
 
LETTERS. 65 
 
 Addressed to Henry P. Deris g, Sag-Harbor, N. Y. 
 
 Washington, May 10th, 1812. 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 It is feunday and G — Las exchanged for me a $20 
 
 Manhattan Note for one on the Washington bank. It was 
 all he had of that description and considering your distress 
 I ruwe thought it best to send it on, notwithstanding it 
 compels me to write another letter, and what to write I 
 know not ; not that there is any want of matter. If we take 
 up politics, both as it respects the general government or 
 our own, and still less if we grope through the dirty, blind 
 allies of intrigue, and political swingling — but this is a dis- 
 gusting subject, and particularly here, the great resevoir, 
 into v/hich are emptied all the dirty rills of filth from all 
 quarters of the union, but more from the state of the Man- 
 hattoes than all the others. For three or four years past 
 politics is all together a matter of bargain and sale, with 
 them like their merchantile speculations. Give me offices 
 and I will give you votes, help out our bank, or set types 
 for us and we will give you stock, money and jobs, scratch 
 my back and I will scratch your elbow. 
 
 I have learned the secret about our friend S 's late 
 
 management. I am not at liberty to tell you the particu- 
 lars. It is of a nature however to move my sorrow rather 
 than excite any other passion. Necessity has no laws you 
 know. Poor fellow I pity him, he would be honest if he 
 dare — a man who is strugling for existance his and that of 
 his family will often kiss the rod of power, that he would 
 despise with a noble daring in other circumstances — 
 
 Enough of this, let me fill up the paper with lighter mat- 
 ter. 1 was last Wednesday evening at Dolly's Levee, where 
 Coles, the President's secretary informed me that the Pres- 
 ident wishes me to take a family dinner with him on Sat- 
 urday at 3 o'clock — a select mess of 6 or 7. This promises 
 something besides eating and drinking which his public 
 dinners do not ; consisting generally of about 30. I was 
 there at the hour and we were entertained until 4 with de- 
 sultory conversation and looking at the pretty things the 
 good Lady presented us, such as needle work, drawings 
 
66 LETTERS. 
 
 and dead birds embalmed with tow or some other kind of 
 stuffing, which the Ladies of Philadelphia and elsewhere 
 had sent her, and dedicated to her as the Protectres of the 
 fine arts. At 4 we sat down to dinner, Gen. Brown and 
 Smiley from Pennsylvania, old Gov'n Penier of Tenn., Mor- 
 row from Ohio, Green from Massachusetts and Albert Gal- 
 litin formerly of Geneva now of Washington and myself, 7, 
 besides the President and Dolly and Mr. Secretary, not of 
 foreign but of home relations. After finishing our Beef 
 and other meats and fish, the desert and wine was brought 
 on, consisting of various kinds of eatables such as Icecream, 
 Walnuts, Chestnuts, peanuts, Jellies and sweetmeats, fruit 
 and various species of cake the names of which I am ignor- 
 ant. Over this light stuff we sat until sunset, talking of 
 almost everything but politics, when we took french leave 
 and departed to our homes all perfectly sober. 
 
 I know not when I have laughed more in a given time — 
 a few glasses of Wine soon broke down all distinction be- 
 twixt us small folks and the master of the feast, brought 
 something like a maiden blush upon the little man's cheek 
 and elevated him just high enough for anecdotes, of which 
 he has an inexhaustable fund, relates them admirable well, 
 with a chaste and pure style and considerable comic humor, 
 not a word too much or too little, he will relate 30 in the 
 same time some men would one. Here acted in a character 
 I never before saw him, that of a social companion. In 
 general he is sedate and as modest as a nun. It was a 
 family dinner and the only one I ever enjoyed at his house. 
 Our dinner parties here are generally so numerous that I 
 should prefer staying at home and dining upon salt herring. 
 When I look upon this little man and see him struggling 
 with the honest and most persevering industry of a good 
 patriot, to stem the torrent of abuse and corruption that is 
 setting in upon him, foreign and domestic, I puty him, that 
 his lot has fallen on such evil times. 
 
 He has not been ten rods from his house this winter, ex- 
 cept at the burial of the Yice President, and then he came 
 near having his neck broken by the fright of his horses at 
 the firing of the marines into the grave of the old Gentle- 
 
LETTERS. 67 
 
 ir.an. He appears to be in good health, but as light as a 
 gull. What there is of him must be of brass, if he can live 
 3 years longer, in the times that are approaching, assailed 
 by scoundrels of all degrees and metres, gome endeavoring 
 to kick him out of the way, and others to get jobs out of 
 him. Napoiion's situation is not so laborious and difficult, 
 he has nobody's will to consult or pursue but his own and 
 has half a million of bayonets to carry it into execution. 
 
 Good Morning, 
 
 E. SAGE. 
 
 Addressed : Doctor William Crawford. Gettysbubg, Adams 
 County, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Sag-Harbor, July 24th, 1814. 
 Dear Friend : 
 
 You must pay a pistareen to the Revenue for this letter 
 which is in greater need of the money than you are, I 
 therefore tax you that sum pro bono publico, and as it re- 
 spects yourself I shall endeavor to give you the worth of 
 the money in news. Should we in this quarter make dairy 
 or weekly reports of the movements of the British squad- 
 ron, their acts and doings, we could furnish as rich a report 
 tor the quid nuncs, as the reporters on the Chesapeake. 
 Our blockading squadron is often as large as theirs and 
 quite as rnischevious. On my return here last spring, 7 of 
 their floating bastions were at the mouth of this harbor 
 taking in water from a little island which they have in pos- 
 session and where they fat their Yankee cattle which come 
 to them too lean for immediate use. Yesterday the squad- 
 ron consisted of 5 ships, to-day only two, their boats are 
 every night out in all directions in pursuit of coasters, trade 
 and plunder. Yesterday two deserters were here from the 
 Superb. They took a boat from one of the ship's tenders 
 and. landed about 20 miles from this and travelled nearly 
 all the distance without entering a house, being told on 
 board the ship that the American government had agreed 
 
68 LETTERS. 
 
 to send all deserters back to be banged. One of thern, a 
 frenchman by birth but brought up in Ireland, the other a 
 prussiau, both young and intelligent and say they were im- 
 pressed They report that on board the fleet the talk is, 
 that they expect evejy day a fleet of 16 men-of-war and 
 Wellington's army to come into the Sound, land upon Long 
 Island and take New York, and that the Sylph (a sloop of 
 war) which has been on this station all summer sailed about 
 6 days ago to look up and pilot in this huge fleet. It is a 
 fact that the Sylph has been missing many days. The peo- 
 ple furnished these poor tars with some money and they 
 have started for New York, where we learn a great alarm 
 prevails in consequence of intelligence from various quar- 
 ters that their city is the object of the banditti lately ar- 
 rived at Halifax. The whole country is in motion throw- 
 ing up works at Hellgate, Brooklin heights, &c. 
 
 You will recollect a Joshua Penny who was last summer 
 taken from his bed near this by the crew of a British barge 
 carried on board the Bamillies, put in irons and upon an 
 allowance cf bread and water, conveyed to Halifax where 
 he has been in prison until a few weeks since, when he was 
 released by an order from Berkley, his crime being em- 
 ployed as a pilot to a torpedo boat. In consequence of his 
 being a non-combattant our Commissary of piisoners con- 
 fined at Providence by way of retalliation the sailing mas- 
 ter of the Eamillies. This Penny is a desperado, he was 
 15 years an impressed seaman on board the British fleet, 
 from which he made his escape and lived three years among 
 the Hottentots or Bushmen where he made his escape. 
 His adventure during these years beats Robinson Crusoe 
 all to nothing. On his return here he swore to me that 
 his life would be devoted to blowing up a British ship. 
 He went on to New York and after a week or two made his 
 appearance here apain in company with a Yankee despera- 
 do. It appears that they and 7 or 8 others had conducted 
 a torpedo boat to within 7 or 8 miles of this place, where 
 they anchored on account of the wind. Waile they were 
 here the wind rose to a tempest during which one of the 
 men attempted to swim on shore, his comrades seeing him 
 
LETTERS. 69 
 
 in danger of drowning cut the cable to give him relief, but 
 the mau drowned and the boat drove on shore among the 
 rocks and knocked off her keel, this was in the evening, the 
 next morning a number of the garrison started in boats to 
 assist in getting her off, and about 9 o'clock I observed the 
 two frigates (which lay before the harbor) make sail and 
 steer for the place where the torpedo was. I then remark- 
 ed that some rascal had given them information, which 
 since proves to be correct ; wind and tide prevented the 
 frigates from arriving at the place until the afternoon. As 
 soon as they hove in sight the Captain of the Torpedo after 
 removing the apparatus into the woods, put a barrel of 
 powder into the boat and some straw and set fire to it, but 
 the straw being wet it did not explode under half an hour 
 and not until after the British had landed, who however 
 never went near it. As soon as the ship got within gunshot 
 of the shore they opened a most tremendous fire upon the 
 poor boat, and good old deacon Mulford's house who together 
 with his family were 3 or 4 miles off at church. Under 
 this fire they landed about 100 sailors and marines who 
 soon drove about a dozen Malitia who had been firing at 
 them into the woods and then went to the deacon's house 
 which stood near the beach and was badly battered with 
 their cannon balls, and after robbing it of 2 or 300 dollars 
 in clothing, breaking the clock and looking glasses, des- 
 troying the furniture, doors and windows, proceeded to 
 make war upon his sheep, poultry and pigs, of the former 
 they carried off about 30 and many of the latter. They 
 then went on board and returned to their anchorage. 
 Thus ended the Torpedo w&r. 
 
 I would give you a description of this torpedo if I could 
 intelligibly and reasonably within bounds. It is upon an 
 entire new construction, cost $1,500 and was projected by 
 an ingenious artist in New York at the expense of a few 
 private gentlemen, and is I think better calculated to effect 
 its object than any hitherto attempted. It is a bomb proof 
 thing and calculated to go boldly up to a 74 in the daytime 
 and blow her up. The boat will contain about 10 men, a 
 small part of which is above water and of the thickness of 
 
70 LETTERS. 
 
 4 or 5 feet of timber and iron bars, she is kept upright by 
 a cast iron keel, weight 1,500, is propelled by a spiral oar 
 at the rate they say of 4 miles an hour. The contrivance 
 of keeping off boarders and exploding their powder under 
 the bottom of the ship is very ingenious and quite original. 
 Poor Penny is quite inconsolable for the death of his poor 
 torpedo, but they have promised him another. 
 
 He was so sure of blowing up the Superb and said he 
 should then be ready to die. The Commander of the Su- 
 perb howevt r received an anonimous letter from New-York 
 about a week before the boat arrived in these waters in- 
 forming of the time she would start and her place of des- 
 tination, and the next day this 90 gun ship went to sea 
 and did not return under 10 or 12 days. 
 
 This country is full of traitors and no police. On the 
 4th of July a well dressed young Irishman came here in a 
 small skiff from Saybrook, after we had eat our dinner and 
 drank wine and toasts, the Commandant at the Garrison 
 summoned him to examination, which I undertook. He 
 was in Navy uniform, said he was a purser upon the Balti- 
 more station, his name Rob. Ormby, that he had resided 
 in Washington and Georgetown 10 or 12 years and this he 
 made appear by his Commission from the President and a 
 variety of other documents, from Jones, Jingy and a letter 
 from Stephen Ormsby of the House of Representatives 
 who is his bondsman. "How came you here ? and for what 
 purpose ?" His furlow dated at Baltimore with permission 
 to travel for his health, but this furlow was given in April 
 and but for two weeks. "I obtained another 2 weeks more 
 but have mislaid it." "What was your business at New 
 London and Saybrook ?" "Seabathing." For what pur- 
 pose bid you come here and run the risque of capture ?" 
 "They told me at Saybrook that the best bathing was on 
 this side of the Sound." "How long do you propose to re- 
 main here and where next ?" His answer was, he should 
 stay here two weeks and then go on to Washington through 
 the Island by the way of New-York, that he must be at 
 Washington by the middle of the month," but this will 
 leave you less than no time to travel 350 miles." We ex- 
 
LETTEKS. 71 
 
 arnined his trunks and found them crowded with very rich 
 clothing, all new and Navy uniforms. One coat I presume 
 could not have cost with trimmings, less than $150, abun- 
 dance of fine linen and silk stockings and $300 in specie. 
 
 The next morning he altered his mind and wished to re- 
 turn to New London but we told him he must pursue his 
 first purpose and go by the stage to New York, consigned 
 to the Marshall, where our stage driver delivered him. 
 Before he left the place he exchanged his specie for paper. 
 He is probably a deserter from U. S. service and his tailor, 
 to both of whom he is in debt and going to the fleet for no 
 very good purpose. — But I have not done with the torpedo. 
 Inter nos for it is to be kept a profound secret. Poor Pen- 
 ny after mourning over the loss of his boat two or three 
 weeks, received a summons from Connecticut and has 
 obeyed it. 
 
 It appears that some Yankee projector has constructed a 
 boat to sail under water and leisurely fasten the torpedo 
 to the bottom of the ship and explode it. It carries two 
 men and he has chosen Penny for one. 
 
 Doctor, I almost covet your retreat among the glens of 
 Adams County, secure in place and plenty, while I am 
 doomed to this sand bank in continual alarm ; not a week 
 passes but the guard boat or some of the sentinal see, or 
 think they see an enemies bai'ge and fire, this alarms the 
 Gairison and the drum beats to arms, and the whole town, 
 men, women and children are in motion. 
 
 This pl&ce consistiiig of about 200 houses has been built 
 up since the Revolution by honest industry in catching 
 whale and codfish. The people are not v°ry rich except a 
 few, mostly mechanics and laborers with large families. 
 The Orders in Council put an end to ail our prosperity and 
 war is fast making them poor and wretched. It is distres- 
 sing to see the changes that a few years have produced 
 among us, perhaps near 20 of my neighbors who were for - 
 merly Captains, Mates, sailors of vessels, carpenters, sail- 
 makers, boatbuilders, and in good circumstances are now 
 reduced to the necessity of doing Garrison duty to get ra- 
 tions to feed, and a little money with which to cloath their 
 
72 LETTERS. 
 
 families. We formerly tad 20 or 25 coasting vessels em- 
 ployed in the southern trade, and in carrying wood, &c. to 
 market. 3 or 4 of them only remain, some of them have 
 been taken and sent to Halifax, others burnt and others so 
 often taken and ransomed that the owners are unable to 
 keep them in repair, and sail them, and they are either 
 sunk at the wharf, or laid up to rot in creeks and inlets, 
 our young men have generally gone into the Army or Flo- 
 tilla service at New York, or emigrated in search of busi- 
 ness ; nothing to be seen but houses stripped of their fur- 
 niture and, as we expect to be burnt, sent out of the reach 
 of the conflagration. Women who have seen better days 
 are oblige to wash and billet soldiers to share with them 
 their rations ; no happy countenances among us, but chil- 
 dren from want of reflection and soldiers made happy by 
 whisky ; but for our clam beds and fish many would go 
 suppeiless to bed. But what is all this compared to the 
 greatest part of Europe, devastated, brutallized and laid 
 waste with fire and sword by a few titled scoundrels and 
 human butchers and incendiaries. There is sure a state 
 beyond this where such monsters will receive their pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 Pardon me for this long scroll and with a kind remem- 
 berance to Mrs. Crawford believe me your friend. 
 
 E. S. 
 
 P. S My health is bad, but a little better than last sum- 
 mer. Mrs. S. not so well generally. My children in good 
 health and spirits. 
 
 Capture of Whshington, War of 1812. 
 Addressed to Henry P. Dering, Sag-Harbor, N. T. 
 
 Washington, Sept. 23d, 1814. 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 I arrived here last Monday morning half sick from rainy 
 weather and the vexations of delay from stage owners, Inn- 
 keepers, &c, expences of travelling are nearly double to 
 those of last year. Our stage load was mostly members of 
 
LETTEBS. 73 
 
 Congress, arid on arriving at the battte ground of Bladens- 
 burgh we surveyed it to the Capitol ; it is uneven ground, 
 vallies and high hills, thick wooded, within pistol shot of 
 the turnpike and here and there a small cleared field ; never 
 was ground better formed for annoying an enemy, 1,000 
 men placed on each side of the road in the woods, would 
 have killed every Englishman, Ross commanded, before 
 they could have marched half way to the town. Our army 
 consisted of about 7,000 men, Regulars, Maiines and Mali- 
 tia, 6,000 of whom never saw the enemy or fired a gun. 
 About 1,000 of Barney, Sailors and Baltimore folks des- 
 troyed 7 or 8 hundred of them in the first 3 or 4 miles of 
 their march when the fatal word Retreat was given, and the 
 whole army scampered off as fast as legs could carry them 
 through George Town and over the mountains to Montgom- 
 ery Court house, a distance of 14 or 15 miles. Had the 
 noble General Winder gave the word Fire instead of Be- 
 treat, it is believed by everybody a British soldier would 
 not have found his way into the city. No one here at- 
 taches any blame to the soldiers, they were unwilling to 
 obey their officers but when their commander-in-chief or- 
 dered their retreat and their officers were seen stripping off 
 their appauiets or wraping themselves in their great coats 
 for fear that the British sharp shooters should know them. 
 Of these sharp shooters it appears that there was about 
 1,200 who were in advance of the main body, and kept up 
 a fire upon the Malitia, but with little execution, as our 
 whole loss does not exceed 30. The main body about 3,000 
 marched along the turnpike in solid columu, loaded with 3 
 or 4 day's provision and 80 rounds of cartrilges, and shoes 
 with wooden soles an inch thick, pricked on by their offi- 
 cers until many of them fell d^ad with heat and fatigue. 
 14 were found in one corn field dead without any wounds. 
 When they were shot or died on the road, they shovelled 
 some sand over them. I counted 30 or 40 graves of this 
 kind, many of which the hogs were rooting out, and drag- 
 ing their red coats about the streets. We met 30 or 40 
 Marines with shovels going to bury them more decently. 
 After they had destroyed the Public buildings in the 
 
74 LETTEBS. 
 
 city, four naval officers and about 100 men marched to 
 Greenleefs point, to destroy the Arsenal, Powder Mazazine, 
 Cannon, Barracks, and &c. 
 
 Here it appears our people had taken from the Magazine 
 one hundred or more barrels of gunpowder and for safe 
 keeping put it into a dry well and covered it over with rub- 
 bish. After they had set fire to every thing combustable 
 one of the soldiers threw his match among the rubbish 
 which took fire and communicating with the powder it ex- 
 ploded carrying off a column of earth 30 feet diameter, 
 destroying 70 or 80 soldiers. I have viewed the ruins of 
 the Public and private buildings, they are destroyed beyond 
 any possibility of repair, especially those constructed of 
 stone. The next morning after they were burnt, and while 
 the stones were still hot a violent storm of rain and wind 
 came on, and cracked and split the stones in all directions. 
 The pillars which supported the dome of the house of rep- 
 resentatives, and which at their base were as large as a 
 barrel, are reduced to the size of a foot diameter, and in 
 many places less. The amount of property destroyed pub- 
 lic and private is immense, particularly, books, charts and 
 public documents. The Navy Yard was devastated by our 
 own people with a stupidity altogether unaccountable. 
 They employed 2 or 300 men to blow up the bridge over 
 the eastern branch which secured the British a safe en- 
 trance to the city by Bladensburgh, without any fear of our 
 army gaining their rear; which they might have done in 
 half an hour by passing over this bridge. 
 
 In fact the stpidity of our commanders during this whole 
 scene can in no otherways be accounted for, but by suppos- 
 ing that their fears opperated so powerfully as to susrjend 
 every faculty of reflection and reason ; every measure they 
 took contributed to facilitate the progress of the enemy, 
 they even assisted him in his work of devastation. Ross 
 promised to respect private property and most of the citi- 
 zens remained in their houses. About 200 troops only 
 came into the city. Gockburn was the most active man in 
 the business of conflagration, he was mounted upon a little 
 gray mare followed by a colt, and in cantering about the 
 
LETTERS. 75 
 
 streets whenever his eolt was in danger of being lost he 
 would ride bacK after him. 
 
 The town is full of precious anecdotes and the indigna- 
 tion of the people is so great against Armstrong and Win- 
 der that I doubt whether either of them could appear here 
 in safety. The walls of the Capitol and President's house 
 are covered with the most gross and libellous pasquinades. 
 Three quarters of the people still believe that Armstrong 
 sold the city to Cockburn and that everything was planned 
 to facilitate his success ; to keep up this ridiculous conceit 
 the most ridiculous tales and falsehoods are invented and 
 propigated, but no pen can describe the follies and blun- 
 ders every day developes. 
 
 This is Friday and I expected a letter from you or some 
 of my family, but none has come. 
 
 Remember me to your family and look out for conflagra- 
 tions as Cockburn has again announced to our Government 
 that he shall burn all within his reach. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Ebenezer Sage. 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM LETTERS. 
 
 Washington, Feb. 27, 1811. 
 "The Age of Wonders is not passed. Mr. Madison a few 
 days since named Joel Barlow as Minister to the Court of 
 France, and this day the Senate by a great majority con- 
 firmed the nomination. The wonder is that Timothy Pick- 
 ering voted for him, he did more — he made a speech, in 
 which among other good things he mentioned his religion 
 as conducing to his qualifications. Lee, our Bordeaux 
 Consul, told me this afternoon that he visited Timothy last 
 evening and had some conversation with him upon the sub- 
 ject of the nomination. That Timothy objected to him on 
 account of his infidelity. Lee told him that was a mistake. 
 That Barlow was a believer in the Christian System, and 
 was of the Unitarian faith. That says Timothy is my faith 
 and the only true faith. Of course he supported him as 
 
76 LETTERS. 
 
 being a good Unitarian, and therefore qualified for Minis- 
 ter plenipotentiary to the Court of St. Cloud. This is I 
 think a judicious appointment. Barlow's long residence 
 in Europe and being a man of letters made him acquainted 
 ■with all the principle characters, particularly in France, 
 his solid character for talents and integrity will give him a 
 greater weight in the diplomatic circle, than any other man 
 among us, besides he is an honest man and an American." 
 
 Washington, Feb. 24th, 1810. 
 "Next comes the Dutchess of Baltimore* and the Dauphin 
 or young Napolian. She lives here in great splendor, 
 uquipage and dress. The young Emperior has his Tutor 
 to attend him. On Sunday she was at the Capitol, and 
 yesterday they appeared in the Galleries. What a ridicu- 
 lous set of idoliters we are. An angel from heaven would 
 not have been more gazed at than the repudiated wife and 
 bantling of a little yellow Corsican, because this yellow 
 frenchman was born of the same woman who brought into 
 existence an illustrious human Butcher." 
 
 Washington, 1810. 
 "We had in the house to-day a most rascally specimen 
 of original sin and total depravity. Fulton a few days 
 since in a letter to the Speaker requested that he might be 
 permitted to give an explanitory lecture and some experi- 
 ments of a Torpedo defence. A Committee was appointed 
 and the letter referred to them. They reported that the 
 house next Friday should adjourn and that he might lec- 
 ture and exhibit on Saturday in the hall. It created a 
 three hours debate and is not yet settled. Livermore, Da- 
 na, Quincy and others appeared agitated with alarms and 
 forebodings, they made attempts at ridicule. Quincy was 
 quite in a rage and condemned the whole system as vision- 
 ary. The fact is they believe too much in it for their com- 
 fort. Fulton will risque his life on the issue that the sys- 
 tem of defence and annoyance will one day secure the world 
 
 * Mrs. Jerome Boneparte, nee Miss Patterson, of Baltimore. 
 
LETTERS. 77 
 
 from hostile fleets. The federalists are very inconsistent 
 in this business, for allow, (which they very much fear) that 
 the British navy can be destroyed (which protects us from 
 Napolion's ships) will not the same power destroy french 
 ships as english ? But these angry zealots have long since 
 left off reasoning. 
 
 I believe it will be permitted that Fulton should make a 
 fair experiment upon one of the old Frigates in the Navy 
 Yard. These anti-naval patriots of Virginia, Carolina. &c, 
 would vote to have the experiment tried upon the whole 
 for two reasons : that it would demonstrate the efficacy of 
 the discovery and what to them is of nearly great import- 
 ance, get rid of the Frigates." 
 
 A Lettee written by Mrs. Abbey Louisa Beaumont, at the 
 
 AGE OF NINETY-FOUR, TO HER COUSIN GEORGE E. LATHAM, 
 ASKING WHAT SHE RECALLED OF SAG-HARBOR IN HER EARLY 
 DAYS. 
 
 Springfield. Iowa, Oct. 4, 1897. 
 My Dear Cousin : 
 
 I was born in the beautiful village of Sag-Harbor Janua- 
 ry 22, 1803, and am now in my 94th year. Sag-Harbor, 
 when I was young, way quite a lively place, on account of 
 whaling ships being built and sailing out from there, some 
 going on a three years' cruise. The great shipyard gave 
 employment to many men. 
 
 There were only two doctors living in Sag-Harbor in my 
 young days, Doctor Prentice and Dr. Ebenezer Sage. Dr. 
 Sage was our family physician. 
 
 There was only one little saloon in the village, at the 
 lower part of the Harbor, never any disturbance created by 
 it. Every person would go to bed at night and leave their 
 doors and windows unfastened, but in mortal terror of the 
 British war ships in the bay, who were determined to land 
 if possible, and burn Sag-Harbor. Many and many a time, 
 both day and night, the alarm would be given, "the British 
 are coming." Then the wagons would be brought to take 
 the women and children off in the oak timber, to stav until 
 
78 LETTEIiS. 
 
 the cannon balls fired from the fort and wharf by our brave 
 soldiers sent them back. I shall ne^er forget that six 
 weeks one summer, all the women and children never un- 
 dressed at night, but lay down with their clothes on, through 
 fear of the foreign foe in the bay. 
 
 The last cannon fired from the war ships in the bay at 
 dear old Sag-Harbor was when they were informed by two 
 traitors, that our soldiers were going to be disbanded on a 
 certain Saturday, for some reason which I cannot now re- 
 member. They were not disbanded, and now comes the 
 grandeur of the thing : The deceived British ships came 
 sneaking Sunday night a little too near, for our brave sol- 
 diers at the fort and wharf, dealt death and destruction on 
 board the war ships, the way the cannon balls did fly. 
 That was the last they fired at Sag-Harbor. If this has 
 never been put in history it ought to be. 
 
 Abbey Louise Beaumont. 
 Abbey Latham when a girl. 
 
 In connection with the affectionate terms in which Mrs. 
 Beaumont refers, in her advanced age to her birth place, 
 it should be stated that she left Sag- Harbor when she was 
 eighteen years old and has never been there since, having 
 passed the remainder of her long life in the northern part 
 of the State of New-York, then in Michigan, and afterwards 
 in Iowa, where she now lives. 
 
 Before the attempt of the British war ships in Sag-Har- 
 bor referred to in Mrs. Beaument's letter, Admiral Sir 
 Thomas M. Hardy, who had commanded Nelson's flag ship, 
 the Victory, at the battle of Trafalgar, was in command of 
 a fleet blockading New London, during which he dispatched 
 a boat expedition across the Sound to burn Sag-Harbor. 
 A sentinel on guard on Long Wharf gave the alarm of the 
 approach of the boats. At that time there was a high em- 
 inence close to the water, where John Soman's house now 
 
LETTERS. 79 
 
 is (1897) then known as Turkey Hill, which in the pros- 
 perous times afterwards of the whale fishery, was taken 
 down and carried away by the whaling ships as ballast on 
 the outward voyage. During the war of 1812 a fort for 
 the defence of the place was erected on Turkey Hill. This 
 fort had a nineteen pounder, and when the alarm of the 
 approach of the hostile boats was given, a blacksmith, 
 named Slate, hurried to the hill, quickly loaded the cannon 
 with spikes for the want of cannon balls, and when the boats 
 came fairly within range, he fired with such accurate aim 
 as to strike one of the approaching boats, and it is said, 
 killed two of the men in her. Whether this single shot 
 did as was questioned, but whether it did or not it put an 
 end to any further attempt on the part of the boats, and 
 they returned to the fleet off New London. 
 
 As another means of baffling the boats, a sloop loaded 
 with pine wood, and lying directly in line of the landing 
 place, was set on fire, and as the boats retired from the 
 attack, Captain David Hand, failing to get some one to join 
 him, went alone to the burning vessel and succeeded in 
 putting out the fire. 
 
Sa.g= Harbor Portrayed in Verse, 
 
 Read at the Opening of the Sag-Haeeoe Pake, July 4, 1879, 
 
 There begins at the south 
 
 Of the Hudson's mouth 
 A long narrow tract of dry land, 
 
 That stretches before 
 
 The Connecticut shore, 
 What is known on the map as Long Island. 
 
 As it wends away 
 
 Toward New London bay, 
 In a course to the Orient trending, 
 
 It has two long prongs 
 
 Like a broken tongs, 
 From its eastern end extending. 
 
 The broken joint 
 
 Is Orient Point, 
 With Gardiner's Isle to the right on't, 
 
 "Whilst the other stick 
 
 Stretches out to Montauk, 
 A long narrow strip with a light on't. 
 
 In the middle way 
 
 Lies Gardiner's Bay, 
 Protected by Gardiner's Island, 
 
 West of which, hilter-skelter, 
 
 Lies the Island of Shelter, 
 A jumble of bays, creeks and highland. 
 
 From the opposite shore 
 
 Cedar Point stretches o'er, 
 With some knarled trees forming an arbor, 
 
 And on it a light 
 
 As a guide in the night 
 To the innermost bay of Sag-Harbor. 
 
 Here snug and well stowed. 
 
 Like a seaman's abode, 
 Lies a village of tliree thousand people. 
 
 By the side of a ridge, 
 
 With a badly kept bridge — 
 And a church with a very high steeple. 
 
 This chosen retreat 
 
 Was the home and the seat 
 Of the bold and adventurous sailor, 
 
 And for years had supplied 
 
 To the world far and wide 
 The model American sailor. 
 
«1 SAG-HABBOB POETBAXED IN VEBSE. 
 
 Here boldly to sail 
 
 In pursuit of the whale 
 Was honored in every station, 
 
 And his capture and spoil 
 
 Represented in oil. 
 Was the thought of the whole population. 
 
 For no maiden would look 
 
 On a young man who took 
 To a land life of torpor and stupor, 
 
 When the scene was here laid 
 
 Of the "Sea Lions" raid, 
 Of our national novelist, Cooper. 
 
 Its long wharf, which then 
 
 Was well crowded with men, 
 Was a place of great business commotion, 
 
 Through many a ship. 
 
 Lying there to equip, 
 For its ventnresome voyage o'er the ocean. 
 
 In these prosperous years 
 
 It had ship yards and piers, 
 And coop°rs and riggers and calkers, 
 
 Ship chandlers, sail makers, 
 
 And ship biscuit bakers, 
 And the whalemen then kno"wn as Montaukers. 
 
 But these scenes are all past, 
 
 And the place is at last 
 Like a field lying idle and fallow, 
 
 For we've found other ways 
 
 To get light in these days, 
 Than from oil, spermaceti or tallow. 
 
 And the whales have run out, 
 
 Or if still they will spout, 
 To be captured by harpoon or trigger, 
 
 The capture won't pay, 
 
 The petroleum to-day 
 Has brought oil to a very low figure. 
 
 As a means of bread winning 
 
 They have tried cotton spinning, 
 And all that the labor embraces, 
 
 But that wili not stay, 
 
 And our hope is to-day, 
 A i actory making watch cases. 
 
 Which we hope will remain 
 
 As a true source of gain, 
 Which nought in the future will sever ; 
 
 For we cannot efface 
 
 How we love the old place — 
 So Sag-Harbor, Sag-Harbor forever ! 
 
THE SA.G-HABBOB BEIDGE. 82 
 
 [From the Sag-Harbor Corrector, July 19th, 1879.] 
 
 The following, found sticking in one of the broken rails of the bridge 
 to North Haven, has been sent to us for publication, by the finder: 
 
 THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE SAG-HABBOB BEIDGE TO 
 HANNIBAL FEENCH, ESQ., COMMISSIONEE OF HIGHWAYS. 
 
 Oh, Hannibal French ! Oh, Hannibal French ! 
 Give ear to this earnest petition, 
 
 For nobody wishes you here to retrench, 
 While I'm in this wretched condition. 
 The half of my planks are all worn and decayed, 
 And great gaping fissures between them are made, 
 Whilst holes in some places are opened to view, 
 Where the leg of a horse can go easily through, 
 So that horses approaching, with fear and with dread, 
 Go picking their way, sadly shaking their head, 
 And saying, as far as they are able to say, 
 This is Hannibal's way ! This is Hannibal's way. 
 
 And should no impression be made in the least, 
 
 By the constant complaining of man and of beast, 
 
 Then I call to my aid your historical name, 
 
 And bid you remember great Hannibal's fame, 
 
 Who crossed o'er the Alps, though the snows were impeding, 
 
 His bold Carthagenians successfully leading, 
 
 As did also Napoleon, with whom you may claim, 
 
 Some connection at least, from the French in your name. 
 
 And if they with great armies could cross mountain ridges, 
 
 You surely could mend up the humolest of bridges. 
 
 Whilst Nickerson's yard is abounding in hoards 
 
 Of the very best planks and the strongest of boards, 
 
 My only defense to the dash of the spray, 
 
 Is some rotten old boards that are crumbling away. 
 
 My foot-planks, in part, are but worn out old slips, 
 
 The relics, I am told, of some broken up ships, 
 
 That rattle and jolt when a wagon goes by, 
 
 With their ends all devoutly turned up to the sky, 
 
 As saying, in view of their services past, 
 
 Oh, Hannibal French ! how long will this last? 
 
 Old friend, I should think the delight of your days, 
 
 Would be the employment of mending your ways, 
 
 Or if to such mending you do not incline, 
 
 I wish you would take to the mending of mine, 
 
 Or a horse will be damaged, in going across, 
 
 When the township, you know, has to pay for the loss, 
 
 And that's not the pleasantest thing to display, 
 
 When all is made known upon Town Meeting day, 
 
 And every one quotes in the old-fashioned rhyme — 
 
 What is saved by a stitch that is taken In time. 
 
88 THE 6AG-HAEB0B BBIDGE. 
 
 And Hannibal French, beware of the day, 
 
 When the Storm-King shall come in his fearful array, 
 
 And exposed to his terrible blast, 
 
 My shattered old fabric shall give up at last. 
 
 When 'mid loud peals of thunder, 
 
 My beams gape asunder, 
 
 And lightning is flashing, 
 
 And timbers are crashing. 
 And I finally fall from a terrible wrench, 
 
 With one piercing cry, 
 
 Going up to the sky, 
 Of Hannibal French ! Oh, Hannibal French ! 
 
 The reference in the foregoing verses to a "badly kept 
 bridge" was the bridge to North Haven, which in the year 
 1879 was so neglected that it became dilapidated and dan- 
 gerous, and led to the publication of the above Jew d' espert, 
 the effect of which was that the Commissioner of Eoads 
 repaired it so that it lasted until the present fine structure 
 was erected, at a cost of $23,000, $18,000 of which was 
 contributed by Sag-Harbor's public spirited citizen, Joseph 
 Fahys, Fsq. 
 
 
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