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remain with them beyond the reach of contagion; for her heart was divided between the husband of her youth and the nurslings of her bosom.
But his anxiety concerning their children was so great, that she finally consented to pursue the course most conducive to his peace of mind; and he was left in the city with a colored domestic to superintend his household affairs.
Through this terrible ordeal of pestilence he passed unscathed, though his ever ready sympathy brought him into frequent contact with the dying and the dead.
Besides this public calamity, which darkened the whole city for a time, Friend Hopper shared the common lot of humanity in the sad experiences of private life.
Several of his children died at that attractive age, when the bud of infancy is blooming into childhood.
Relatives and friends crossed the dark river to the unknown shore.
On New Year's day, 1797, his mother departed from this world at fifty-six years old. In 1818, his father died at seventy-five years of age. His physical vigor was remarkable.
When he had weathered seventy winters, he went to visit his eldest son, and being disappointed in meeting the stage to return, as he expected, he walked home, a distance of twenty-eight miles. At that advanced age, he could rest one hand on his cane and the other on a fence, and leap over as easily as a boy. He had long flowing black hair, which
Boston, J. P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett, Proctor and Worthington; London; Low and Company, 1854.
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