Benjamin Cutter, William R. Cutter, History of the town of Arlington, Massachusetts, ormerly the second precinct in Cambridge, or District of Menotomy, afterward the town of West Cambridge. 1635-1879 with a genealogical register of the inhabitants of the precinct.

[149] of this calling is he destined to live longest and to enjoy most in this world, where, at the best,

Life as a dream, and time as a stream,
     Fly swiftly away,—
And the fugitive moment refuses to stay—
     And eternity's here!

The foregoing extracts and much more were designed as a preliminary to the introduction of a remarkable letter written by a kinsman of Gov. Hill, at the age of 102 years.

This aged centenarian, with his father, was not of those steady, stationary planets which have held on to the parent spot for two hundred years: they were planets filling other vacant spots in the world's wide spaceway. More than seventy years ago, near the time of the opening settlement of what is now considered one of the older interior towns of Massachusetts, John Adams had become one of the fathers and selectmen of the town. We have received, in answer to a letter which we wrote, an autograph letter from the man of one hundred and two years. With slight corrections of spelling, capitals, and a more considerable addition of stops, we present the letter, word for word, as follows:—

John Adams to Isaac Hill.

Ashburnham, Feb. 1847.

honored sir,—With gratitude I hereby acknowledge the receipt of the kind letter that you was pleased to send to me. To receive a letter from any of my distant relatives and friends is a consolation and comfort to me in my old age; but, dear sir, I did never expect to receive one from your hand well knowing that Divine Providence and the good will of your fellow-men had chosen you to act in a sphere far above common men like myself, and that the offices which you had sustained must be enough to engage the time and talents of the best of men. But, sir, your letter is by so much the more in my esteem, and I should rejoice if it was in my power to make some amends more than a sincere wish that you may ever feel the happiness of a good Shepherd. In your letter you manifested a desire that I should write something of by-gone days or old times. I wish I could do it so that it would be worth your reading; but you must make allowance for old age and infirmities—for I hardly know where to begin, unless I begin with my honored father [Thomas Adams]. He was the son of Joseph Adams: he was born in what is now West Cambridge [in the year 1713], on the Adams place, which has been owned and improved by one of that name a little over two hundred years. After my father became of age he went to Worcester, bought a place, returned to West Cambridge, married a person by the name of Frost, and with his wife went on to his place in Worcester; but within two years his wife and an infant were taken sick and died and were both buried in one coffin. Some time after, my father married for second wife, Lydia, the daughter of Mr. John Chadwick, a citizen and freeholder in Worcester. By this woman he had two children, the eldest a daughter—she in