Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 4.

[p. 73] Conolly that on one St. Patrick's day, after making his usual preparations for attendance upon the festival in Boston,—assuming the swallow-tail coat and high hat essential to the occasion,—he concluded to take his money along with him and, the better to ensure its safety, he pinned it up carefully in the pocket of one of his coat tails. Mr. Conolly straightway proceeded to Boston and devoted himself conscientiously to the celebration of the great national holiday, in which he would appear to have been only too much absorbed; for when he returned home at night, but with some difficulty, on taking off his coat he found that that branch of the establishment in which he had deposited his savings had gone into the hands of a receiver; in other words, somebody had cut off one of his coat tails and, to render the offence more aggravated, he had eliminated the one which contained Mr. Conolly's ducats.

Well, next to the house I have just mentioned, but a little further back from the street, if I remember correctly, was a building which had formerly been occupied as a dwelling-house by Mr. Ebenezer Hall. In this house, until it was removed, Mr. Abner Bartlett, the only lawyer in town at that date, had his office. Here he used to hold his little court as trial justice, and he had always a goodly attendance of boys to witness the proceedings. Squire Bartlett was a scholar and a gentleman, and a sound lawyer, but his manner was eccentric, and in making his notes of the evidence of witnesses he had a funny way of repeating their words. For instance, in a case of assault and battery a witness would depose: ‘He came up to him and shook his fist in his face.’ Mr. Bartlett, following the evidence, while writing it down, would say audibly, ‘Shook his fist, shook his fist, shook his fist in his face, shook his fist in his face.’ All of this was vastly entertaining to us youngsters. He married the sister of Tristram Burgess, of Rhode Island, member of Congress, and famous for his powers of sarcasm and invective, which