Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 15.

[p. 10] The Eustis coach, in which Lafayette rode, now finds a resting-place in the carriage house of the Wayside Inn at Sudbury, where, seated in the quaint old vehicle a few years ago, I dreamed away some pleasant hours trying to bring before my mental vision a picture of those historic days. This old coach, still in a good state of preservation, has been an object of interest in several processions. It was used September 17, 1880, at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Boston. Members of the New England Historic Genealogical Society occupied fourteen carriages in the parade, and in the Eustis coach were Marshall P. Wilder, president of the society, and Benjamin G. Smith, marshal, both of whom I well knew. I count it a great privilege to have had the acquaintance of these gentlemen of the old school, with their courtly, dignified manners.

In my zeal for seeing historic places I visited Shirley Hall, the home of Governor Eustis. Though shorn of much of its magnificence, there was enough left, though it had been moved from its original site and the spacious rooms had been divided into several small ones, to show what an elegant residence it had been in its prime. There Lafayette spent the night, and many distinguished men had been welcomed under its roof.

I have in my possession one of a set of six champagne glasses given me by a lady long a resident of Medford, only lately having removed from the city, that came to her husband in a direct line from the Dexter family of Medford, with the story that the glasses were used at a dinner given to Lafayette.

Possibly, as was done in Marblehead to fittingly entertain Washington, all the well-to-do families were levied upon for silver and suitable table-ware to lay the table in some home where the general was a guest, for it may be that other feasts were given in our town of which no mention has been made in print, as in the case of the Hall dinner. In earlier, simpler days what good housewife did not borrow of some neighbor a few spoons or