Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 3.

[p. 109] their lives. After partaking of the hospitality of this worthy man and his excellent wife he requested that their house might be his abiding-place. They joyfully consented, and he was their inmate during the ensuing twelve years. In this excellent couple my father was blessed with friends who felt for him more than he felt for himself. In innumerable instances the natural impetuosity of his temper was checked solely by unwillingness to occasion uneasiness to these everwatch-ful guardians of his happiness; while they, on the other part, always looked up to him as to a superior intelligence, without, however, losing their own independence, which was manifested on every proper occasation in all plainness of speech, by cautions as well as commendations. One of my earliest recollections is my father's often-expressed desire that he might not outlive these dear friends; and the wish was granted, as, several years after his decease, they dropped away in extreme old age. A little anecdote will show the estimation in which their mutual friendship was held in the town during their lifetime. Ten years or more before my father's death Deacon Hall had a dangerous fit of illness. A note was read upon his behalf on the Sabbath, with another, —for a very intemperate Irishman, who was also ill. They both recovered, and the first time the Irishman went abroad his next-door neighbor, a merry seacap-tain, accosted him with, “Well, Patrick, you may bless Heaven till your latest day for having been sick at the same time with the Deacon, for the Doctor prayed so hard to keep him here that he was obliged to beg a little for you.”

On the 14th day of September, 1774, my father was ordained as the colleague of the Rev. Mr. Turell, whose death did not take place until several years afterward. In November, 1786, he married Miss Hannah Breed, of Billerica. My father and mother were born within two months of one another, and were forty years old when they became parents. My mother died Jan. 4, 1818,