The next day, on their way to Portsmouth, they

Went into

"dined among the rocks & shoemakers' shops of Lynn. one of the shops (of which there are 150) to see the manufactory." Marblehead was the next point, where, he says,

"they are famous for the curing of cod. The people are savage in their nature & education; are very poor in general, amazingly prolific, & exceed all places in the habit of begging. One can hardly ride thro' the town without being accosted in that way by one half the old women & children in it."

A round of visiting at Salem, Newburyport, and Portsmouth, made their time fly fast for the next week.

On their return, they stop again at Cambridge.

"13th. Attended morning prayers: took breakfast in the hall. Spent a part of the forenoon with Professor Wigglesworth & dined with the President (Dr. Willard.) The table was very elegantly furnished, with a rich variety. The tutors of Harvard were with us. Conversation was not very lively, but on general subjects. The President is very reserved, has not the ease of manners which is visible in Dr. Stiles, yet there is a dignity in his deportment & a sensible look. He is a worthy man & President. After taking leave of him, & smoking a pipe with the tutors, we took our leave of the circle & set out for Boston by the way of Charlestown. Saw the celebrated Bunker Hill & the vestiges of the unhappy town of Charlestown: yet it was surprisingly rebuilt."

"Boston, Thursday, Oct. 14. We took a view of the Statehouse & market, & attended the usual weekly lecture. The Sermon was by Mr. Akely. I did not like him in any respect. After we came out, we stood as usual, and conversed with many of the clergy."

Mr. Akely was pastor of the "Old South."

"Oct. 15. Dined with Mr. Guild. Dr. Dexter & several other gentlemen honoured the table, which was graced with the presence of his very amiable partner, who presided and served up the rich variety in a very handsome manner. A general ringing of the bells of Boston called us from table & announced the approach of the Marquis LaFayette. The main street was crowded with spectators, who were all anxious to repeat the applause of their country & renew the honours due to so distinguished (a) son of Liberty. The company of cadets preceded on foot; then the Marquis & Gen. Knox, between two other gentlemen of distinction. The Consul LaTombe & several French & American officers followed in carriages, or on horses, with many gentlemen of the town.

I stood near the stump of the liberty-tree, once so famous. As soon as the Marquis came near that spot, almost sacred to Liberty, he was welcomed by three general cheers,-sounds which carried with them the gratitude of those who uttered them. A numerous crowd followed him to his lodgings in State Street, received his thanks from the walk over the door, repeated the huzzas & dispersed. I really felt emotions which were peculiarly animating, let the cause be what it would."

I will only add one more extract from the journal for 1784-5. The College Corporation had apparently determined, under the lead of President Stiles, on making the final examination at graduation more strict. It was conducted by a number of gentlemen, appointed for the purpose, and not instructors in the College.

Under date of July 18, 1785, he writes,

"Attended the examination of the candidates for degrees & after a long & particular examination of the 71 who offered, Buckley, Forgue, Hull, & Tomlinson were suspended to a second examination by a majority of the 16 examiners who attended the whole. The others I had the honour to present to the President.

"Sept. 1. Attended all day upon a close examination of the suspended candidates. Found them all deficient & after much deliberation, agreed not to recommend them from merit; but, it being a new thing & of course requiring caution, we desired the President to recommend them to the corporation to have degrees speciali gratia, the day after Commencement. The thing laboured much with Corporation, but was finally voted."

"14. After the fatigue of examining the Classes & the candidates for admission into College, we are this day to celebrate the anniversary Commencement of this year. The usual fire-works & other parade preceded and attended it. The academic procession moved about 10 o'clock. Prayer by President preceded the exercises, which were begun by Mr. Pitkin, Salutatory oration, Mr. S. Perkins, Greek oration. Messrs. Newton, Bidwell, Rossiter, & Wadsworth, disputed this question: Are the Moral Dispositions of Mankind influenced

And here abruptly ends the last leaf of the old diary. Perhaps some musty scrap-book in the College library, or on the shelves of some antiquarian, might tell us what it was that might or might not influence the moral dispositions of mankind in 1785, in the opinion of the Commencement disputants.

The glance through these ancient pages, which we have taken this evening, shows one influence to have been pretty manifest, which the century that has since past has done much to repress. I mean, of course, social drinking on almost every occasion.

The public balls, as a recognized part of all College festivities, would have seemed strange, thirty years ago, to those of us whose memory reaches back so far; but since the War they have become again familiar. We have not yet begun to revive the ordination ball, but perhaps the adherents of what the newspapers call the "old theology" may bring them back. also in another generation.

The College tutor of 1784, I am inclined to think, was a little gayer, and perhaps, in the community around him, a rather greater character, than his successors of to-day. The students were younger then than now, and few of them of an age to make very attractive companions to young ladies who were fairly in society. The tutors were but about the age of the present Senior, and, on the other hand, there were no Professors to overawe or overshadow them, save the grave incumbent of the chair of divinity.

I dare say that the College tutor of 1884 knows more and teaches more than his predecessors of another age, but I doubt if his life be on the whole a pleasanter or happier one.

NEW HAVEN'S ADVENTURE

ON THE

DELAWARE BAY.

BY REV. EPHER WHITAKER, D.D.

[Read December 3, 1884.]

PIERPONT NECK is the topographical name of the most southwestern part of Fairfield township, Cumberland county, New Jersey. This name is one of the indications of the early intercourse of New Haven with the Delaware Bay, and of the settlement of some of the New Haven people upon its shores. It may be regarded also as a memorial of that faithful man who performed the duties of the pastoral office for the First Church of New Haven from A. D. 1684 to 1714.

Pierpont Neck has the Delaware Bay for its western boundary. In the rear of it, on the east, its boundary is Back Creek, which was formerly called the Tweed, the present name of one of its affluents. Along its southeastern border are the tidewaters of Back Creek Cove, which curves inward from the Delaware Bay to the depth of half a circle. The Neck terminates at its southern point where the shore lines of the Cove and the Bay unite.

This Cove and the Creek whose waters run into it with each ebb of the tide, afford a safe and ample harbor for vessels larger than the ships which generally navigated the Atlantic ocean in the early years of New Haven's commercial enterprises; and the business of obtaining the fur produced by the

fur-bearing animals of this Neck was the chief employment and livelihood of more than one man so recently as fifty years ago.

The place was at that time mainly a range for large herds of cattle; and their wanderings over it, and pasturing upon its luxuriant grasses, scarcely left a trace of their presence. Its shores and ponds were the homes of innumerable water-fowl. It was one of the sports of the speaker's boyhood, in company with other boys, and with each returning spring-time, to fill his basket again and again with the treasures of their nests.

No envious discrimination was made between ducks, willets, herons, telltales, and other tattlers, rails, godwits, and their numerous congeners. As the streams and ponds of the township swarmed with fish, and its marshes and meadows with water-fowl, no longer ago than the first half of the present century, so its uplands, in the less cultivated parts, abounded in game. Now and then a black bruin, wandering from his proper habitat in the Bear Swamp just beyond the township line, gave opportunity for a chase in which the farmers' boys delighted, while many small bears of the raccoon species, and foxes, opossums, rabbits and large squirrels made hunting lively and joyous with cry of hounds and crack of guns and rifles. The general prevalence of this kind of sport may be inferred from the fact, that when the speaker was ten years old, he received from his father as a present a handsome fowlingpiece. The boys deemed it a beauty. It had the first percussion lock brought into the neighborhood; and with it, before he was eleven years old, he deemed himself a good shot, within the range of two hundred feet, the distance from street to street in New York city. The sports of the rod were not wanting, and some of the people drew their livelihood from the water of the bay and its affluents.

The greater part of the people of the township, however, throughout all generations of its history, have been workers of the soil, though a considerable part have gathered their means of support from the water, which is near at hand; for the shores of the Delaware Bay and one of its tributaries, the