some explanation. In the Town Charter, immediately after the names of the seventy individual grantees of Claremont, is the following: "One whole Share for the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign Parts-one whole Share for A Glebe for the Church of England as by Law Established (3) one Share for the first Settled Minister of the Gospel-and one Share for the Benefit of A School in Said Town forever." Shares for these same purposes in these same words were given in nearly all charters granted by Governors Benning and John Wentworth to towns outside the great Mason Curve. The Wentworth charters within the Curve differed greatly from those outside. Within much of the land had been acquired by early, long recognised possession, and by settlement under old Massachusetts charters while such as remained unsettled was claimed and held by the Mason Proprietors, (4) and their assigns under the ancient Mason Grants, then more than a century old. The Wentworths, to be sure, granted many charters to towns within the Curve, but in so doing gave away little land; these charters being mainly in bestowal of political rights af ter title to the land had already passed. Outside the Mason Curve, as far west as Lake Champlain and north. nearly to the Canadian line, in nearly two hundred charters, the Wentworths gave land to themselves, their friends, the Church of England and to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, with a liberality unparalleled in town charters by any other representatives representatives of the Crown in America. Thus it appears that the titles to many thousands of acres of land in western New Hampshire and the "New Hampshire Grants," now Vermont, trace back to the "one whole Share" given in so many townships to the "Incorporated Society" in London, (5) the Society which, as we have seen, was petitioned to appoint Samuel Cole Esquire its "Chatechist and Schoolmaster" in Claremont. The fact that this Memorial was signed by twelve persons, together with the statement, “Some of us have numerous families of Small Children fit for Schooling, the number of Children under age of 16 yrs. is 35, there is about 2 families of Dissenters to one of ours"-leads us to think that in the spring of 1769 about thirty-five or forty families and one hundred and seventy or one hundred (3) The word glebe is still in common use in England, designating the cultivatable land belonging to a parish church. It would be interesting as a matter of local history if, in the various towns, the shares drawn to the rights above quoted could be definitely located and described by metes and bounds. If situated in places where conveyances have been infrequent the task, in any one township, would not be so laborious as might at first sight appear. Most towns have the original "Proprietor's Map," showing the lots as laid out and numbered. The "Proprietor's Records" give the numbers of the lots drawn to these rights. In the county Records of Deeds the title may be traced down to the present owners, or, if it be known approximately where the lots were, from the present owners back to the original drawings. In Claremont the "one whole Share" drawn "for A Glebe for the Church of Englands as by Law Established" has never been conveyed. It is still owned by "Union Church,' and lies west of the cemeteries and beside the "New Road"-built eighty-three years ago-leading from "West Claremont" to "Claremont Junction." It is bounded on the south by the road leading to the bridge over the railroad cut; thence up the hill to the "Great Road" and the pre-Revolutionary house owned from 1767 until a few years since by the Ellis family. (4.) The Mason Proprietors were originally twelve in number, all living in or near Portsmouth. They surveyed their land, laid out and named townships, all inside the Curve, just as if they were the Government itself; and, what interested them more, sold the land, or, to some extent, divided it among themselves. The Province and State later granted charters to these towns, generally accepting the boundaries fixed and names given by the Proprietors. Such towns were, mostly, not far distant from the Curve Line. See Mr. O. G. Hammond's "Mason Title" etc., pp. 13-21. (5.) In 1788 the Society conveyed all its land in New Hampshire to nine trustees, onetenth of the income to be for the use of the Bishop of the state, nine-tenths for the support of an Episcopalean clergyman in the several towns where its lands were situated. For a full statement respecting this conveyance and its questionable validity, see Batchelder's "History of the Eastern Diocese" Vol. 1, pp. 278-312. The society did not convey title to its lands in Vermont. The writer has been told that it still owns and leases lands on the slopes of Ascutney and eighty people lived in the town. The census return made by the Selectmen of Claremont to Governor John Wentworth, in October or November 1773, reported 423 inhabitants. From the concluding prayer of the Memorial, viz: "and we as in Duty Bound shall ever pray," we may gather that someone more or less versed in legal verbiage drafted it, probably Samuel Cole, M. A. of Yale. He had lived, as we have seen, in Litchfield, Connecticut, the site of the earliest Law School in America; in fact of the first real Law School in the English speaking world, although some law lectures had been given previously at Oxford, and at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. It seems likely that in association with the very able lawyers who lived in Litchfield, and who later, in 1782, started the Law School there, the lay reader and schoolmaster had picked up some of the phrases commonly used in legal documents. The Memorial is well written, well phrased, and, as of the period, correctly spelled. It is doubtful whether any person, then living in Claremont, other than the schoolmaster, have drafted it. (To be continued) could THE POET By John Rollin Stuart Thou shalt be lover of rose and star Shall hear each whisper the wind shall free. There shall be pain when the sun goes down But braver visions shall follow the flown And thou shalt match by twos and fours And total all the checkered scores Of man and bird and tree. And in the end thine only rest Of thy work to hear men say:- RED BARN FARM By Zilla George Dexter. THE FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN (Continued) By midnight, the Fire on the Mountain had become spectacular; largely reflecting itself in the dull red glare cast upon heavy clouds of ascending smoke. Beyond the Big River Valley, on the neighboring hills of Vermont, it soon became the subject of dire prophesies, taking into account the widely prevailing drought. By noon of the following day, the fire was spreading well over the thickly-wooded shoulder of the mountain, encouraged by varying winds that sent occasional showers of glowing brands, hurtling high above the valley, to fall like so many torches on the surrounding hills, parched to tinder by a long dry season. Young cattle were hastily herded in from the back pastures, and by night most of the hill-side farms were deserted by the women and children, leaving only the strong and able to guard buildings and wood-lots from incipient fires, fast multiplying. A few families found refuge among their relatives and friends at the Works, as the village was then most commonly called; some ostensibly taking this favorable opportunity to make a long neglected visit. Nevertheless all were made cordially welcome, while especial care was given to the feeble and aged, so suddenly removed from their wonted home comforts. Thus, when night fell upon the harrassed town with its burning mountain, it found it filled with not wholly unpleasant excitement. On ly the few as yet had expressed undue anxiety, or voiced alarm; although one listening, might hear along the street, between neighbor and neighbor, conversation like this "I ain't a particle stirred up about the fire, be you, Rilly? Why, Jim says his father can remember a much worse one, in the ninety's, lower down in big timber. But it raised such a wind that it brought the rain and put itself out; this will, too, Jim says." "But, Ellen," queried the second neighbor, "have you thought that the dry spell has made the woods and fields like tinder in many places; and as the wind rises, brands are falling thicker and faster? We need more men in the woods." All "They are coming, Rilly. we need," was the cheery assertion. "Some from as far off as Waterford, so Jim says." "If that is so, Ellen, I must hurry home and fill up my oven again. It is hungry work for men, threshing out fires. I feel, Ellen, as though we ought to pray while we are cooking. Pray for rain in due season." "For the land sake, Rilly, I can't pray any too well, with nothing special on my hands; I ain't a bit like you. I should spoil my cooking, I know I should; and the dear Lord will need doughnuts too, to carry on his work here tonight. But I can work better if I know you are praying. He will hear you, Rilly." The two comely young wives, sharing each the other's most precious secret, clasped hands for the moment, blue eyes and brown, brimming with unshed tears, then quietly separated. There were many such women, brave, reverent, and tender, in the dear old days; mixing together their service and prayers in true neighborly fellowship. Notwithstanding the optimistic spirit, so evident, there was much sly preparation going on here and there; for nothing was to be avoided more, by our efficient grandmothers, than to be "caught napping, if anything should happen." At the suggestion of Aunt Cynthy Oakes, she who was ever composed and never idle, the old men and boys were even set to mending harnesses and greasing the wheels of all kinds of vehicles, from the uncompromising "thoroughbrace," to the tipsy, rollicking “buckboard." Past midnight, and the mounting winds lifting heavy columns of smoke, revealed for the first time the full extent of the fire. Boldly sweeping the high face of the mountain, it was also edging perilously, upon the tall timberline below; its fiendish forces rampant. The "big mountain" beyond the narrow notch had become no longer impervious to the now steady attack of flaming brands tossed thitherward by the veering winds. This turning of night into day, with its general release from bedtime routine, was looked upon by the children as a wonderful lark. Bunched together, on fence or porch rail, like so many young turkeys, they read in jangling concert, by the light of the blazing pines, (giant candles, molded through slow centuries) read of "Mary's Little Lamb," "Why Phebe, are you come so soon?" "The Assyrian came down like a wolf," and other favorites; at feat to be remembered for a lifetime. Neither did they fail to watch for, nor to shout in ferocious glee, whenever the steadily advancing foe reached still another patriarch of the hills; shot up its sturdy hundred feet of stem, flashed along its out-spread branches. ascending in towering flame, to leave yet another blackened, and smouldering stub, high on the mountain-side. And the children shouted and danced, so little comprehending the mountain's sore tragedy; being robbed of its age-purpled mantle, (oftimes, in the tempered light, sheeny as velvet,) being bared to the rock-a shame that the larger part of a century has failed to wholly conceal. The hours were growing ominous, and long-standing family feuds were fast "going up in smoke." Josh Harris' girls, Rhody and Abby Jane, now met in a loving embrace, after fourteen unhappy years of estrangement; Square Brooks and the Selectmen shook hands; it was reported as a fact that Marthy Aldrich accepted Timothy Babcock, her long and persistent wooer, on the spot; but from that hour to her dying day, Marthy never gave Timothy even a look, much less a hint that she remembered so frivolous a transaction. On the village common men were gathered in shifting groups. Though restless, few seemed over-anxious; some were whittling. A number were collected around one of Deacon Thomas' wideawake sons who was repeating his father's story of the "big fire of the nineties." "But ye say, Luther," boomed a loud voice, "that a thunderin' big rain come jest in time to stop that fire your dad tells so much about. Wal' that's jest what we've spoke for, but 't will have to come mighty quick and a mighty delooge of it too, or I wouldn't give a lousy coon-skin for the hull contraption here, tomorrer, this time." "You are not far wrong, Quimby," spoke another voice, "but it's not the big fire only, we are up against, nor the small ones that are showing themselves, and that I've been fighting for six hours. It is the hidden fires working in the dry across one, mould. We just came working its way along towards those pitch-pine stubs, left in the clearing on Fox Hill, as they never should have been." "That's a fact, Edson, you've ben tellin' us the p'intid truth." This last This last speaker stood where the firelight shone on his smudged face; bare, blackened arms; crisped boots and singed beard. Volunteers from neighboring towns were fast taking the places of these over-taxed men in the woods, who, glad of a short respite, had hurried to the village for a hot meal, an hour's rest and this little chat on the common. "Yis, the p'intid truth," reiterated the man, "for hell is creepin' all around us; but them Waterford chaps tell us that light'nin's playing sharp down below Moose Hillock, and comin' over the North Ridge, some thought they heered thunder. That sartin means rain, boys. my word! But as Quimby says, it has got to come with a delooge or this valley'll be hotter'n-" Mark "Hold on, no swearing, Levi. No one wants to hear it tonight." "That's so Leazer, 't ain't fair to the crowd, is it? I'll take a callin' down from you, quicker'n any man I know on. But, I vum, I should forgit and swear in heaven,-If I ever git there." "We are not worrying," said the young merchant dryly, "but come into my little store some day, Leve, and make up for lost time if you must; tonight, it is not fair to yourself, say nothing about the crowd. Now come on, let's hear what Kelsy has to tell, for he has just come through the Notch, they say. Come." They all followed, (men usually did follow him) to where a larger group were gathered closely about a newcomer. He was saying "I'd got as far on my way home from Plymouth, with my load of freight, as Tuttle's Tavern down in Thornton. There I heard that you were all hemmed in, in this valley. I'd been watching the smoke for miles and had got pretty nervous, so I snatched a cold bite and straddled a fresh horse and came on, hearing things worse and worse till I reached Taft's in the Notch. Then for the first time I believed all that I had been told. A few men were left there to put out the fires, and it was getting hot for them. They tried hard to discourage me, but I wouldn't talk. I left my borrowed horse in their care and started on the run. At the top of Hardscrabble, it looked like plunging down into-I wont say, for I don't swear; but the roaring on the mountain above, the heat and blinding smoke that almost stifled me, and not knowing what was a yard ahead of me, made it seem worse than it was. I stood for a minute with my eyes shut, thinking of-Dad and Mother, when in a flash, I saw the Meeting-house, (I had been worrying about it, all the old folks had prayed and worked for it, so many long years) I saw it before me white and shining. In a flash it was gone, and all my fear had gone with it." "The next I remember, worth mentioning, I was wallowing in Knapp's old horse-trough at the foot of Hardscrabble; hauling my breath, and putting out a few private fires of my own. Mother says she will keep that cap and coat as long as she lives. . I didn't stop long there, but ran on till I got sight of Iron Mountain, Governor's Lot and the ridge. From what I had heard. I expected to see them blazing, more or less. But the only light I made out across the valley was twinkling from the windows of the Red Barn Farm. Then tears came thick and fast, Boys; I couldn't help it. The rest of the way down was one long sob of thanksgiving, till I sighted Gale Spring, parched enough to drink it dry. A monster bear with her cubs was there before me, driven down from the "Big |