month of August, and her death is thus feelingly told by her husband in a letter to a friend: "This is the saddest news ever my pen could write. The destroying angel having taken up his quarters within my habitation, my dearest wife has gone to her eternal rest, and is invested with a crown of righteousness, having made a happy end. Indeed, had she loved herself as well as me, she had fled from the pit of destruction with the sweet babes, and might have prolonged her days, but she was resolved to die a martyr to my interest. My drooping spirits are much refreshed with her joys, which, I think, are unutterable." Her tomb is in front of the village church, near the entrance to the chancel. | self. Further I can assure you, my sweet On one end is sculptured a winged hourglass, and the inscription, Cavete, nescitis horam; on the other a skull and the words Mors mihi lucrum. At each corner, and a little in advance of the tomb, are placed four chamfered stone pillars, and close beside is an antique Runic cross. When death had thus deprived him of his wife, the pastor's hope of his own life tailed him, and in the letter we have just quoted, he speaks of himself to a friend as "your dying chaplain," and assures him "this paper is to bid you a hearty farewell forever." He recommends his children to his care, in memorable words which all parents should echo, "I am not desirous that they should be great, but good." In writing to his children, he says, "I do believe, my dear hearts, upon sufficient grounds, that she was the kindest wife in the world; and I do think from my soul, that she loved me ten times more than her babes, that her love to you was little inferior to hers for me. For why should she be so desirous of living, but that you might have the comfort of my life?" he adds a touching story of her death-bed, when, on refusing all sustenance or cordials, "I desired her to take them for your dear sakes. Upon the mention of your dear names, she lifted herself up and took them, which was to let me understand, while she had strength left, she would embrace any opportunity she had of testifying her affection to you." At this time the plague raged fearfully at Eyam; the church-yard was overcrowded, and in the fields and hills adjoining the village, its once happy inhabitants found their graves. Some twenty years ago, the neighboring fields contained the graves and monumental tablets of the dead; but they are all now obliterated by the hand of the husbandman, except one group, known as "the Riley Gravestones," which are situated about half a mile from the village on the hill-side; a wall has been erected round the stones that remain, but many whose resting-places were not distinguished by such marks, are not included within this humble inclosure. One square tomb and six head-stones record the resting-places of an entire family, and show how fearfully sudden the plague swept all away. The first who died was Elizabeth Hancock, on August 3, 1666; the father died on the following day; the three sons died together on the 7th of that month, another daughter on the 9th, and another the day following; leaving one boy only as the representative of the family. It was during the August and September of this year that the plague raged uncontrolled; early in November it ceased, leaving unscathed the Pastor Mompesson, who on the 20th of November writes: "The condition of this place has been so sad that I persuade myself it did exceed all history and example; I may truly say that our place has become a Golgotha, the place of a skull: and had there not been a small remnant of us left, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. My ears never heard such doleful lamentations, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. Now, blessed be God, all our fears are over, for none have died of the infection since the 11th of October, and all the pest-houses have been long empty." He now resumed his duties in the village church, the quaint and simple edifice where so many had listened whose ears were now closed by pestilential death. It has been well said that "a fervent piety, a humble resignation, a spirit that under circumstances peculiarly afflicting could sincerely say, 'Not my will,but Thine be done,' a manly fortitude and a friendly generosity of heart, were blended together in the character of Mompesson." T OSWEGO. THERE is a certain incongruity in the aspect, prospects, and antecedents of Oswego. One of the earliest frontier posts, it had every chance of becoming a great mart; but later settlements have repeatedly outstripped it in apparent growth, while its natural advantages are unrivaled. The first inhalation of the breeze from the lake whereon it is situated, assures us we are in a far more salubrious region than most of the younger cities of Western New York; the position, arrangement for business, and ancient memories of the place combine to excite our anticipations; but we approach it, by land, on a railway which intersects a rough and imperfectly cleared region, quite behind the fertility of the country which divides the other inland cities of the state. On its most elevated site we find a large stone edifice called the United States Hotel, which is unoccupied for want of support; and yet, as you gaze from its piazzas over lake, woods, river, pier, light-house, churches, stores, and dwellings, it is difficult to imagine a more desirable summer residence within a day's journey of the metropolis; even five miles back the climate is quite different; the pure, bracing air here is at once grateful and invigorating; yet few seek Oswego because it is only accessible by a single and uninviting railroad; business is proverbially spasmodic; speculation exceeds regular trade; and its great material, breadstuffs, so vary in supply, that this being one of the largest depôts, a transitory activity is the natural consequence. Yet its trade is greater than that of Buffalo; it numbers seventeen thousand inhabitants; twenty-four thousand dollars were appropriated this year for public education; its banking capital is eight hundred thousand dollars; within a few months, a fine new bridge and handsome stone Episcopal church have been erected, and Gerritt Smith has endowed a free library, which already boasts a substantial building, four thousand admirably selected volumes, and an adequate fund invested; five millions of property is taxed here, which is about one third of the whole. Octogenarian residents speak of the time when they knew Oswego as a thickly wooded place, with an old and a new fort, a single inn, a few stores, and three or four mansions, occupied by gentlemen induced to take up their abode here because possessed of vast acres, of some of which they disposed for a mere nominal equivalent; hunting and hospitality, with occasional journeys to New York and Niagara, and some interest in politics, diversified their isolated, but agreeable and independent life; and such of their heirs as retained land, realized subsequently large returns. Ex-President Van Buren is one of the large land owners here; squatters occupy many of his lots at present unavailable otherwise. The lake sailors form a characteristic class of the population; and a vigorous old woman, mother of four captains, gave me a vivid idea of the salubrity of the place, associated with frontier wars, the expeditions of Montcalm and Shirley, and the rule of Frontenac and Barnett, with the early development of the great resources of the state after the revolution and the Canada trade. Fort, mole, pharos, derricks, store-houses, craft of various kinds, factories, and ship-building attest the navigable, deposit, and transportation facilities of Oswego at the first glance. The recent discussion in the journals of what are called discriminating canal tolls, suggests an important and peculiar element of its local prosperity. But this was originally, and is forever indicated by the grand inland sea on whose borders it is situated; and the lover of nature as well as the political economist finds therein a primitive and permanent attraction, whether invested with the gray mist of summer, crystalline in the frosty atmosphere, or arrayed in the most gorgeous and versatile tints, gleaming with the peculiar light of every precious stone in the lapidary's cabinet; under the magic beams of morning, noon, and especially sunset; or reviving Arctic memories when heaped with masses of ice by gales, stagnant in the azure and glittering calm of the intense and still cold of protracted winter; or heaving up its mailed bosom in the throes of the freshet. As the summers are brief the gardens bloom late, and a profusion of Michigan roses make the front yards and porch columns look gay, and the yellow rose is abundant. Late in June, along the plank walks and by the neat domiciles, lilacs, sweetbriar, and woodbine make the breeze fragrant, and masses of snow-buds linger into winter. Before the few humble cottages of the old French emigrés, many of whose poor descendants yet remain, the fleur de lis ornaments a little vegetable patch. Many fine trees lend rural beauty to the streets; the maple shows its crimson banner, the Virginia woodbine its scarlet drapery, and the mountain ash its orange berries in the autumn. Sometimes the tint of sky and water, as one lingers by the harbor late in the afternoon, recalls the Mediterranean; the stone mole, the white light-house, the vessel on the stocks, and sails picturesquely gleaming on the lake, make up a scene in which Salvator or Stanfield could find desirable material. Here a warehouse and there a fort, far away a steamer on its way to Canada, or a schooner near by, entering the bay, hint the successive frontier and commercial importance of Oswego. banks; mills, lofty store-houses, barges heaped with bags and barrels of flour, and immense piles of Indian corn, rafts of timber, and boat-loads of salt, the loud, spasmodic puff of the steam-tug, announce a busy mart. The old mounds and trenches of Fort Ontario remain, but the thick walls and barracks were rebuilt ten years ago, and have modernized the structure. From the parapet you look out upon the lake; and, when a light mist hangs over its calm surface, and a fleet of schooners loom through the saffron haze, an effect is produced that would delight a votary of Turner. Lake Ontario is remarkable for its rocky bottom and clear waters; it is the smallest and the deepest of the great lakes; its beach is either pebbly or a slate ledge; it is singularly pellucid; and, taking its color most perfectly from the firmament, nothing can exceed the diversified and exquisite hues its vast crystal mirror reflects, accord sky. ror. The refraction is like that of a mirNowhere in this continent are the sunsets more splendid and various. The length of time this great body of water is imbibing and giving out the solar heat, accounts for many of the peculiarities of the climate; high winds prevail; the winter is long and dreary; the summers cooler than adjacent places, and the early autumn delightful. Apple orchards thrive; white fish are abundant; the enormous salmon, once so plenty, have disappeared from the river, also most of the game from the woods. After the grass crop, which yields at the average rate of three thousand dollars for every three hundred acres, grazing and vegetable gardens are the most profitable kinds of farming; the latter, as usual in this country, absurdly neglected; although the example of a thrifty Scotchman, who has made a fortune out of a single large garden which, a few years ago, was un On a fine day it is delightful to explore the little remnant of woods that yet skirts the lake. Along its margin the variegated stones are rounded by the friction of the waves; here a flat table of rocking to the season, the atmosphere, and the . invites your feet, and there a cape, with trees to the water's edge, reminds us of the days when, in their bosky depths, the Indian sprang from his canoe to seek game or an ambush. The mandrake is yet found in these woods; as you grope through the bushes, under the thick boughs of hickory, beech, hemlock, and birch, a spongy tract will reveal a plant whose leaves are oriental in shape, and under their sheltering canopy, closely attached to the side of the stalk, like a cockade to a hat, is a flower in the form of a rose, which looks as if sculptured thereon; it is of a creamy white; the fruit is developed from the stamen; the stalk is thick and porous, and the contrast of the snowy outline of the flower and the dark green and daintily shaped leaves, give the mandrake, to a stranger's eye, more the air of a rich exotic than any product of our woods. The columbine nods from the rifted rock, and wild strawberries abound. The dead, mold-productive pasturage, might have stimuering trunks, the heaps of brown leaves and rank undergrowth, the myriad of delicate ferns, glimpses of the lake through the umbrage, its low roar or quick plash, and the twilight and verdure, make it seem as if we were far away from canals, railways, and trade, until, emerging, the orchard and fallow land, the chimney stacks and locomotive's whistle, instantly break the illusion. Crossing the bridge, a vista of enterprise offers itself along the river's lated the natives to judicious enterprise in this regard. One is here continually reminded of the marketable and economical value of Indian corn, long the chief sustenance of the Aborigines who dwelt here; now the most nourishing food of prairie traveler and Southern negro. The care with which it is raised, and the adaptation of the soil and climate of the whole continent for its growth, render it eminently the grain of America. Barlow sang, in our primitive epic, its charms in the shape of hasty pudding. A shop in the London Strand dispenses it as the Yankee condiment; and, as the crisp hoe-cake, it is the relish of a Virginia breakfast. The Indians have a favorite legend explaining its origin as one of the chief gifts of the Great Spirit to man. The green banners and white tassels of the maize, quivering in the breeze and sunshine of June, or the golden ears at harvest, are among the most auspicious of nature's annual spectacles. It used to be sold by cord in the ear; in the West it is stored in open houses; here we see it in barge-loads of kernels, coming and going on the canals, rising and descending in spouts from the elevators; it heats intensely from moisture. There is one form of maize which is almost peculiar as an original commodity here. At every corner grocery in our seaboard cities are to be seen little square boxes, with the Oswego brand thereon, ⚫ containing what is called “Corn Starch;" | it has become a domestic staple for puddings, and its manufacture is a special industry of this place. For some years the secret whereby maize was converted into this nutritious edible, resembling in consistency and appearance, when fresh from the housewife's mold, blanc mange - except that its color is a pale straw or deep yellow- was in the exclusive possession of an Englishman, who has made more than one fortune out of his monopoly; of late, the method has been revealed by one of his workmen, and another establishment thrives beside its rival. The advantage of Oswego for such a manufacture is obvious; it is a great mart for Indian corn; its central position, and the facilities for transportation, are additional benefits. To make starch cheap was long a desideratum; the ingredient which wrought the miracle in meal is believed to be ash-soda. Experiments of the kind have been partially successful elsewhere; but the Oswego corn-starch, in quality and quantity, has thus far carried the palm. The yellow kernels having been ground in mills, the meal is thoroughly soaked in vats; fermentation ensues, and causes an odor far from agreeable to unaccustomed nostrils; it leaves a deposit, and is conveyed into other vats, where the chemical agents are mingled, and passing thence in a milky stream, the thick residuum is molded, like bricks or loaves of bread, and resembles cubes of chalk or plaster; it is exposed, in this form, to a graduated heat, and when the moisture is entirely evaporated, the brown surface is carefully scraped off, and the snowy block papered; it dries thoroughly after coming from the kiln, and the moment the paper is opened crumbles into beautiful white flakes, like the process of crystallization, and is thus transferred to boxes of the capacity of twenty pounds each. The meal is soaked thirty days; in the original factory, where a hundred men are usually employed, it is estimated that fourteen hundred dollars' worth of this article is daily prepared for market; the addition of eggs, a flavoring extract and cooking, results in a nutritious pudding. The swill is conveyed to a neighboring distillery, and is turned into whisky, the surplus feeding a multitude of swine. Here, as elsewhere in this State, the water power and facilities, by their grand scale and communication, impress the visitor with the wonderful union in nature of beauty and use. Oswego is situated at the junction of the magnificent Lake Ontario and the river which gives its name to the city, formerly, and now sometimes, called the Onondaga. The waters of no less than eight lakes from the interior flow through this river; Canandaigua, Crooked, Seneca, Cayuga, Owasco, Skaneateles, Onondaga, and Oneida, with their numerous little tributaries, and they drain a surface of four thousand five hundred square miles. Oswego and Ontario are the aboriginal appellations for rapid water and pretty lake. The great advantages of the locality from hydraulic power, and commercial position with reference to Canada and the great West, were recog nized at an early date; and the French, who always selected frontier posts with a view to military occupation, made a rendezvous of Oswego when, in July, 1696, Frontenac prepared his famous expedition against the Five Nations. This, like the other enterprises of those colonists, was intended to confine the English to the Atlantic seaboard. The historical process began with trading depôts, which were protected by friendly natives; then, as hostilities between the rival Europeans and the Indians, and themselves, respectively, occurred, these posts became more and more fortifications, and from serving as landmarks and refuges to fur peddlers, |