Rollin C. Dustin, Lizzie Brockway, C. H. Spollett, and George H. Brown, and in the order named.

In 1868 John P. Rowell sold what remained of his farm to his son, Ephraim K., who, in 1876, took down the house built by Gradus Stark and erected on the same site the one now standing, which he occupied until his death in 1896 and which is now owned and occupied by his son, Charles E. Rowell.

The section of this farm between Elm and Union streets is now owned by George H. Brown, the president of our board of trade, who has graded streets and laid out lots thereon, and named the place Pine Crest.

VALUATION.

To show the difference in value of this whole farm when General Stark took it in comparison with what it is now worth, the writer has conferred with assessors, real estate dealers, and others supposed to be good judges of the value of such real estate, and the consensus of opinion appears to be that it is now worth about three and a half million dollars. By the first recorded tax list of the town (1765) and after General Stark had come into possession of this estate, composed mostly of sand banks and swamps, his tax amounted to a little less than six dollars. If that had been the amount of his tax bill in 1903 the assessors could have found less than three hundred dollars to tax him for. Did he own this property today he would be asked to contribute over fifty thousand dollars to help support our city, county, and state. Happy man!

SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC IN MANCHESTER.

A PAPER BY CLARENCE M. PLATTS, READ BEFORE THE MANCHESTER HISTORIC ASSOCIATION, APRIL 1, 1903.

I come before you tonight, not because of any merit as a reader or speaker, but because, with you, I am interested in the traditional and written history of Manchester. It is but a short time since it, in common with the surrounding towns, abounded in such material, much of which, for want of care and interest, has been lost. Not many years ago Manchester was in possession of Potter's History of Manchester (unbound) in large numbers, there being but little demand for them at that time, and to make more room they were removed into a vault of the lobby under City Hall, where they remained until ruined by dampness.

In the year 1891 Londonderry had a brick vault constructed in the town hall at about one thousand dollars' expense, but owing to improper construction records and books placed in it were in greater danger from dampness than from a possible fire. For a long time it was called the town silo. Londonderry, like many towns, possesses valuable records which, in some way, should be more available to the public. What

is true of Londonderry applies to other towns. Let the towns furnish copies, or the state take copies, of all such records, or at least a full index, and deposit them as are the colonial records in Concord, or some other place where they will be available to the public. Let New Hampshire, as one of the colonial states, take as much pride and care of early records and historic places as the state of Massachusetts. The original Massa

chusetts Bay records at the State House are a monument and a credit to that state, with each page hermetically sealed they are not only safe, but available to the public. The Manchester Historical Association has undertaken a good work, which will be more appreciated as time goes on. This sketch which I present for your consideration tonight is but a local bit of traditional history which I hope will be of interest to some of you at least.

About four miles south of the City Hall, on the Derry road, there stands a large, two-story brick house, with its long string of horse sheds like those of a country church, its great, spreading shade trees and its duck pond, through which there ever runs a little brook (Giles brook) on its way from Long pond to unite its waters with those of the Little Cohas, or Manter brook at a point just west of the Stowell graveyard. The house with its surroundings forms a pleasing picture to the eye of the passing traveler, and reminds him of a country. tavern of the stage coach days. It is now owned and occupied by John D. Emery. The house was erected and used as a tavern with accommodations for man and beast, but has never proved a financial success. In 1834 it was owned and occupied by Col. Josiah Stowell as a private residence. Colonel Stowell was a man of considerable importance. We find his name connected with the early history of Manchester and with the beginning of the Amoskeag Land & Water Power Company. He acted as purchasing agent for them at one time. The name of Josiah Stowell, trader, appears many times on the records of Rockingham and Hillsborough counties. He was born in Massachusetts April 3, 1797. Early in life he removed with his parents, Luther and Lydia Stowell, to Windham, Vt., into an unfinished log cabin, where he could count the stars at night through the roof. When about twenty years old, he purchased his time from his father (there being ten other children) and removed to Albany, N. Y. Subsequently

he located in Derry, N. H., where he engaged in cloth dressing and carding. From Derry he removed to Manchester, about 1830. In 1842 he removed to Londonderry, Vt., where he erected a large hotel, store, and mill. In 1854 he removed to Hudson, Mich., where he died December 11, 1873, aged seventy-four years. For the last ten years of his life he was afflicted with blindness. Colonel Stowell was a very active man and took great interest in the affairs of the city and state. He held every office in the militia from ensign to brigadiergeneral; he was a member of the governor's staff and took part in the reception of General LaFayette, also that of General Jackson, and the laying of the corner-stone at Bunker Hill. July 14, 1856, he was on the steamer Northern Indiana, when she burned on Lake Erie. He was three times married: First to Laura Chapine, September 8, 1817; second, to Henrietta Chapine, May 28, 1828; after her death he married for a third wife Charlotte Barr (cousin of Ira Barr), November 20, 1842.

April 4, 1834, this house was the scene of a remarkable outbreak of smallpox, a disease of which we have been and are being semi-occasionally reminded. Smallpox at that time was not as well known as in these days of health boards and government inspectors. It was known then, not as an aggravated form of the itch, but as a terrible scourge which, from time to time, had swept over Northern Europe and ravaged the islands of the sea, carrying away one half the population of Mexico in 1520; also raging in Iceland and Greenland in 1733. By some writers it is believed to have been "That mortal contagious distemper" which swept away great numbers of the American Indians, so that some of the American tribes were in a measure extinct. The Massachusetts tribes particularly are said to have been reduced from thirty thousand fighting men to three hundred, and that where now stands Plymouth, Mass., all the inhabitants died; that there was not a man,

woman, or child remaining when the Pilgrims landed in 1620. In the words of an early historian, “Thus the Lord dealt mercifully with the settlers of Plymouth."

No doubt many hair-lifting scenes were thus avoided and much of Miles Standish's time saved for other purposes. On the date mentioned William Davis, a young man stopping with Colonel Stowell, after a visit to Stowell was taken sick and confined to his bed. He was given all possible attention by members of the family. Mrs. Stowell's father and mother, Jesse and Hannah Chapine, not knowing the nature of the disease, passed considerable time in the sick man's room. A short distance north of the Sawyer corner, in a small house, the site now marked by a large willow tree, lived an Englishman, Jimmie Arwine, a man well spoken of in the community if he did sometimes tell the young ladies' fortunes (not misfortunes). Tradition relates that Arwine, hearing of the sickness at the "brick house," called and entered the young man's room, looking at his flushed and blotched face, exclaimed to Mr. and Mrs. Chapine, then in the room, "For God's sake, what are you in here for? That man has the smallpox." The consternation caused by this announcement is better imagined than described. The old people, thoroughly frightened, retired to their room.

Mr. C. B. Stowell, Jr., a son of Colonel Stowell, relates that William Davis came to our house to visit his sister, then boarding there, and said he had been in Lowell at work (a shoemaker by trade). He was a stranger to us all. He wanted to hire money of Colonel Stowell to pay for damages to a hired team. My father let him have the money, also a room where he could work at his trade to repay the loan. At the time he was taken sick he had been in Lowell at work about two weeks. On his return he had apparently a hard cold with fever. In a few days pustules formed which were thought to be chickenpox; growing worse the question at once arose, what is it?