T is to that inexplicable magic of events that sometimes baffles us, that the following precious and interesting manuscript owes its restoration to the land of its origin.

Written in 1787, by the Dr. Cogswell, who afterwards achieved such a position in Hartford, and was, through his daughter so intimately connected with the establishment of instruction for the Deaf and Dumb, it gives the pleasant incidents of a horseback journey among those noble old Connecticut families, whose names are still cherished among us. side notes were evidently written for the pleasure of personal recollection and with. no thought of the public or the future.

These way

Oblivion has fallen on their travels and their hiding-places for the following seventy years; but no mystery of the concealment of those yellow pages could be more remarkable than the place and circumstances of their discovery and restoration, for they were found among absolute strangers in a southern state, and were returned to the very family connection therein described. It was thus:

Of the three sons of the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon, who were in our army during the Civil War, two were at the siege and capture of Richmond. One of

them was afterwards instrumental in returning to a southerner a certain record book which was desired. In the course of the acknowledgments of the courtesy, in the shape of newspapers, historical pamphlets, etc. sent to Dr. Bacon there appeared a soiled and torn manuscript, which it was suggested might be of "local interest to Connecticut people !" But the strangest part of the story is that the diary was found among the papers of an old Presbyterian divine, the Rev. John D. Blair, who preached with acceptance for years in Richmond. A singular arrangement existed, whereby he and an Episcopal minister used the same hall of the House of Delegates, for religious services on alternate Sundays.

He was born in Pennsylvania, of ScotchIrish parentage, and was educated in Pennsylvania, acquiring "doubtless" an orthodox prejudice against New England Divinity and an old-time Pennsylvanian dislike of Yankees generally. To quote Dr. Bacon, "It was among the papers of this Scotch-Irish Presbyterian minister, born and educated in Western Pennsylvania and domiciled for more than thirty years or more in Virginia, that our manuscript was found. How it came there is a mystery, for Mr. Blair is in no way

related to Connecticut or to New England. How it happened to remain there-why it was not taken for waste paper-why it did not go as a minister's old sermons ordinarily go after his decease is another mystery.

"The first leaf (if no more) is missing; and at the top of what I suppose to have been the third page, we find the diarist recording that he went to bed and slept luxuriously after supping plenteously on sweetmeats and cream pompion pie and br.dal kisses.' Evidently he had been at a wedding. Then comes a date, 'Friday, 14th,' with no mention of the month or year, but with the record, slept late in the morning on account of the wedding, made several morning calls-wished the bride more joy-got my horse shod and set out for Norwalk, where I made a cousinly visit and ate, drank and slept for nothing. In the evening called on Miss C-n, who treated me with friendly attention, unaffected smiles and sprightly wine-the last she gave with a good will."

The next day ("Saturday, 15th ") we find him setting out early in the morning. "Rode to Greenfield," he says, "and breakfasted with Mr. Dwight." This was the Rev. Timothy Dwight of Greenfield, Conn., who was a grandson of Jonathan Edwards and who was from 1795 to 1817 the light and the pride of New Haven.

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pushed on to New Haven. He makes no mention of the ferry across the Housatonic, but evidently the day was far spent before he was on the Milford side of the river. "The last part of the ride," he says, was solitary, as it was in the evening, but it was better calculated for reflection. I was drawing nigh to the seat of my former pleasures, the recollection of a thousand happy circumstances crowded round my heart and awakened some of its choicest emotions. In this way was the gloom of the evening forgotten, and the tediousness of ten long miles entirely lost." In this sentimental mood he arrives at New Haven, an hour perhaps after the Saturday sunset. "Unwilling to sit down and spend the remainder of the evening with strangers, grog-bruisers, etc.," he says, "I immediately went in pursuit of my old friend Leander, but he was, unfortunately for me, out of town on a tour of duty. Not satisfied with a single attempt, I repaired. to Mr H-s, and the very friendly reception I met with from everyone secured me as a guest. My portmanteau was sent for and I was made as happy as I wished to be. After answering all the questions that were asked me in as satisfactory a manner as I could, I retired to my couch and slept in peace."

Dr. Bacon fails to find a clue for "Leander," but he feels sure that Mr. Hwas "Captain" James Hillhouse, then living at the head of Temple Street. Though still a young man, he was already eminent among his fellow citizens, and his house was always a center of hospitality. It was there, we may believe, that our traveler was sleeping that Saturday night.

His next day's record begins thus: "Sunday 30th. Attended Divine service in the forenoon at the Brick, and heard a solid discourse from Dr. Dana; in the afternoon, my old place of worship, the

Chapel, was honored with my presence, where I was highly entertained with a sermon from Dr. Edwards, from these words:

In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' The discourse was accompanied with good music." Thus far the diary has given us no mention of the month in which it was written, but looking forward for dates, we find that "Sunday, 30th " is followed by "Monday, Dec. 1st." Dr. Bacon took the trouble to examine the diary of President Stiles in the College Library, and was rewarded by finding therein that on Nov. 16, 1788, Mr. Morse, who had been called to the church in Charlestown, Mass., preached in the forenoon in the College Chapel, and that in the afternoon Dr. Edwards, pastor of the White Haven Church in the Blue Meeting-house exchanging pulpits with Dr. Wales, Professor of Divinity in Yale College, preached in the afternoon from Gen. II, 17, 'In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' If a sermon from Jonathan Edwards could be familiarly described as "highly entertaining," what must have been the "solid discourse" of Dr. Dana?

So the question of month and year is settled and a search in the town records of Stamford shows that on the thirteenth of November, 1788, David Holley and Martha Coggeshall were married by Col. Abraham Davenport; and thus the imagination may supply the missing beginning of the diary. Dr. Bacon goes on with the account : "Our traveler spent the evening at Dr. Stiles'," whose house (his official residence) was on the spot now covered by the College Street Church. He had a pleasant time that Sunday evening. His record is, 'The ladies are the same as when I was last at New Haven, Amelia somewhat indisposed and consequently deprived of a part of her volubility. She was quite as agreeable,

however as she used to be. The circumstance of meeting Messrs. Fitch and Morse added considerably to the pleasures of the evening.'"

This "Mr. Morse" was no other than the Father of American Geography," Jedidiah Morse, the father also of the inventor of the telegraph and "Mr. Fitch" was then one of the college tutors, and was afterwards the first president of Williams College.

Dr. Bacon goes on: "We are becoming acquainted with the writer of this dingy manuscript, though as yet we have no indication of what his name was. He employed himself the next day, Monday, 17th, in visiting old friends, feeling happy himself and endeavoring to make others so." Evidently there was sunshine in his face all day; and his diary tells us how the day ended. In the evening joined a party of about twenty couples at Mr. Mix's and danced till about twelve.' At Mr. Mix's, where was that? The house remains to this day in good condition, though of course not without some changes internal and external. Through a series of years it was my own 'hired house; and to this day I never pass by it without a tender remembrance of those busy, anxious and happy years."

"It is on Elm Street, next below the first Methodist Church. Devout old ladies venerable as the 'elect lady' to whomas the Apostle John addressed one of his Epistles - have told me how they, in the 'auld lang syne' have danced in the ballroom there, which was at the eastern side of the house, on the second floor, and which in my day had been divided into two apartments. But where are the twenty couple' who met there?

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'I was never in a room before with so many good dancers, not an indifferent dancer in the room. Miss S--s, B-s, B-w, and E-s were alternately honored with my hand. I did my best to persuade them that I was a good partner. I retired to my couch with comfortable reflections and a good appetite for sleep.' "Can we make out the four names which are indicated by initial and final letters? Miss 3s is evidently Miss Stiles, a daughter of the president. Miss B-s is probably Miss Beers, but I cannot identify her. Miss B- -w was perhaps a stranger. Miss E- -s is Miss Edwards. I knew her when her dancing days were over, and when the beauty of youth had become the dignity of an honored matron. She was Mrs. Johnson of Stratford, the elder sister of the late venerable Mrs. Whitney. Herself a grand-daughter of the world-famous theologian, Jonathan Edwards, who died president of a Presbyterian college at Princeton, her husband was a grandson of Samuel Johnson, the founder of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, and president of King's, (now Columbia) College in New York. Herself the daughter of the brilliant laywer, Pierpont Edwards, her husband was the son of a more illustrious laywer, William Samuel Johnson.

"The next day, Tuesday, 18th,' our traveler records that he 'breakfasted with Samuel Broome, was treated with hospitality by the whole family, and set out to Hartford with him.' The Triennial Catalogue of Yale College shows that Samuel Platt Broome graduated A. B. in the class of 1786: that he was admitted to the same degree in the college at Princeton the same year, and that he died in 1811. At the date then, of the journal before us, he was a graduate of two years standing; and we may be sure that there was not in New Haven a young man

whose prospects in relation to wealth were so brilliant as his. For a considerable period, the firm of Broome & Platt was more conspicuous in the commerce of New Haven than any other. The two partners lived near each other in what we call East Water Street, where one of their dwellings remains to this day, and in those two houses there was probably more of the luxury and display of wealth, 'dash' and of fashion' than anywhere else this side of New York. There was between the two families some alliance by marriage, and Mrs. Platt, whether daughter or sister of Mr. Broome, was celebrated for her beauty. She was said to be the most beautiful woman in America; and if that was so she was certainly the most beautiful in the world.

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"Both families have passed away from New Haven, and their memory is passing away. The last survivor there was a grand-daughter of Mr. Platt who died in 1860. She had lived for years in a very humble dwelling at the corner of Crown and Temple Streets, and as her old age had been sustained and cheered by the christian brotherly kindness of the church in which she was a member, she bequeathed to that church for its poor members the little remnant of her worldly goods--the last of the wealth of the great house of Broome and Platt.

"Samuel Platt Broome, no doubt, figured at the dancing party of Monday evening, November 17, 1788; and there (we may suppose) having learned that our traveler was going to Hartford the next day, he offered to go with him, and invited him to breakfast.

"Accordingly, our friend, for so we may call him, having packed his portmanteau and thrown it over his saddle, takes leave of Mr. Hillhouse's hospitable family, rides to Mr. Broome's mansion, enjoys a sumptuous breakfast, and the two fellow

travelers, instead of taking seats (as we do) in a railway carriage, mount their horses and set out for Hartford. The road in those days (for neither the 'Hartford turnpike,' through Meriden, nor the Middletown turnpike' through Northford, had come into existence) was by Cedar Hill to North Haven and thence to Wallingford, where they halted for the night. The next day they breakfasted at Durham, dined at Middletown, and about sunset arrived at Hartford.

"There, if I may continue to mix up my personal recollections with my commentary on the journal, they were on ground with which I began to be familiar about twenty-four years later, and there was my wife's birthplace. We were therefore curious to know just where our friend would go in Hartford. The next words of the diary told us."

"As soon as our horses were attended to we repaired to Col. Wadsworth's, Broome with his compliments, and I with my letters."

Col. Wadsworth's!' We knew very well where that was, for my wife's mother, then a young lady of fifteen years, was Col. Wadsworth's youngest daughter, and to my wife herself in her childhood that house was as familiar as our own house is today.

"Col. Wadsworth's house was on the spot where the Wadsworth Athenæum now stands. It was the house in which he was born, and in which his father had lived and died-the Rev. Daniel Wadsworth who was pastor of the first church in Hartford, from 1732 to 1747. In his boyhood, he was apprenticed by his widowed mother, to Matthew Talcott, of Middletown, who was her brother, and to whom she felt that she could safely entrust the bringing up of her only son to the business of a merchant. Young Jeremiah Wadsworth learned that busi

ness well. He became a prosperous merchant in Middletown, trading largely with the West India Islands. Living with his uncle, whose wife was a daughter of Rev. William Russell and a granddaughter of Rev. James Pierpont, he married the younger sister of Mrs. Talcott, Mehitable, (otherwise called Mabel Russel) and Middletown continued to be his home till after the beginning of the war for Independence. In 1777, he removed his family to the old homestead, and in that house in which his children were born his children were brought up.

"By reason of his extraordinary ability as a business man, he became CommissaryGeneral of the Continental Army, and afterwards Commissary-General, in effect, of the French auxiliary army. In the last mentioned employment he continued till the end of the war; and thus instead of being beggared, as so many Revolutionary officers were by the bankruptcy of the Continental treasury, he found himself wealthy, perhaps the wealthiest man in Connecticut, for as having been the purchaser of supplies he had accounts to settle with a goverment that could pay.

"The relation of Colonel Wadsworth to those armies made his house on one occasion the scene of a memorable interview. In the summer of 1780, Washington, whose headquarters were on the Hudson, proposed to the Count Rochambeau, then at Newport in command of the recently arrived French army, an attack on New York. Letters were sent to the French Admiral in the West Indies with a request for naval assistance from that quarter.

"Meanwhile a conference between Washington and the commanders of the welcome but as yet useless French fleet and army was necessary. Just then it was that Benedict Arnold, who had been en