that of all the men who ever lived on earth fit to perform 'that ancient, primitive and heroical work,' the founding of a State, they were the fittest."

Here we remember too the words of Washing

ton.

66

"No colony in America," said Washington, the warm friend of Putnam, who was deeply concerned that the development of the West should begin in the right way, in the hands of the right men, was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, property and strength will be its characteristics. I know many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community." We honor old Rutland not only because she sent men to open the West, but because she sent her best, because she pitched the tone for the great West high.

But Rutland is not only "the cradle of Ohio," pre-eminent as that distinction is in her history. She also-like the other towns on the hills round about her, and like every good old New England town-has her long line of simple local annals, well worthy the attention of the summer visitor from Boston or Chicago. Happy are you if you hear them all from the lips of one or another of the local antiquarians, as you ride with him through the fields

to Muschopauge Pond, or along the Princeton road to Wachusett, or over Paxton way to see the lot which Senator Hoar has bought on the top of Asnebumskit Hill,-perhaps finding the Senator himself on the hill, as we did, where he could see Worcester in one direction, and in the other, Rutland.

I remember well the crisp September night when I first saw Rutland, with the new moon in the clear sky, and the even

ing star.
the man who drove me up
from the little station to the
big hotel on the hill, while I
filled my lungs with Rutland
air, proved to be the hotel
proprietor himself, and,
which was much better,
proved-and proved it much.
more the next day-to be the
very prince of local antiquar-
ians. He had himself writ-

I remember that

ten a history of Rutland for a history of Worcester County, and there was nothing that he did not know. If there was anything, then the good village minister-he has been to Marietta since, and is president of the Rutland His

torical Society-had read it in some book; or the town clerk knew it; or Mr. Miles remembered it-who was to Rutland born, and whose memory was good. So in the dozen pleasant visits which I have made to Rutland since, I have not only taken mine ease with the benevolent boniface, but have taken many history lessons on the broad piazzas and the hills.

The boniface will tell you, sitting in the corner looking toward Wachusett, how, in 1686, Joseph Trask, alias Pugastion, of Pennicook; Job, alias Pompamamay, of Natick Simon Pitican, alias Wananapan, of Wamassick; Sassawannow, of Natick, and another-Indians who claimed to be lords of the soil-gave a

deed to Henry Willard and Joseph Rowlandson and Benjamin Willard and others, for £23 of the then currency, of a certain tract of land. twelve miles square, the name in general being Naquag, the south corner butting upon Muschopauge Pond, and running north to Quanitick and to Wauchatopick, and so running upon great Wachusett, etc. Upon the petition, he will tell you, of the sons and grandsons of Major Simon Willard, of Lancaster, deceased-that famous Major Willard who went to relieve Brookfield when beset by the Indians—and others; the General Court in 1713 confirmed these lands to these petitioners, "provided that within seven years there be sixty families settled thereon, and sufficient lands reserved for the use of a gospel ministry and schools, except what part thereof the Hon. Samuel Sewall, Esq., hath already purchased, -the town to be called Rutland, and to lye to the county of Middlesex." The grant was about one eighth of the present Worcester County, comprising almost all the towns round about. When the new Worcester County was incorporated, Rutland failed of becoming the shire town, instead of Worcester, by only one vote—and that vote, they say in Rutland, was

bought by a base bribe.

The antiquarian

taverner will point his spy-glass toward Barre for you, and tell you it was named after our good friend in the House of Commons in the Stamp Act days; toward Petersham hill, back of it, where John Fiske spends his summers, and tell you about Shays' Rebellion; toward Hubbardston, and tell you it was named for an old speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; toward Princeton, and tell you it perpetuates the memory of Thomas Prince, the famous old pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, founder of the Prince Library; toward Paxton, and tell you about Charles Paxton, who was something or other; toward Oakham, and tell you something else. He will tell you that Holden is so called after that same family whose name is also honored in Holden Chapel at Harvard College; and he will probably point to Shrewsbury, on the hill away beyond Holden, and talk about General Artemas Ward, whose old home and grave are there.

He will tell about the first settlers of Rutland, respectable folk from Boston and Concord and other places, and how many immigrants from Ireland there were, with their church-mem