By Rev. Roland D. Sawyer It's the great tragedies that grip, either in fiction, drama, or history. There is in the human mind a certain fear, dread, perhaps sad memory, which gives a psychological basis for keen response to the tragic. We read, watch or listen breathlessly then go away to ponder and never forget. In twenty years' study of such scraps, notes, records of my ancestry as I have been able to find, it is the tragic things that stand out before me. When read and dug out from original sources, the tragic things stand before us with vividness. I see with all its surrounding pathos, the body of a seventeen year-old lad (Betfield Sawyer) dragged from Smith's River in Danbury, and taken to the rude home Hill then laid away in the little family yard beneath the pines. in I see time and time again, scarlet fever and diphtheria enter the overcrowded households, and I feel the wearing care, the fears, the sadness of the fathers and mothers, as perhaps one, two, or even four of the little ones are taken away to the Churchyard. I see the widow with her children clinging about her, as the broken form of the husband and father is brought home, dying or dead, from accident, drowning, or a fall. Ah! the life of our brave ancestors in harsh New England was hard and full of sorrows in those days of insufficient equipment, to withstand the climate and give comfort. I want to speak here of three such tragedies. First, I take up the scourge of diphtheria. More dreadful a hundred-fold than small pox ever was. It originated in 1735, in Kingston, within six miles of where I was born, and where my ancestors had lived. Tradition said it started from a sick hog. The germ theory of the spread of disease was unknown. Sick children were hugged and kissed by weeping parents, brothers and sisters. Funerals were public. It is easy to imagine the havoc it made. Into the famly of my great, great greatgrand-father it came. Two years before scarlet fever had taken two small children, now diphtheria took three more; taking five of the nine children from the home. What sorrow-depressing, deadening, it must have left. (Yet even in tragedy, there comes comedy. there comes comedy. The clergymen furnished it in this case. They held a solemn conclave of prayer throughout the New Hampshire colony, and finally put forth the solemn judgment, that the plague was a visitation from God upon the people, because they did not pay their ministers on time. And they pointed out as proof, the fact that Massachusetts had a law compelling prompt and full payment, and that hence Massachusetts had no plague.) He I pass from Kensington up into. the old settlement at Hill. Here scarlet fever takes the only two children of the strong young husband and wife, one aged three, the other one. The husband is unlettered, but he is a rude philosopher, such as Soutarev and Bonderev, who had such influence on Tolstoy. says I will not bring children into the world to die. What's the use? He leaves his wife, refuses to again co-habit and goes off and lives alone; years later he becomes a lay Universalist preacher. David Sawyer was wrestling with the world-old problems, over which every generation has labored and sobbed and sighed. Once more I turn back south, and I stop beside "Suicide Pond," near Whittier's home; and its sad story. greatly impressed the great poet, and he wrote his poem upon it. There the quiet, beautiful and shy maid,en, loved by all, drowned herself at the age of 22. One of my ancestors loved the maiden; proposed to her marriage. She, in the purity of her heart, her sweet nature and quick conscience, would not allow him to marry her, without her telling him, that years before, when a maid of seventeen, she had once, with a hired man on the place, violated the sanctions of morality. And he, poor dupe, felt in the harsh judgment of the standards of Puritanism, that she was thus unfitted to be his wife. Clothed in the carefully ironed dress she had hoped to be her wedding garment, she threw herself into the pond: he lived to be 87, unwedded, lonely and sad. The tragedy of ignorance. THE BLACK ROCK OF NANTASKET What great upheaval in the ages past Raised your huge shape above the ocean bed? Sent the waves tossing round your massive head? The waves croon softly, by the moonbeams kissed, Drifting so swiftly to Eternity, While there, grim, fixed, immovable you lie Looking with steadfast eyes out toward the sea. URANIA: MUSE OF ASTRONOMY Great mother to the little stars, who cry Where even a sun would shudder to have strayed You have your throne, with heaven and hell near by. By Morton Hayes Wiggin The picturesque old town of Barrington, arrayed in gala attire and aided by perfect weather, indeed did itself proud in the four-day celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of its incorporation, August nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first and twenty-second. It could be said without danger of exaggeration that it, as a whole, was the grandest and most successful event taking place within its borders during its long and eventful history. On Saturday afternoon and evening of the nineteenth, the celebration was opened by a sale and entertainment in the Congregational Church, under the auspices of the Barrington Woman's Club. The entertainment proved to be excel lent. The entertainers-J. F. Hicks, solist; Miss Norma and Mr. J. L. Slack, cornetists; and Mrs. Leonard Merrill, readerwere at their best and were greatly appreciated by a large and enthusiastic audience. The proceeds of the sale netted a very considerable sum toward the new community house which is to be erected as soon as funds become available. The Congregational Church was crowded at the eleven o'clock service Sunday morning to hear the anniversary sermon delivered by the Rev. Francis O. Tyler, pastor of the church. Rev. Mr. Tyler was assisted in the service by the Rev. Chester W. Doe of Strafford in recognition of the fact that during the first ninety-eight years of its history, Strafford was a part of Barrington. Directly following this service the congregation went to the site of the first Meeting House of the Town. Here a tablet, placed there by the Congregational Christian Endeavor Society, was unveiled. This service took place after the choir, accompanied by two cornets, marched to the scene singing "Come to the Church in the Wildwood." This was followed by reading of the Scripture by Rev. Mr. Tyler and prayer offered by Mr. Doe. The tablet was unveiled by little Virginia Lougee, a descendant in the seventh generation from the first deacon of the Church, Hezekiah Hayes. said as Following this ceremony an address, "The History of the First Congregational Church," was delivered by Morton H. Wiggin, a descendant from Deacon Hayes in the sixth generation. Mr. Wiggin an introduction that full appreciation of the early New England community life and spirit could be obtained only by important co-factors, politics and religion, and of these two religion as centered about the old meeting houses was the more important. He then spoke of the derivation of the term "Barrington" as from the early English walled "Tun" or town of the clan of "Boerings" or "Barings." The speaker then laid a political foundation to the address by briefly mentioning the steps leading to the building of the First Meeting House, namely: the grant made by the General Court of Massachusetts to the town of Portsmouth in 1672, in reward for a donation. made by Portsmouth to Harvard College; the failure of Portsmouth to apply for the grant and the subsequent grant by the General Court of New Hampshire in 1719 of the "Two Mile Slip" or "New Portsmouth" to a group of opulent Portsmouth merchants in terested in iron mining along the banks of the Lamphrey River. It was of great interest that the speaker noted that the old line marking the upper boundary of this "Slip" passed directly in front of the tablet being dedicated and that it crossed the road at a point where many of the listening audience were standing. Because the town of Portsmouth generously voted to repair H. M. S. 'Barrington," that town was given a tract of land west of the Dover line six miles wide and thirteen in Portsmouth which appropriated two hundred pounds for a meeting house thirty-six by forty-four. This was commenced at the foot of Waldron's Hill, but not being centrally located, was removed to the site which the dedicated tablet marks, where it was completed. Mr. Wiggin then spoke of the call given by the town to Rev. Joseph Prince, a missionary-evangelist of note, who formed the First Congregational Church, June 18, 1755, and served as its pastor for thirteen years, during which time the rec TABLET-SITE OF FIRST MEETING HOUSE miles long, which now includes the towns of Barrington and Strafford. The date of the charter for the town of Barrington as well as Chester, Nottingham and Rochester, was May 8, 1722. Since there was provision that a meeting-house must be built within seven years and the support of preaching in the charter, the religious history of the town begins at that point. The speaker spoke first, in this connection, about the four parsonages which have served the Congregational Church. He then spoke about the town meeting held ords show that he always received his salary promptly. He next spoke of the Rev. Benjamin Balch, a Harvard graduate and chaplain during the war of 1812 on the U. S. S. "Ranger," who received a princely salary, since Barrington was, during the latter part of his thirty-one year pastorate, the third largest town in the state; of the fact that he is the only pastor of the church ever buried in the town; of the memorial service in 1912 in which his remains were removed from the Old Parsonage Lot to Oak Hill Cemetery. The pastors serv ing the Old Church were then commented upon. The building of the new Church in 1840 and the new Town Hall in 1854, taking away both capacities of this old building, necessitating the selling of it to be removed to another spot as a dwelling was dwelt upon. Mr. Wiggin next described the Old Church as of a plain exterior, with pitch roof and two doors in front and with no steeple The ornate interior with its great sounding-board over the high and richly carved pulpit, the pen-like who is a desccendant of Deacon Hayes in the fifth generation, spoke of the first Deacon, Hezekiah Hayes, of his advent from Dover to Barrington, his marriage to the daughter of Captain William Cate of the Cate Garrison, his service in the Revolution and the large number of his descendants. He spoke of the long public service of Deacon Benjamin Hayes, of Deacon John Garland of Green Hill, recalling concerning the latter the story of the stern command to his son to go out into the night to get a "back-log.' old pews with seats completely around, the great gallery around the three sides of the room, a constant attendant in which was the old negro slave of Capt. Hunking and Rev. Mr. Balch, "Old Aggie"; of the lack of stoves and the use of "foot warmers." The speaker finished his address by a brief resume of personages and events since 1840 and an eulogy to the Old Church. Following the singing of the hymn "How Firm a Foundation," Deacon Elmer Wiggin delivered an address, "Deacons and Leaders of the Old Church." Deacon Wiggin, for the fireplace. The son returning with a small one was rebuked and told to go out and not return until he had a sizable back-log. The son remained away nine years but upon return brought in a huge back-log on his shoulder, saying, "Here is your back-log, Father." Although the Garland family moved back into the wilderness in 1812, they did not get outside the bounds of their native town. The speaker next spoke of Deacon William Cate of the Cate Garrison, the leading figure in the town of his day. He mentioned public spirited Deacon Wingate of Madbury who |