July, 1806.

1. Left Newhaven and arrived at Hartford.

2. Left Hartford and arrived at Palmer.

.

3. Arrived at Worcester.

4. Went to Leicester. Academy dedicated.1

5. Miss R. Armstrong went to Boston.

14. Went to Boston in the Coachee with Hannah Frazier & Levi.

18. Went to Charlestown to see the Battle of Alexandria or Panomora, with Mr. Andrews & the Miss Welds.

24. Went to Fresh pond with Mr. Andrews & his wife & the Miss Welds. Isaiah Thomas Simmons born at St. Albans, Vermont.

25. Purchased the Crosby house in Boston.

26.

Returned to Worcester in Coachee with Miss Hannah Weld, Hannah Frazier & Levi.

27. Rain. Trees broken down in medow.

1 This was the first building built for the Academy. The old Lopez house and store which had been occupied since its foundation in 1784 soon proved inadequate for its needs, and as early as 1786, measures were taken to rebuild. But financial embarrassment caused by the effects of the war and the depreciation of the currency rendered this out of the question at that time. In 1793, however, the state granted to it a township of land in Maine, and two years later a lottery was established for its benefit. With these aids, and with additional private gifts, in 1804 the trustees felt themselves justified in beginning the new building, and on 14 May, 1805, the corner-stone was laid.

At its dedication, Rev. Aaron Bancroft delivered an address upon the importance and influence of education.

Mr. Thomas was one of the earliest patrons of the Academy, and left to it a legacy which amounted to more than five thousand dollars.

August, 1806.

2. Young Austin killed by Selfridge.1

4. Wm. Andrews2 and wife arrived from Boston. 5. And this morning sat off for Stafford Springs.

6. Went to Lancaster with Mrs. T., Miss Weld, Augusta.

7. Went from Lancaster to Sterling. Returned to Worcester with my brother's wife.

15. Raised the ground at the new bridge on the new street so as for the first time to get a loaded cart on it. William Andrews and his wife returned from Stafford Springs.

16. Left us this morning for Boston. Eliza and Miss Weld went to Sterling with my brother's wife.

18. Millander began work.

1 This tragedy grew out of a political quarrel between the famous Boston lawyer, Benjamin Austin, the father of the victim, and Thomas Oliver Selfridge, then a partner of Lemuel Shaw, who was just beginning his professional life. It caused the greatest excitement in Boston, at a time when party feeling ran very high, and the day was long afterwards known as "Bloody Monday." The trial of Selfridge for manslaughter, before Judge Parker, was one of the most noted which ever occurred in Boston. James Sullivan, Attorney General, and Daniel Davis, Solicitor General, appeared for the prosecution; and Samuel Dexter, Christopher Gore, Harrison Gray Otis and Charles Jackson were counsel for the defence.

The defence claimed that Charles Austin, a Harvard student, eighteen years of age, had espoused his father's side, and that as he saw Selfridge crossing State street, near the old State House, advanced rapidly towards him in a threatening manner and began striking him on the head; and that, because of his inferior strength and size he was unable to defend himself, he drew his pistol and shot his assailant dead.

The verdict was not guilty," but it is impossible to say how far it was affected by the political opinions of the jurors. Thomas Handasyd Perkins was the foreman of the grand jury which found the indictment, and Paul Revere was the foreman of the petit jury which rendered the verdict.

2 William Andrews, a brother of Ebenezer T. Andrews, was a bookseller at 1 Cornhill, Boston.

21. Rode over the new bridge on the New Street for the first time it was passed with a carriage. Mr. Trumbull accompanied me. Hail storm. 2000 squares of glass broken in Worcester street by hail Stones.

23. Stevens began work.

Went to Framingham
Returned to Worces-

25. Began mending the Canal. and met Mr Andrews and family, etc. ter with Mrs. A. and his sons, young Weld, and Wm. A's

son.

29. Went yesterday to Boylston with Mrs. A. her sons, the family, etc. Dined with Mr S. Chandler. Millander & Stevens absent.

30. Millander absent.

31. Mr Nash1 dined, etc.

September, 1806.

1. Levi carried Mrs. Andrews and the lads to Framingham.

5. Ploughed up the new Street.

6. Went to Boston in Coachee with H. Frazier & Levi.

8. Quarterly Communication.

1 Rev. William Nash, the first settled minister in West Boylston, was graduated from Yale in 1791. When he accepted the call to West Boylston, in 1797, he found that a part of the members of his church were, like himself, Arminians, while a minority were Calvinists. Although the latter faction was greatly opposed to his settlement, the opposition was after a time apparently dormant, but it broke out again so fiercely in 1812, that an attempt was made to dismiss him. In 1814 ill health prevented him from performing his pastoral duties, and in the following year he was dismissed at his own request. He died in West Boylston in 1829,

at the age of sixty years.

9. Dined with Grand Chapter. Elected G[rand] H[igh] Priest]. Mrs. Bangs died.1

10. Returned to Worcester with Frazier & Levi. I. T., jun' and Miss Hannah Weld went to Boston in Chaise. 11. Agreed with Dr. Green2 200 Loads of gravel for

manure.

13. Hired Briggs 42 s. per week & grog. I. T., jun. returned from Boston with Eliza Weld.

1 Hannah, daughter of Joseph Lynde, of Charlestown and Worcester, and wife of Edward Bangs.

2 Dr. John Green, the second, the son of John and Mary Ruggles Green, studied medicine with his father, and at the age of eighteen began his professional life in Worcester, which covered a period of twenty-seven years, for the last nine of which he was practically the only physician in the town. He was particularly skilled in surgery and built up a large practice which extended far into the country.

Dr. Green married Nancy, daughter of James Barber, of Worcester, by whom he had eleven children, of whom the eldest was Dr. John Green, the founder of the Free Public Library in Worcester. He lived first in his father's little wooden office, and afterwards built the house next south, opposite the head of the present Central street, which was later occupied by his son. He died suddenly at the age of forty-five. "To his funeral," says the Massachusetts Spy of 17 August, 1808, "came the largest concourse of people from this and neighboring towns ever known to be collected here on a similar occasion."

Governor Lincoln in his "Fire Society Reminiscences," says of him: "Dr. Green, like others of his family, had his amusing but harmless peculiarities. He would often be followed, in his queer looking two-wheeled vehicle, by a pack of Dogs; or, superb horseman as he was, be seen on the backs of all manner of ungainly, half-broken Colts, at full gallop, accompanied by the Pack giving mouth as if a score of Huntsmen were at their heels, to the infinite delight of all the urchins in the village."

[Born, Worcester, 18 March, 1763.

Died, Worcester, 11 August, 1808.]

3 Oliver Fiske, the son of Rev. Nathan Fiske, of Brookfield, received his early education at home, and in 1780, at the age of eighteen, enlisted in the Continental army. At the end of his term of service he was employed on his father's farm, and entered Harvard in 1783.

When Shays's Rebellion broke out three years later he was instrumental in reorganizing the Marti-Mercurian Band of the University and in obtaining an order from Governor Bowdoin for sixty stands of arms from Castle William. He was first-lieutenant of the company and bore its petition to the court, then sitting in Concord, for permission to march with the government army, but the college au

23. S. J. C. Judge Parsons first presided at Worcester.1

thorities declined to allow it. When Shays appeared in Worcester he was teaching school in Lincoln, during the winter vacation, and procuring a substitute he hastened there and joined General Lincoln's army in its march to Petersham.

After his graduation in 1787 he studied medicine with Dr. Atherton of Lancaster, and in 1790 began to practice in Worcester. He was one of the founders of the Worcester County Medical Society and for several years its secretary and librarian, was the first president of the district society and councillor of the Massachusetts Medical Society. But although he at once took a leading position in his profession, that soon became secondary to other interests. He had great influence in the Federal party and his contributions to the newspapers, especially during the War of 1812, were marked by their terse and epigrammatic style. In 1811 he was the editor of the Massachusetts Spy for a time.

Dr. Fiske also took a great interest in the internal improvements which occupied so much of the public mind in the early part of the nineteenth century, and was actively engaged in the building of the Boston and Worcester and the Stafford Turnpikes and the Blackstone Canal.

In 1798 he was town treasurer; town clerk from 1800 to 1803; and in the latter year was appointed a special justice of the Court of Common Fleas; from 1813 to 1815 he was a member of the Executive Council; and Register of Deeds from 1816 to 1821. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the founders and a member of the council of the American Antiquarian Society, corresponding secretary of the Linnæan Society of New England and of the Worcester Agricultural Society from 1824 to 1837.

In 1821 increasing deafness caused him to retire to private life and he devoted his time to his farm and to horticulture, in which he took a great interest. He lived in the old Judge Jennison house on Court Hill, where State street now is,. and his garden and orchard extended westward to the top of the hill. [Born, Brookfield, 2 September, 1762. Died, Boston, 25 January, 1837.]

1 Theophilus Parsons, after he was graduated from Harvard in 1769, studied law with Judge Trowbridge and began his professional life in Newburyport. He came to Boston in 1800 with a high reputation, and as a master of prize and admiralty law he ranked with John Lowell and Governor Sullivan. His appointment by Governor Strong to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Chief Justice Dana in 1806, occasioned some comment, as it was a departure from the usual precedent of appointing a chief justice from the bench, and was made over the head of the Senior Associate Justice, Theodore Sedgwick, at the private intercession of Judges Isaac Parker and Samuel Sewall. But a man of energy and character was needed to counteract the great laxity which had grown up in court procedure, and Judge Parsons's sweeping reforms soon showed the wisdom of the appointment. He held the position of chief justice until his death in 1813.