the first settlers reached this locality Caesar must have been about one hundred and fifty years of age. It is perhaps as well to stop here for at this rate we shall get back to the original Caesar and imperial Rome.

At an early date, probably in 1738 or thereabout, John Proctor came from Ipswich, Mass., to Londonderry. In 1806 his son John moved to Derryfield and bought six hundred acres in the fourth division south of Cogswell's place, on the west shore of the Massabesic. Here he built a house suitable to his present requirements which, as family and means increased, was enlarged and improved until the present commodious home, a view of which is herewith given, was completed. The late Mr. Luther S. Proctor, son of the above-named John 2d, was a member of the Manchester Historic association, and a notice of his life is given, with portrait on page xxxv, volume 3, of the HISTORIC QUARTERLY.

As a matter of course those approaches to the Massabesic which afforded mill privileges were taken first. The history of mills in the region has been partially given by Mr. Huse in a previous number of this quarterly, and is fully set forth in Chase's "History of Chester" and in Potter's "History of Manchester." For the common use of settlers sawmills, grist and fulling mills were needed and soon provided. The late S. C. Griffin of Auburn claims that one James Horner built a fulling mill on the site where the Griffin sawmill now is in 1720, but as the earliest recorded meeting of the proprietors of Chester was in that year it does not seem probable that Horner could have purchased a lot and had a mill in operation so soon. Moreover, Chase says that the first settlers came not much before 1735. "At an adjourned meeting of the proprietors held Dec. 11, 1735, voted, the land which the Lotlayers Laid out at the request of John Calfe for an amendment to two home lots and a half held by him, which transcript was read at the last Proprietors meeting and put to vote for confermation and past

in the Negative, was reconsidered and read at this meeting and put to vote & Passed in the Effermative."

This tract of eighty acres lay upon the brook flowing from little Massabesic into the lake. At the same time it was voted that Mr. John Calfe have liberty to build a fulling mill at Massabeecek brook between the two ponds agreeable to his own proposals.*

At the same meeting it was voted that Mr. John Calfe have liberty to build a fulling mill at Massabeecek brook, between the two ponds, agreeable to his own proposals. The mill was accordingly built, and was said for a long time to have been the only fulling mill within a hundred miles. It is among the writer's remembrances of a country store that customers had to wait for a consignment of full cloth. Twenty-four years later Robert Calfe, son of the above, was granted by vote of the proprietors the right to build a sawmill on the "supposed" privilege granted to his father. For nearly a hundred years these mills appear to have answered all demands, until the nail factory was started by Folsom, and in 1835 two brothers, Jay T. and Flag T. Underhill, built a shop for the manufacture of edge tools. For about thirty years the Underhills, with various additions and changes in the firm, conducted a prosperous business until 1865, when the property was sold to Mr. George C. Griffin, and the edge tool business ceased in Auburn. Deacon William Leatch, as the name is spelled in the old records, came to Chester as early as 1742 and settled on lot number seventy-four, second part, second division, which is the Emery farm. He will be remembered from his alleged connection with the popular origin of the name Massabesic. His name also appears on the muster roll of Capt. Joseph Dearborn's company, Colonel Wyman's regiment, in the campaign against Canada in 1776.

In addition to the places described as taverns earliest in be

*In the spelling of this name is there not some probable attempt to imitate the Indian pronunciation of the name, as in Bell" Massape seag"?

ginning and longest in occupation, are many others in which refreshments of various kinds are kept, but which hardly have a name in history as taverns. There are also numerous cottages occupied in summer by lessees, or used by families most of the season. The house at Kimball's point, built by Weeks and Currier at an early date, has been occupied for many summers by the veteran ex-chief of the fire department, who has added to the original lot purchased of Severance, and maintains a beautiful grove of maple and oak between the highway and the lake shore. From this point the view is particularly pleasing by day and equally fine by night, when the lights of the cottagers around many miles of shore are reflected in a hundred placid gleams from the Indian mirror, the great wa

On the whole the story of Lake Massabesic may be said to have been singularly peaceful. The white settlers were mostly men of thrift and industrious habits, and the aborigines, if any were seen as late as 1720, do not appear to have been particularly blood-thirsty. Mr. Griffin, the local antiquarian, indeed relates a story of murder in which a French officer is mixed up with an unhappy Indian bride, who suffers death in consequence. It is undoubtedly true, however, that one Leret Smith and his brother-in-law, John Carr, a youth of eighteen years, was captured while building brush fence by a party of Indians. They were carried three days' march northward into the wilderness, and made their escape, returning unharmed to Chester. The scene of this capture is said to have been on Mount Misery, an elevation between the two ponds or wings of the lake.

As another instance of the unreliable nature of the evidence to be had of these early affairs it may be noticed that Charles Bell, in his history of Chester, on the authority of Deacon Smith of New Boston, a grandson of Lieutenant Smith, who was captured, and who told the story to Rev. Mr. Kellog of that town, says that the Indian party making the capture was led by Capt. Joe English. As the story of Joe English and his