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Could Lord Jitters read, he would never forgive me for having neglected to mention him thus far in any chronicle of Pondwood Farm. That he is not the most important personage in the narrative would never enter his mind. It is fitting, therefore, that I introduce him properly, as becomes his dignity.

"Lord Jitters, may I present your readers?"

Lord Jitters bows gravely. He is delighted to meet you, he assures me in "catonese," a language which we both understand. I forgot to say that Lord Jitters is a white Persian cat. The last part of his name was bestowed upon him when he was only a fluffy ball of fur because he was never still. He finds it most undignified. He prefers always to be referred to by his full title. Elevation to the peerage came by divine right at the age of four months. At that time he assumed his seat in the House of Lords. His inheritance included my wife, me, George, an automobile, an apartment in New York, and Pondwood Farm. For a cat one might think he has done very well for himself. He, however, does not consider that to be so. There are certain annoyances in his life which he bears as a cross; to wit, other lesser domestic animals that have tried unsuccessfully to encroach upon his sovereignty. These have been dealt with firmly but justly as each one appeared.

Lord Jitters has an infirmity which he endeavors to conceal from the public. He is stone deaf. Not a sound can penetrate his eardrums. Were he consulted on the subject by a psychoanalyst, however, I am sure he would maintain that deafness is an asset. His thoughts are not disturbed by conversation which could hardly fail to be of less importance. It enables him to live in a world completely his own.

In order that His Lordship's character may be properly understood it is necessary that I present a short account of his early life and education. Lord Jitters was a precocious child—I might even say an infant prodigy. Still, he could not entirely escape the intrusion of certain inherited instincts which, at his early age, it was impossible to understand or analyze. One of these was the desire to watch a hole. His New York apartment did not abound in holes. After diligent search the only one he could discover was the drainpipe in the bathtub. Very shortly he made it evident that it displeased him to have the stopper left in the pipe. Then he settled down to prolonged concentration upon the hole. I do not think it was clear in his mind as to what might possibly emerge from the cavity. Nevertheless, this was a place to be watched and a duty to be done.

Being pure white, Lord Jitters accumulated a vast amount of soot during his excursions on the roof garden of his New York domicile. He had to be washed with soap and water. Talcum and brushing only changed the black to dirty gray. In regard to baths, his position has been made quite clear. He likes to be clean. Being scrubbed and soaked is not his idea of pleasure; still, he will not object if we put bath salts in the water and use sandalwood soap. "Ferdinand the Bull" had nothing on Lord Jitters in appreciating pleasant odors. When it is all over, and he has been dried with a Turkish towel and sprayed with perfume, he spends hours admiring himself.

Of Billie's flower arrangements he is often critical. After sniffing delicately at each of the blossoms he stands off to pass judgment on their arrangement.

"Not so good, if you ask me. Much too massed. A little more separation would make them easier to smell. Now these on the piano—much better. You see I have no difficulty in inhaling the odor from each separate flower without disarranging my hair. Yes, this is quite satisfactory. I shall remain here and let the perfume drift over me."

To be honest, I must report that Lord Jitters is exceedingly vain and laps up admiration with more avidity than he does cream. When we have guests he waits for the proper moment to make a stage entrance. Stalking into the room, his white plume waving, he greets each individual in turn. With gentle dignity he will allow himself to be stroked, purring in response. Then he selects a stool or a yellow satin lama coat on the piano, where he can pose in full view of the room. Although he will court the attention of strangers, Billie and I are not allowed to pick him up except when it suits his mood. We have often discussed this matter with him. His viewpoint is logical.

"I have a lovely house," he says. "I am decorative, as everyone admits. I also am host. Therefore, it is my duty to be gracious to my guests and to enhance the beauty of our surroundings by showing myself to the best advantage. This, however, does not mean that I must submit to being pawed after the guests have gone. When I wish to be fondled I will let you know. I do not like to be touched at all times, as you are very well aware."

Once we made a great mistake of agreeing to care for a tiny monkey belonging to one of our friends. Its body was about eight inches long. The little beast, which rejoiced in the name of "Spooky," was as near perpetual motion and chain lightning as any living thing I have ever seen. Even Elsa Maxwell had been unable to cope with it after a week's trial. Lord Jitters was absolutely outraged. He tried to ignore it, but the limit of his endurance was passed one day when Spooky made a flying leap, landed on Jitters's back, tweaked his tail, and disappeared behind a chair. The Lord delivered an ultimatum to Billie and me.

"I have endured the presence in my house of this distasteful creature," it ran. "I have endeavored to overlook your undignified conduct in the traffic you have had with it. I will not, however, be subjected to such personal attacks as that which you have just witnessed. I intend to retire to the rock garden and I refuse to enter this house again until that objectionable creature has been permanently removed."

Out in the garden he went, there to remain for two days. Even though it rained Lord Jitters preferred to crouch under a bush (where we could witness his misery, of course) rather than capitulate. That broke us down, and the monkey was sent away.

At the age of seven months Lord Jitters was taken to inspect his newly acquired country estate, Pondwood Farm. Not being entirely sure of his reactions to motorcar transport, his guardians, Billie and me, deemed it advisable to insure his safety by purchasing a beautiful green leather harness for him. Lord Jitters, however would have none of it. He simply lay down. Obviously he considered it infra dig to be trussed up like a street dog and led about on a leash. If we persisted in fostering this indignity upon him he would not get to his feet. His deportment in the car was exemplary, as we should have known it would be. Stretching out on the back of the driver's seat, he watched the passing show interestedly until such time as he deemed it had received enough of his attention. Then he settled in Billie's lap to sleep away the hours before our arrival at his country seat.

Pondwood Farm, however, offered so much that was new and unexpected that for the first time we saw his composure shaken. Never before had he left the monastic seclusion of his apartment. The world of outdoors was as strange to him as it would be to one of us had we suddenly been transported in a rocket ship to the planet Mars. Every sight and smell was unknown and exciting. Grass in the orchard was three feet high interspersed with daisies, black-eyed Susans, and other flowers. Each one must be sniffed and investigated. Before he knew it, he had ventured far into what, to him, was a grotesque jungle. Great stems of grass stretched far above his head; enormous branching weeds cut off his view of the sky; a tangle of creeping vines made it well-nigh impossible to walk. He could see nothing. He was lost—hopelessly lost. For the first time in his life fear descended upon him like an enveloping cloud. Gathering all the breath his lungs would hold, he wailed in terror. Billie and I heard the first shriek and waded through the grass to his assistance. We found him crouching at the base of a huge milkweed, his little face contorted with fright. Into Billie's arms he came with a soft croon of happiness, clasping both paws tightly about her neck. Then in a series of rapid "pur-r-ups" he related the harrowing experience through which he had passed.

The maple trees in the yard offered the next adventure. Clinging to the trunk, he looked about excitedly. This was infinitely better than the scratching post in his New York apartment. It was wonderful to spread his toes and sink their sharp claws into the soft bark. Ascending experimentally step by step, in a few moments he was sitting in a crotch twelve feet from the ground. It was delightful up there among the leaves and swaying branches. He had a feeling of exhilaration and achievement such as he had never known before. He remained until a certain discomfort in the region of his stomach told him it was dinnertime. All right, he'd descend. But how? It was easy enough going up head first, but that didn't work on the down trip. Finally he sent an SOS. Billie came on the run, as he knew she would, and stretched up her arms. That must mean she wanted him to jump, so jump he did. Lord Jitters landed on the top of her head, clung desperately to her thick hair, and slid to her shoulder, leaving several small scratches on her face. I had viewed the performance with disapproval. "No cat of mine," I said, "shall go for another hour without learning how to come down a tree."

Therefore, after his heart had regained its normal rate, we gave him the first lesson. In a few minutes he had learned to switch his rear about while hanging on with his front claws, and to come down backward. This was a turning point in Jitters's life, for it opened to him the World of Trees.

Lord Jitters never had seen a dog until he went into residence at Pondwood Farm. Our neighbor, Lou Guerin, came on the lawn followed by his Irish setter, Cobb. Jitters was busy sniffing roses when he looked up and saw us patting the big red animal. Every hair on his body stood erect. His plume swelled to twice its size. He crept toward us, eyes blazing, and suddenly flew at Cobb like a white demon. The setter yelped in fright and legged it for the road. Lord Jitters followed to the gate. There he stopped, glaring. Then he paraded along the stone wall to make sure the dog did not venture again upon his property. Moreover, we got a lecture upon what would happen if he ever saw us touching that red animal again. The ease with which he had defeated his first dog engendered in his mind a complete disdain for the canine world. He scrupulously attends to his own business, but let a stray dog so much as cross his property line, and Jitters launches a furious attack. The bigger they come the faster they run. From every encounter he has emerged the victor, but we are in mortal terror that someday courage will be his downfall.

Strangely enough he does not at all object to water as do most cats. Only a drenching rain will drive him indoors. I believe the baths to which he has been subjected since infancy are responsible. One day he was with us in a canoe on the pond. We landed but he remained playing with a bug. The canoe floated off ten feet or more before Jitters discovered that he was adrift alone. Without the slightest hesitation he jumped overboard, swam to shore, shook himself, and continued about his affairs. He will splash through mud in swamps and refuses to be carried even when the water is inches deep.

Almost immediately he became a country cat. Silk and soft raiment were discarded when he arrived at the farm, and, figuratively, he donned overalls just as I did. From short excursions into the woods he learned to take care of himself on an expedition. At first he was often lost in the underbrush and tall ferns but soon that problem was solved. Since he cannot hear, he must depend entirely upon sight. When we disappear he climbs the nearest tree, looks about until he locates us, sets his mental compass, and makes a beeline through the bushes, yowling for us to wait. He is certain we never will go far without knowing where he is.

Shortly after we bought the farm Billie and I started one cloudy morning to explore the more distant parts of our domain. Lord Jitters was with us. On this particular day, I must admit, frankly, that I got lost. It is the cause of deep humiliation to me and of never-ending teasing by my wife. I would much prefer to let the distressing incident remain dead and buried, but that she will not do.

"You, an explorer," she gibes, "getting lost on our own property!"

I quote Daniel Boone. Someone asked if he were ever lost in the woods. "Well," he said, "I was never actually lost, but I was confused for three or four days."

Of course with a compass, or had there been sun, I would not have been confused. I will cite only a few examples from my past to demonstrate that my contention is true. I have traveled the unexplored forests of northern Korea, up to the Long White Mountain, and down the headwaters of the Yalu River, with only a compass as guide. On the trackless desert of Outer Mongolia, where the plains roll away in great waves and every wave looks like every other wave, I wandered hither and yon, returning unerringly to that little dot in the vast land-sea that was our camp. Through the jungles of Borneo, amid trees stretching up and up until their summits seemed to touch the sky, walled by creepers and ropes of vines like a barbed-wire entanglement, and hedged about with oozing swamps, never for an hour was I confused. Modesty forbids more details of my exploits, but I think the picture is clear; always I had a compass.

On that unfortunate morning we plunged into the forest behind the pond. Lord Jitters trotted along at our heels, now and then investigating a hole or sitting on a log purring contentedly when we stopped to rest. Finally an enormous thicket of laurel confronted us. I took a deer trail which began beautifully but petered out in a tangled maze after we were far into an almost impenetrable growth. It was tough going. Sometimes we had to crawl on hands and knees. We could not see twenty feet in any direction. Billie and Jitters stayed close at my heels. Our hands and faces were scratched, clothes torn, tempers worn thin. When, finally, we emerged from the infernal place, after twisting and turning a hundred times, I did not know north from south. Clouds hung low and the tall trees obscured every possible landmark. Poor Billie hadn't uttered a word of complaint—in fact she hadn't uttered a word, which was ominous. Lord Jitters dragged a bit. He was panting visibly and his little pink tongue hung out. We stopped often—silent—and he just sat there regarding me with accusing eyes. I was definitely on the spot but tried to present a front of confidence and lighthearted abandon.

"Darling," I said, "you and Jitters rest while I prowl a bit. I want to have a look at those pine trees on the hill. Aren't they magnificent? Probably we own them. Isn't that exciting?"

Billie looked at me through narrowed eyes.

"You're lost," said she. "Why don't you admit it?"

"Lost! How absurd. Of course I'm not lost. That laurel was hard to take but now we're out of it and I'll pick a short way home."

"I don't believe it," was all she answered.

Up to the summit of the hill I plodded. Emulating Lord Jitters's procedure, I swung into the lowest branches of a tall pine, climbed almost to the top, and gazed hopefully about. No soap. Only trees and more trees. Not a vestige of a landmark that I could recognize. If only I could discover which way was north! When we left home a light south breeze was blowing; that might give a clue. So I tossed dry leaves into the air. They dropped back lifelessly, straight down. I wet a finger and held it aloft like a torch. One side was just as cool as the other. I examined the trees carefully. Moss is supposed to grow thickest on the north side, though I don't believe it. On these darned pines, where there was any moss at all, it had distributed itself about the trunks in the most impartial manner. I was utterly defeated. North could be any one of four directions. A single alternative was left. The slope we were on indicated a valley. Probably in its bottom would be a stream, which must eventually reach Sandy Brook at the foot of our hill. That was the drainage of the land. In any event it meant a long trek.

Returning to Billie and Jitters, I forced a smile and said brightly, "We don't want to return the way we came. We're out to see the country. Let's go down through this lovely pine grove until we find a stream and follow it to Sandy Brook. Won't that be fun?"

"No, it won't be fun," my wife said in a flat voice. "You're lost."

Without reply I started pushing through the undergrowth down the hill. Billie and Jitters followed listlessly. Sure enough in the bottom of the ravine we did find a stream. Slipping and sliding along its bank, it led us through a god-awful alder swamp into a wide valley and eventually to the state road where it crosses Sandy Brook. We trudged along saying nothing. Lord Jitters plodded behind us, his beautiful white fur a mass of mud and briars, but game to the end. I tried to get him to ride on my shoulder but he indignantly refused. He was determined to finish it the hard way.

We arrived wearily at Pondwood Farm. My stock was very low, but at least I knew what to do. First, I ran a hot bath for Billie and mixed her a cocktail. Jitters rated a large dish of cream and a place on the bed. While he stretched luxuriously, I combed out his fur, restoring a semblance of his immaculate self. Before an hour passed both my wife and my cat were speaking to me again.

At that, I need not have been so crestfallen at being lost in our own woods which were unknown to me. Mile after mile of unbroken forest sweeps over the mountains and down into wild, rugged ravines. On some hillsides one can glimpse a farmhouse, but farm lands are few and far between. The forest is nearly a duplicate of what it was when, in 1633, that great explorer and Indian trader, John Oldham, made his way through the trackless wilderness from the Massachusetts Bay Colony into the beautiful Connecticut River Valley. Like Daniel Boone and his vision of Kentucky, Oldham was inspired by this New England paradise with an almost religious zeal. His enthusiasm for the green hills, tall trees, and fertile vales brought settlers from Salem and Boston to establish a colony at Wethersfield, not more than fifty miles from Pondwood Farm. The Dutch had already sailed up the river from Saybrook and erected trading posts at Hartford and Windsor.

Some of the Wethersfield settlers were massacred by raiding Pequot Indians. Oldham himself lost his life and scalp at the hands of these same savages. But the English colonists stuck to their guns and the homes they had cut out of the wilderness with such infinite labor. They found the river tribes peaceful Indians and in 1635 were buying land by the square mile from the redmen. The "big chief," Sequassin, set the style for others and went into the real-estate business like a modern tycoon.

"How about a nice home up in the Green Woods country? Very cheap. Just a few bottles of rum and it's yours."

Of course he did not mention the fact that the same parcel had already been sold half-a-dozen times. A small cloud on the title meant nothing in those days. Nevertheless, these friendly transactions with their red brethren possibly were the basis for the later claims of Windsor and Hartford to these "Western Lands." Be that as it may, after a bitter dispute, which lasted forty years, our particular region, comprising 18,199 acres, was eventually allotted to seventy-nine proprietors. "In 1732 the General Assembly enacted that it should forever be called 'Colebrook,' named for Colebrook in Devonshire, England."

It was all very well to have a parcel of land in the Green Woods, but how to get there! It might as well be located on Mars unless a road were built. There were Indian trails, to be sure, but that was all. One could not take one's wife, family, and household furniture over an Indian trail. Roads lose their significance to modern city dwellers. We take them as a matter of course, driving over them in high-powered cars, criticizing every tiny bump. But I have firsthand knowledge of what roads mean to a new country. As a matter of fact, I have made them myself. In Mongolia the trails which we broke through the desert are now the highways of civilization.

Never will I forget one night in the Gobi when we were camped near a caravan trail, old before Marco Polo was born. For thousands of years it had been used to transport silk from Cathay to India. Darkness was creeping in, but a faint trace of sunset glow still lingered in the western sky. Out of the east sounded the melodious tones of camel bells, and a long line of grotesque two-humped forms, with curving necks and swinging legs, materialized like silent ghosts. The swish, swish, swish of great flat feet and the creak of swaying loads were the only sounds. A Chinese driver plodded beside the lead camel. He spoke in the soft, slurring dialect of the Shansi district, which I understand. "For six moons we have been on the road," he said, "carrying tea, cloth, and tobacco. The geese will fly north again before we return." Curiously he gazed at the motorcars beside the tents. "Chi chur [wind carts]," he remarked laconically. "You go very fast in them."

That line of camels disappearing silently into the night made me sad. We, with our automobiles, were destroying the sanctity of the age-old desert. Never after our passage would it be the same again, for others would follow in our tracks.

The first road to Colebrook built in 1760, is still called the Old North Road. "According to tradition," writes the Hon. John Boyd, "it was a wonder of the age that a direct and practicable route could be found and opened through the jungles and over the succession of steep, rocky hills and mountains of the Green Woods, for travel and the movement of troops and munitions between Hartford and Albany. It soon became, and continued until 1800, the great and almost the sole thoroughfare of the colony in the direction of Albany. Continental troops passed over it for frontier service. Detachments of Burgoyne's army, as prisoners of war, marched over it to the quarters assigned them. 'It should not be inferred from the amount of travel that this road was an Appian Way,' said Mr. Boyd. 'On the contrary, direct as it was, it went up and down the highest hills, on uneven beds of rocks and stones, and passed marshy valleys on corduroy of the coarsest hemlock structure.' . . . This historic road is still open for travel over most of its course."

A few days after our unfortunate initial experience Billie and I made another exploration to the southwest toward Nap Hill, which we could see from the house, rising in a great sweep of green. Lord Jitters trotted along behind us as usual. The object was to discover the limits of our property. Most of the old deeds delineate the holdings by such marks as "a stone wall running east and west" or "from a crooked pine tree on the top of a knoll ten rods from a glacial boulder."

This time we had a compass. Billie's confidence in my ability to navigate the woods was still somewhat shaken but I persuaded her to give me another trial. We took a line from the house and followed it through the forest, skirting the great thicket of laurel which had been our Waterloo on the first expedition. Eventually we found a stone wall that probably marks the limits of Pondwood Farm. It appeared so from the map given us by the former owner, but I am not sure of it even to this day. Beyond the wall a magnificent grove of pines sweeps up to the edge of a great ravine that drops away in a sheer precipice for a hundred feet.

We climbed down one side to a mountain stream which tumbles over rocks through close walls of green. It was the upper reaches of Brummagem, the brook we had found when I got lost. Trout lay in the pools and a mink spat at us from a fallen log like an angry cat. Lord Jitters gazed at the slim brown ball of living fire with every hair erect. This "Thing" was something new in his life and he didn't like it.

"She has a litter somewhere near," I told Billie. Her feminine instincts immediately saw something more interesting than natural history.

"That's wonderful," she said. "This fall you can catch the whole family and make me a mink scarf."

On the other side of the brook an overgrown abandoned wood road which we had missed on the first expedition led down the valley. While we rested, Lord Jitters made a historical discovery. He had wandered off on a personal exploration and soon we heard the peculiar yowl that means we must drop everything and come at once. He was sitting on the edge of what evidently was an old house foundation with a white-footed mouse under one paw. Presently he deposited it at Billie's feet, flirting his somewhat bedraggled tail with the greatest pride and waiting to be praised for his prowess.

It seemed a strange place for the remains of a house, but nearby were several others and a slag pile. Then it became clear. This was the site of a forge built by Capt. Ezekiel Phelps more than a century and a half ago. I had learned that, during the Revolutionary War, Colebrook forges played an important part in furnishing cannon, mortars, swivels, shot, hand grenades, camp kettles, and other army necessities. Most of the iron was mined at Salisbury on the eastern slope of the Taconic Mountains, twenty-five miles away. Ethan Allen, afterward the hero of Ticonderoga, with three other gentlemen, erected the first blast furnace at nearby Lakeville. Allen, a rip-roaring adventurer who took the law into his own hands, feared neither God, man, nor the devil. He rejoiced in the price on his head, which the governor of New York never could collect, and became one of the Iron Kings of Connecticut. His concessions reached as far as Norfolk, but eventually his interests centered in the New Hampshire Grants, and he sold the property to Richard Smith, a Boston merchant of doubtful colonial sympathies.

Smith had originated a process of making high-quality iron instead of ore from pig metal, and probably chose Colebrook for the erection of forges because of its abundant water power and wood for charcoal. The pigs were brought over the rough, hilly country in oxcarts and saddlebags. The Colebrook region became the site of a dozen or more forges. Part of the immense chain that was stretched across the Hudson River near West Point, to prevent the British from sailing up the river, was made at Norfolk. The iron industry continued at Colebrook until well into the nineteenth century. I am glad it is ended. It would seem a desecration to me, who am not industrially minded, that these beautiful hills and forest should echo to the sound of clanking metal.

Billie and I poked about among these ruins of colonial history which Lord Jitters had discovered, trying to reconstruct, in imagination, what had happened here so long ago. Probably the workmen were from England, for "Brummagem" is a corruption of Birmingham in the local speech of that great wrought-iron center. Captain Phelps doubtless imported them to operate his forge. The overgrown trail, I learned later, was the ancient road to the forge and led us down to the state highway. The valley east of the stream through which we had floundered was once a pasture, but is now a jungle of scrub birch and alder where we shoot woodcock and grouse. Stone walls are everywhere in the woods—mute evidence of a land that has returned to its virgin state. A century ago they separated pasture from pasture, home from home. Who built the walls, and what happiness or tragedy went on behind them, no one knows. Even tradition has lost their names.

But some of the stories of these stout-hearted, strong-willed men have been set down in records of the town. We know that Benjamin Horton was the first settler. He came in December 1765. Captain Samuel Rockwell was the fifth pioneer to build a house in Colebrook. It stands on a tree-shaded knoll overlooking the center. He, too, was a winter traveler and chose February, the coldest and stormiest month of the year, to do his trek. With Hepzibah, his wife, and four sons, aged eight, not quite seven, barely three, and Reuben in his mother's arms, to say nothing of another on the way, who became Alpha, first baby born in the town, the doughty captain set out for Colebrook from East Windsor.

Bag and baggage were piled on an oxcart. Hepzibah rode on horseback with the baby; that is recorded. Presumably the remainder of the flock took their chances on the oxcart driven by Sam, or ran about in the bushes beside the trail like rabbits. I am glad to state that Hepzibah issued an ultimatum to the captain: "Not one foot will I move without my Windsor chairs, my chest of drawers, and my desk."

Captain Sam had already done a spot of work in Colebrook before he brought Hepzibah and the family. The frame of his house was up, and while Hepzibah and the children stayed with his brother Joseph, two miles away, Sam finished the dwelling. It was a one-story room with a large chimney in the center and a big attic.

The Rockwells, I assume, did the usual. They girdled the trees, cleared the dead timber in the third year, and sowed the land to rye, herd grass, and white clover. Later oats, potatoes, and turnips gave the family their vitamins and kept them up to snuff. It is well that Sam was a powerful man. He had need of all his muscles to do the job.

Captain Samuel Rockwell became one of the pillars of Colebrook and remained so until his death. It was in his house that the little band of settlers met on December 3, 1779, for the first town meeting and "took the action necessary to start business as a body politic." For years almost every meeting of consequence, political or social, was held at the Rockwells'. After the battle of Saratoga a hundred and twenty-four Hessian prisoners spent the night there on their way to Boston. Could the walls speak, what a fascinating story they would tell! Only a few weeks ago Billie and I were shown over the house from ground to attic by the lovely Mrs. Edward Hinchliff. We sat before the great stone fireplace in the "keeping room" where town meetings were held, saw the furniture, read the original land grant, reverently handled Hepzibah's wooden mortar for grinding corn, and tipped the cradle in which the baby Alpha was rocked.

Digressing for a moment, here is a problem for psychologists, or those who believe in the "Wheel of Life," to ponder. With absolutely no premeditation, or knowledge at that time, of where my father's family tree began, I have returned to my ancestral soil. John Andrus, or Andrews, came to America from Essex County, England, in 1640. He settled in the pioneer town of Tunxis, now Farmington, twenty-nine miles from Colebrook, and became one of its eighty-four proprietors. A grandson, John Andrews, moved to John Oldham's town of Weathersfield, thirty-eight miles from Colebrook. All of my father's family continued to live in Farmington, Weathersfield, or New Britain, except my great-grandfather, Noah Andrews, who migrated to Worthington, Ohio. His son, my grandfather, moved to Worthington, Indiana, where my father was born. He married my mother, Cora Chapman, in Beloit, Wisconsin, and there I first saw the light of day. Thus the wandering swallow has flown back to the ancestral roost.

There is also an interesting and rather strange association between Colebrook and Beloit by way of the Rockwells. Eliza Rockwell, granddaughter of Captain Samuel, married Ralph Emerson in 1817. He had a divine call to preach in Rockford, Illinois, twelve miles from my home town of Beloit. His brother, Joseph Emerson, followed him westward and became one of the revered professors of Beloit College. Emerson Hall, the women's dormitory at which I was a constant visitor in undergraduate days, was built and named for him. I used to see the white-haired professor, a frail little man, on the campus, although I never attended his classes. The Rockwell house is now in possession of Edward C. Hinchliff, great-great-great-grandson of Captain Samuel. He lives at Rockford, Illinois, but summers in Colebrook. From him I obtain Beloit College news.

It was from the Rockwell house that town edicts were issued and records kept. Many of them concern the small things that are of importance to us who live in a country village today. It is comforting to know that in 1778 the council stretched their legs before the fire, drank a beaker or two of rum, and voted that "the rams found within the bounds of this town running at large and unrestricted from the first of September to the middle of November next ensuing should be forfeited to him or them who secure and take them up." Of course we know what rams are up to at that season of the year and I highly commend the foresight of the town statesmen. At the same meeting pigs were given a better break, for it was decided that swine could run at large on the highway and common for another year.

I was distressed to learn that, even in the days of its infancy, Colebrook had a relief problem. At the town meeting, held on February 23, 1789, which was adjourned from the church to Captain Rockwell's house (doubtless for refreshment), it was voted that Samuel Phillips be permitted to sell his land in Colebrook on condition that the purchaser transport said Phillips up the Mohawk as far as Fort Herkimer. But "said Phillips" seems to have evaded transport for at a subsequent meeting the selectmen were directed to make provision for the Phillips and Martin families "now on the town cost."

Phelps is another name that carries back to earliest Colebrook history. Carrington Phelps is the last male of the family which has had possession of the property continuously for one hundred and eighty years. Cary was middleweight wrestling champion at Yale and, even today, though I am younger than he is, I should hate to tangle with him. Half-a-dozen buildings are of Revolutionary time or earlier, and the tavern, just at the bottom of our hill, is one of the most romantic houses in all New England.

The tavern seems as much a part of the living present as of the past. Whenever I go to our mailbox I half expect to see a stagecoach drawn up at the door, men in ruffled shirts, long coats, and high hats, helping the women alight on the stone horse block. Ladies, front to the parlor; men, right, to the taproom entrance in the rear. Captain Phelps, behind the corner bar, filling beakers of rum and hard cider for the passengers gathered about the great fireplace.

Nothing is much changed outside, except that the sign "Phelps Tavern" no longer hangs over the door. One side bears a painting of the British lion; the other flaunts an eagle, symbol of the Colonies. English travelers could look at the lion if that made them happy, while colonists gazed upon the eagle. Captain Phelps was concerned only with their physical needs, not their political faiths. He was an innkeeper and in business; then, as now, "the customer is always right." But the Phelps family were no lukewarm patriots. They typified the "Spirit of '76." Captain Josiah, sixty-seven years of age, his two sons and grandson, little Josiah, a trumpeter only fifteen years old, fought in George Washington's army.

The tavern was more than just a stopping place for stages from Hartford to Albany. The ballroom on the second floor was the gathering place for social events and dances of the neighborhood. Its pine paneling has become a lovely olive green with a patina as soft as satin. Of course the tavern isn't operating any more. Its doors were closed about 1840, when railroads ended stagecoach travel. But Cary has preserved it as a part of family history.

Colebrook's contribution to the Revolutionary War in man power was in proportion to its population which, at that time, was only thirty-nine families and one hundred and fifty individuals. Probably the village got the news of Lexington two days after the event by courier over the Old North Road. Six Colebrook men responded and fifty or more did their bit in the struggle before the war ended. Some went to the siege of Boston; others to hold the forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and at least four were with Benedict Arnold on the disastrous expedition to Quebec.

We do have a most enviable record of substantial people. Colebrook was the home of several governors, preachers of distinction, college professors, and statesmen. Aaron Burr came with his bride, the beautiful Madame Jumel, to stay with the Hoyts. It is even recorded that when Governor Henry Edwards visited his cousins, the same Hoyts, he arrived "with all the pomp and fine livery of those days." So impressive was he that the butler stubbed his toe and spilled the soup!