Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

306 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
fine appearance. Erect and soldierlike, with hat in hand,
head well powdered, his clothes all antique, and his wellpreserved blue coat adorned with large brass buttons, he
was hardly less conspicuous than Gen. Storer himself.
Our hero lived, as the reader will remember, on the
bank of the North Mill Pond. Indeed in that day, the
house was nearly at the water's edge, and as he built no
wharf, a storm would now and then dig a hole in the bank,
and the winds and waves threaten the mansion itself; but
to preserve the premises from these perils, the bank was
thickly planted with the good old-fashioned Balm of Gilead
trees, to break off the winds, and a great pine log, belonging to Robert Ham, was laid alongside at high water mark
moored and staked, to break the force of the waves.
In those days, almost every housekeeper carried or sent
his own bushel of corn to the mill,-.and several of the
Rock Pasture people had canoes, floats or skiffs in which
they navigated the pond for this and other purposes.
Mr. Mifflin had a canoe, something like the western dugout of a later day, which he kept tied to the log, and which
was shaded by the trees. The boys of the neighborhood
were apt to borrow boats without leave, and once in a while
would take his. When they did so, his lion-like voice rung
out over the pond, and the boys coming as near as they
dared, would shove in the boat, and jumping Dverboard, go
ashore elsewhere, glad to escape.
-This watchfulness induced other owners to put their
boats under his watchful eye; and thus quite a fleet was
moored to his log. The joiners' and masons' apprentice
boys, among whom he labored for years, dubbed him Commodore, and he answered to the title. In those days laborers drank spirits; and the Commodore labored and drank
heartily. His voice, always loud, grew louder as the day
declined, and at sundown, when any one, as he passed addressed him as Commodore Mifflin, he responded, Sir!! in
one that might ring through a battalion.