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 Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents.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

THE OLD BELL TAVERN. 343
were held for many years. And who will forget that projecting cellar-case door, on the east corner, in front of
Pritchard's barber's shop, to which the old truckman Daniel
Lowd was daily carried to receive the alms of the public,
and the terror he inspired in the school boys at his shrill
call for his dog Lion, when they annoyed him as they
stopped to gaze.
It has since been kept by Samuel Robinson and Oliver
Potter; by Samuel Rea, who changed the structure from a
gambrel roof to a three story building. A second Mr.
Tilton, Hiram Locke, Jackson & Rowe, and we know not
but some others, were the landlords after Mr. Rea.
In 1852, the building was sold to J. P. Morse, Aaron
Akerman and Henry M. Clark. The old sign post of the
blue Bell was soon cut down, and three stores made in
front. Thus it remained, until the fire in March, 1867,
swept it away. Nobody is sorry for its departure —as its
place is supplied by the handsome three-story block, an ornament to the city, built by Messrs. Henry M. Clark, Aaron
Akerman and Samuel S. Frye.
RAMBLE CXLIV.
Witcheraft in Ports-nouth and INTewcastle —-Death of
Molly Bridget —Stone Throwing Devils of XNewcastle.
FOR a large portion of the century which terminated
some thirty years since, witchcraft was regarded as a relic
of ancient superstition; but now, in the modern developments of mesmerism, spiritualism, etc. we have again
brought up under the auspices of a new science, develop.
ments everybody in olden time called witchcraft and