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 Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents.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

366 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
been seen a few years since, which had no claim to beauty
or vigor, but was for years in a dying state, and like a tombstone told only of affection for lthe departed.
Even from the pavements over which he walks, some associations arise. Passing fifty years ago over a long: gravelly walk lined by a'row of posts on one side, and the re'c
fence of the Adams garden on the other, he did not reach
any pavements until arriving at Mrs. Buckminister's premises. Thence the flat stones were' laid to Market street.
Now the brick walk extends the Whole distance, and far
west. As we pass the old graiite at the street crossings,
the mysterious searrs in the rocks bring up thoughts of
primeval times —the square and the octagon stone passes
bring up the mechanical contest of years gone tby —and
when these stones on a fiosty morning display the rich
traces of the frost, who carmlnot findd' sermons in stones?'
O'f the male heads of families resident on Islington and
Congress streets fifty years ago, there now survive only
John P. Lord, Samuel Lord, James F. Shores and Henry
Goddard.
All the old occupants of the houses on these streets fifty
years ago have passed away, and their places have been
supplied by another generation, just then entering upon
manhood. He can now look upon these as men of three
score and ten,-but somehow they do not look as old men
did to him fifty years ago. Among the old residents he
might name Messrs. Akermans, Ham, Jackson, Fitzgerald,
Halliburton, Barnes, Story, Fernald, H. S. Langdon, Hill,
Folsomf Haven, Storer, Abbott,, Sheafe, Parrott, J. Alelcher, Treadwell, Dean, Cutter, Rogers, Bell, Dearborn, Lakeman, Brewster, Gerrish, Goddard, Rice, Webster, Clark,
John Langdon 2d, N. l1Melcher, Sowersby, Call, Robinson,
Bishop, Bartlett, McIntosh, Isaac Waldron, Wildes and
others. Only step for an hour into the shop of John Gaines,
the watchmaker, where politics were always on the tapis,