on Maple street, and near it is
the cozy little Unitarian church. The Methodists built a church of brick
on Main street about the year 1870. The First Congregational society has
a wooden edifice on Northampton street--the oldest church building in
the city since the primitive First Baptist meeting-house was taken
down--and the church at South Holyoke where the German residents listen
to the services of their faith in the language of the fatherland.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD (FRENCH CATHOLIC)]

* * * * *

THE LAST PORTRAIT OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

The many who cherish the memory of DANIEL WEBSTER with more than common
interest and veneration, are fortunate, in that the records of his life,
his habits and his appearance are so complete. The portraits of Webster,
now extant, represent the great statesman at numerous periods of his
life.

[Illustration]

In July, 1852, Mr. Webster was in Franklin, N.H., and there sat for his
picture to the local artist of the town, who finished an excellent
daguerrotype. The picture was given by Mr. Webster to the Hon. Stephen
M. Allen, who now has it in his possession at the rooms of the Webster
Historical Society, in the Old South Meeting House, and by whose
courtesy it is here reproduced.

In October of the same year, three months after the picture was made,
Daniel Webster at his Marshfield home, breathed his last; leaving this
portrait the last ever taken of him from life.

* * * * *

FORT SHIRLEY.

By Prof. A.L. Perry of Williams College.

The recent centennial celebration in the town of Heath, Franklin County,
Massachusetts, has freshened up an interest in the history of the old
fort that was built within its borders, at the opening of the Old French
War in 1744, by the State of Massachusetts. The present writer, however,
has made a study for many years of that and its kindred forts, has
repeatedly visited and critically examined its site, and has in his
possession the chief movable memorials of what was indeed a small, yet
in its historical connections a deeply interesting, military outpost.

The first white men known or supposed to have ever penetrated the
original forests in the town of Heath were Richard Hazen and six others,
the surveyor and chain-men and their assistants, who ran the official
northern line of Massachusetts in the early spring of 1741. Besides the
surveyor