our hat in respect
to the record of so much worth, drove our horse under the shed, had him
fed, went in, and took a quiet family dinner with the civil,
good-tempered host, and the equally kind-mannered hostess, then in the
prime of life, surrounded with a fine family of children, and heard from
his own lips the history of his ancestors, from their first emigration
from England--not in the Mayflower, to whose immeasurable accommodations
our good New England ancestors are so prone to refer--but in one of her
early successors.

All over the old thirteen states, from Maine to Georgia, can be found
agricultural estates now containing families, the descendants of those
who founded them--exceptions to the general rule, we admit, of American
stability of residence, but none the less gratifying to the
contemplation of those who respect a deep love of home, wherever it may
be found. For the moral of our episode on this subject, we cannot
refrain from a description of a fine old estate which we have frequently
seen, minus now the buildings which then existed, and long since
supplanted by others equally respectable and commodious, and erected by
the successor of the original occupant, the late Dr. Boylston, of
Roxbury, who long made the farm his summer residence. The description is
from an old work, "The History of the County of Worcester, in the State
of Massachusetts, by the Rev. Peter Whitney, 1793:"

"Many of the houses (in Princeton,) are large and elegant. This
leads to a particular mention, that in this town is the country seat
of the Hon. Moses Gill, Esq., ('Honorable' meant something in those
days,) who has been from the year 1775 one of the Judges of the
Court of Common Pleas for the county of Worcester, and for several
years a counsellor of this commonwealth. His noble and elegant seat
is about one mile and a quarter from the meeting-house, to the
south. The farm contains upwards of three thousand acres. The county
road from Princeton to Worcester passes through it, in front of the
house, which faces to the west. The buildings stand upon the highest
land of the whole farm; but it is level round about them for many
rods, and then there is a very gradual descent. The land on which
these buildings stand is elevated between twelve hundred and
thirteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, as the Hon. James
Winthrop, Esq. informs me. The mansion house is large, being 50x50
feet, with four