VI.
“Can you direct us to Dr. Harris?” said a sweet voiced girl to a trim, quick-stepping, rather fashionably dressed young gentleman on the street in the little village of Ashtabula, as she reined up a two-horse team.
“Hem, ’em ’em, Dr. Harris? ’em, why, that is what they call me.”
“Are you the only Dr. Harris in town?”
“’Em, yes, Miss. What can I do for you?”
The letters of the Jefferson attorneys was placed in his hands.
“’Em, hem,” he exclaimed, after reading it. “Freight! we can not ship now; shall have to stow it in our up-town ware-house;” saying which he led the way out to a country home, now occupied as a city residence, where the freight was deposited in a hay-mow, whilst the kind-hearted old Scotchman, Deacon McDonald and his wife most graciously cared for the intrepid drivers for the night.
The young man Ned was soon sent away, but Uncle Jake lingered in the vicinity for considerable time. The winter of 1836 he spent at the Harbor in the family of Deacon Wm. Hubbard, rendering valuable service in “pointing” the walls and plastering the cellar of the house now occupied as a store and residence by Captain Starkey. He is still well remembered by A. F. Hubbard, Esq., whose father offered him a home in his family; but Jake finally left and nothing is known of his subsequent course.
Of the two young ladies so intimately connected with this history, Miss Bushnell ultimately married a Mr. Estabrook, and was for many years one of the most esteemed ladies of Warren, O., and now sleeps in Oakwood Cemetery near that beautiful city. The other joined her destiny with that of her affiance shortly after that memorable ride, and a few weeks since I stood in the little churchyard at Burgh Hill, shrouded as it was in a far-reaching coverlet of snow and copied the following from a small marble headstone:
“MARY P. SUTLIFF,