Of these twenty families in 1850 I now find, at the Lake, only one descendant, A. M. Richardson, son of my brother, Collins, who with his interesting wife, Bessie, actually holds the fort alone.
WOODCHUCK IN THE WALL
Recently when my son Arthur and myself with our families were touring with automobile over the Alleghanies, up the sea-shore, and over the Green Mountains, we spent several days at the Lake, with many old-timers who came to meet us, when they coaxed me to tell the woodchuck story, which ran as follows: Bow-wow-wow is heard on the hillside across the little meadow from our old farm house. We boys, Gordon and I, drop our hoes and run, for we knew by the sound that old Skip had a woodchuck in the wall and wanted us to come and get him out.
"Hold on, Gordon," said I, "now is the time for us to give our Towser a chance."
Towser was a young bull terrier, we boys had bought of Holmes, who had recommended him to be able to catch the largest ox by the nose and hold him, or catch a hog by the ear and hold the hog, or off would come the ear, and as for woodchucks, he would pick them up as a hen would pick up kernels of corn.
Our Towser, as we boys called him, was at once unchained and we were off to the pasture on the hillside, where in days gone by, old Skip had captured so many woodchucks.
As we ran along, the conversation ran thus:
"Hey-hey, Towser," said I, "Mr. Woodchuck don't know that you're coming; he thinks it is old Skip, but when he sees you, he will know that he's got to die."