Edwin D. Mead, of Boston, is to give a course of six lectures on "The Pilgrim Fathers," before the students of Bates College at Lewiston, Me. The lectures will begin March 1, and will be open to the public.
The New Haven Colony Historical Society has for its officers Simeon E. Baldwin president, ex-Governor English vice president, Thomas R. Trowbridge, Jr., secretary, Robert Peck treasurer, and a board of twenty-five directors.
A lively discussion has been started as to which is the oldest church in Connecticut. Stamford claims that its church that just celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary was the first organized on Connecticut soil. An old pastor of the First Church of Hartford writes to claim that that church was organized in 1633, and that the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary was celebrated in 1883. Stamford does not deny that the Hartford Church may have been organized in 1633, but says it was not in Connecticut at that time.
Hartford, Conn., has a public library of thirty-six thousand volumes, but it costs anybody five dollars a year to get books out of it, and there are only six hundred people in the whole city who care to pay that price for its privileges.
OLD MARRIAGE RECORDS.
The following authentic list of marriages, by the Rev. Thomas Skinner, second pastor of the Congregational Church in Westchester parish, in the town of Colchester, Conn., is furnished for use in the New England Magazine, by Mr. Martin L. Roberts, of New Haven, Conn.:—
1755.—Sept. 1, Caleb Loomis, Jr., and Ann Strong; Ezra Bigelow and Hannah Strong.—Sept. 24, John Carrier and Hannah Knowlton.
1756.—Nov. 5, Rev. Ephraim Little and Mrs. Abigail Bulkley.
1758.—Jan. 4, Policarphus Smith and Dorothy Skinner; John Mitchell and Hepzibah Shepardson.—Jan. 24, Jacob Smith and Jemima Fuller.—April, Joshua Bailey and Ann Foot.—April 27, Samuel Brown of East Hampton and Elizabeth Brainerd.—May 4, William Chamberlain, Jr., and Mary Day; Bezaleel Brainerd and Hannah Brainerd.