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��REV. ELIJAH FLETCHER.
��in some form. The hearers took the hint, ceased their gossip about each other and the desired result was attained. The excitement about witches was never re- vived in Hopkinton after that day.
Mr. Fletcher was greatly beloved and respected both by the members of his church and the people of the town. The town paid his funeral expenses, and pur- chased a set of stones to mark his grave, which still point out the spot where his ashes are mingled with the mother dust.
His children, as far we know, were Bridget, born about 1774 ; Timothy, 1775; Rebecca, 1776, and Gratia, 1781. Rebecca married the Hon. Israel Kelly, about 1801. He was a son of Moses Kelly of Amherst and afterward of Hop- kinton, who was sheriff of Hillsborough county from 1785 to 1809. Israel Kelly removed to Salisbury prior to 1802. He was sheriff of Hillsborough county from 1813 to 1818, and Judge of the Court of Sessions for Merrimack county from 1823 to 1825, when that court was abolished. Two daughters of Judge Kelly are now living in Concord at advanced age.
Gratia Fletcher (called "Grace,") was educated at the old academy in Atkinson, finishing her studies at that venerable in- stitution late in the fall of 1S00. Rebecca, the widow of Mr. Fletcher, married the Rev. Christopher Paige, January 29, 1788. Mr. Paige was the first minister of Pitts- field, being settled there in 1789. There was never a very pleasant feeling exist- ing between the two daughters and their step-father after they arrived at years of understanding, and when Judge Kelly moved to Salisbury in 1802, Gratia made her home with her sister Rebecca. It was here she first saw Daniel Webster, then a young man, just from college, studying law with Thomas W. Thomp- son, near his father's house, and in the neighborhood of Judge Kelly's.
An acquaintance sprang up between them, which in time became a strong at- tachment; but Webster was too busily engaged in perfecting his legal studies to pay much attention to love affairs. After his admission to the Suffolk Bar in 1805, however, he returned and practiced law
��in his native town nearly two years, where his opportunities were better to learn the true character of Grace, which he used to say, "improved by studying it." Twice the marriage day had been appointed, but its arrival found them un- prepared. At length Webster settled in Portsmouth for a permanent home, and returning to Salisbury, was married at the house of Judge Kelly in 1S08.
Tradition says, that when he went to Salisbury, he first saw Grace looking out of the chamber window, and addressed her as follows: "Grace, what do you say? It is to-day or never !" She replied : "Then I say, to-day !" They were mar- ried that afternoon, and soon went to their new home in Portsmouth.
Mr. Webster's great talent soon led him into public notice, his grand politi- cal ( areer commencing with his election to Congress from this State in 1812. Re- moving to Massachusetts in 1816, he was sent to Congress from that State in 1822, and in 1827 was made U. S. Senator. It was when on his way to AVashington to take his seat in the Senate, accompanied by his wife, that she became ill and he was obliged to leave her in New York. Growing no better, she returned home to Marshfield, where she died, January 21, 1828.
Grace Fletcher Webster was a lady of superior culture and refinement- and would well grace any circle. Through her husband's national position she was often brought into social intercourse with the great men of the day — Clay, Benton, Calhoun, Adams, Jackson and others — and was greatly esteemed and respected by all who knew her. She was the idol of Webster, who cherished for her, through life, a reverential love. She left a son named Fletcher Webster and he a daughter named "Grace."
The house in which Mr. Fletcher lived and Grace was born, stands on the main road leading to Concord, about one mile east of Hopkinton Village, and, up to the spring of 1875, was in its primitive state. A portion of a limb from an elm in front of the house was sent to the Centennial Exhibition last season.
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