136
��Ethel Freeman.
��horse with ease, without other aid than the stirrup. His features were bold and prominent ; the nose was well formed ; the eyes light blue, keen and piercing, deeply sunk under pro- jecting brows. His lips were gener- ally closely compressed. He was not bald ; but his hair became white, and covered his head. His whole appear- ance indicated coolness, courage, ac- tivity, and confidence in himself, whether called upon to perform the duties of an enterprising partisan, or a calculating and considerate gene- ral.
His character was unexceptional in his private as in his public life. His manners were frank and open. He spake his thoughts boldly on all oc- casions, without concealment of his meaning. He was a man of kindness and hospitality, which, through life, he extended to all his comrades in arms, and to others who sought his assistance. He ever sustained a rep- utation for honor and integrity, — frieudlv to the industrious and enter-
��prising, but severe to the idle and unworthy.
Gen. Stark survived his wife eight years. They had eleven children, — five sons and six daughters, — and all except one reached the age of matu- rity. His third son, John Stark, Jr., remained at home, married, and raised a family of twelve children at the old homestead. The vet- eran general was thus surrounded in his home by a numerous progeny, who in his last years kindly alleviated the infirmities of extreme age.
He died on the 8th of May, 1822, aged 93 years, 8 months, and 24 days. He was buried with military honors at the spot where his remains now lie, and where it is now proposed to erect to his memory the elegant equestrian bronze statue herewith rep- resented. George Stark.
Note. — The material for tbis biograpliical sketch has been drawn from numerous papers and books, and more especially from the " Memoir and Otli- cial Correspondence of General John Stark " by his grandson, the late Caleb Stark, of Dunbarton, N. H., edition of 1860.
��ETHEL FREEMAN:
The Story of a Marriage that proved a Mistake. By Ellen M. Mason.
��IV.
There was a certain Mrs. Hamilton whom George regarded with the high- est approval, and who by degrees had come to be his wife's intimate friend, thouo;h at first Ethel had held aloof from her advances from instinctive distrust. She possessed no beauty, but a wonderful personal magnetism
��that made her irresistible to all who felt the contact of her presence. And to this she added rare attainments : she was a finely cultivated musician, an artist of no mean talents, and she acquitted herself so finely in amateur theatricals that it was said she might have made a fortune on the stage ; and she had written a successful nov-
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