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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��ble for her first husband. Her sec- ond was Gen. Dearborn. She was his second wife. The firm of Gay & Dearborn did business in the store at the head of Bradstreet wharf, in Pitts- ton. It has been occupied since by several parties. John O. P. & Frank- lin Stevens traded there when I was a boy. Mr. Dearborn lived in the house on top of Togus hill. It is a ruin now.
When Gen. Dearborn died, in 1829, the property changed hands, and the firm of Gay & Dearborn was dissolved. Mr. Dearborn, not finding an opening at East Pittston that he wanted, moved to Windsor and went into trade there for about nine months. The place he had desired at East Pittston being for sale, he purchased it and im- mediately moved upon it, and lived there during the remainder of his life. The farm that Gen. Dearborn owned in Pittston is now partly occupied by Mr. Charles Bradstreet. There stood in my childhood a yellow house on the site where Mr. Bradslreet's now stands. His father, Joseph, died there April 23, 1835. It was moved to make way for the present house on a lot near Capt. James Smith's. It was occupied by the late Trueworthy Rollins, who mar- ried Amanda, daughter of Capt. James Smith, of Pittston. Mr. Rollins and wife both died in it. It has long since been demolished. My impression is that it was moved first to the hill near Law's cove, and that Mr. Rollins lived there before the second removal.
Rufus Gay, father of Rufus Marble Gay, lived in the old yellow house that Mr. Charles Bradstreet's father lived in. It used to be called the Gay house in those days. When Mr. Dear- born first went to Pittston, before his marriage, he no doubt boarded with this family. Gen. Henry Dearborn's son. Gen. Henry .\. S. Dearborn, George R. and Julia C, who married Gen. Joshua Wingate, were children of his second wife, ani Mrs. Rufus Gay, mother of Rufus Marble Gay, was a half sister to them.
From my earliest childhood Mr. Dearborn's name was connected with
��every thing that makes a true man. More than sixty years did he walk among the people of the town of his adoption, and he has left a name worthy to be remembered. Such men as he is what has been the glory of our country. By the old arm chairs of New England mothers, have our youth in the past been fitted to main- tain those principles that are the foundation upon which rests the hope of our nation. Mr. Dearborn had not long been a resident of Pittston before his neighbors and townsmen demand- ed his services in conducting their af- fairs. Our town-meetings are the nurseries of our best legislators, and the corner-stone of our democracy. Corruption in a town is soon unearthed at its meetings. It is in cities that it can secrete itself, or stalk with brazen front, backed by ring power. The honors conferred by a town are sure tests of the confidence of the people. .\ man is entrusted with the property of his immediate neighbors.
He was elected town-clerk and a member of the board of selectmen at the age of twenty-eight.
He served as a clerk in 1825-26-27- 28, and selectman in 1825, 1835, 1848 ; treasurer in 1830-1 and 1834 ; moder- ator in 1S38; town representative in 1 83 1 and 1838.
'rhe old residents of that town will understand me when I say that for nearly thirty years, commencing in 1825, no town was ever more divided by tactional quarrels at their March meetings than Pittston. For years what was known as the Stevens and Williamson parties waged a hot war upon each other. It can be said with truth that Mr. Dearborn possessed the entire confidence of the people. He came from a family that was devoted to the principles of Thomas Jefferson. Like his great Uncle Henry he sup- ported John Quincy Adams.
For this offense Jackson removed his mother's cousin from the collector- ship of the port of Boston. It was an act of which no doubt Gen. Jack- son lived to regret, for it was the
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