is, in a square form. The very steep mountain [Honwee], near the northwest corner, may make a difference in measuring the lines. The original plans of the town, one of which we had, taken thirty-four years ago, set forth the town as square, and the points from the south-west corner, as running cast 19 degrees south; but in running the same line at this period, and setting the compass so as to strike the north-west corner of the town of Lenox, which is in the south-west line of Pittsfield, and 684 rods from our south

west corner, the line was found to run east sixteen degrees and fifteen minutes south. The lines at each corner are at right angles, and the ancient boundaries and marked trees are yet remaining.

Pittsfield by estimation, on the route through Northampton, is 140 miles from Boston. Its meeting-house is six miles and a half from Lenox Court House. The Ousatonac River, at its entrance on the east side of said town, is six rods wide; and on the south side of the town, where it crosses the line, it is eight rods wide.

There are five ponds which lie wholly in Pittsfield, and two others, part of one of which is in Lanesborough, and the other in Richmond, which we estimate as follows, to wit:

Goodrich Pond, 50 acres; Ensign's Pond, 40 acres; Van Schaack's Pond, 40 acres; Rathbun's Pond, 45 acres; West Pond, 520 acres; North Pond, 300 acres; South Pond, 80 acres.

We know of no mines, or minerals, in this town. The ore used here is brought from Richmond, &c. This survey was taken in the months of No

vember and December, A.D. 1794.

The dotted lines represent the county roads; the green lines, the streams and rivers, over which are bridges, where roads cross them. The bridges over the Ousatonac River are five in number. Dalton, S. W. corner. Washington, N. W. corner.

JOHN C. WILLIAMS,
OLIVER ROOT,

SIMON LARNED,

Committee.

NATHANIEL ROBBINS,

ELI ROOT,

DEC. 8, 1794.

N. B.

The committee do not seem to have been aware of the sixty-eight rods allowed in addition to the original town boundaries.

H.

WHILE this work has been passing through the press, a few facts have come to our knowledge, which are worthy of record.

Dr. Charles S. Goodrich of New York furnishes us with the following traditions regarding his grandfather, Capt. Charles Goodrich.

East Street was opened under his direction; and four or five fine elm-trees were left standing where Park Square now is, among them The Great Elm. Dr. Goodrich often heard his grandfather say that one of his axe-men struck two blows into the tree, with the intention of felling it; but Capt. Goodrich, admiring its beauty, it was then tall, straight, and limbless, to the height of some fifty feet,- ordered his axe-men to spare that tree," which they did, with three or four others near it. The Elm was then about a foot in diameter.

66

Dr. Goodrich states that his grandfather owned six thousand acres of land in Pittsfield and the neighboring towns; among which was the farm upon which the popular mineral springs of New Lebanon, N.Y., were afterwards found.

Once, when eighty years old, Capt. Goodrich rode a Narragansett pony from Pittsfield, Vermont which was named by him, and where his son lived,― to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a distance of a hundred and four miles; starting after sunrise, and sleeping at home the same night.

Capt. Goodrich died at the age of ninety-six, leaving two sons, Rev. Charles Goodrich, who is now living, at the age of ninety; and James G., who is now eighty-nine years old, and one daughter, Mrs. Lucy G. Pratt,

who died three years since, at the age of ninety.

The last deer known in Pittsfield were slaughtered in the winter of 1780, when the snow was so deep that it was possible for the hunters to kill them, without the possibility of their escape, in the yards which they had beaten out for themselves among the snow-drifts. The demand for buckskins for the manufacture of breeches for the military was then urgent, and the hunters were diligent to supply it.

The initials I. M. W., on the Plan of Pittsfield in 1759, refer to John Mico Wendell, son of Col. Jacob, who married Catherine Brattle, a descendant of Thomas Brattle, the founder of the Brattle family of Massachusetts, a branch of which was thus introduced into Pittsfield, where some of its members still reside. John Mico Wendell and his wife were both descendants of Governors Bradstreet and Dudley.

Of Col. Israel Williams's nine children, four settled in Pittsfield and vicinity Deacon William Williams, who was one of the first trustees of Williams College, and who should be distinguished from Col. William Williams of Pittsfield; Sarah, who married Dr. Marsh of Dalton; Eunice, who married Major Israel Stoddard of Pittsfield; and Lucretia, who married John Chandler Williams. Of Dr. Marsh's daughters, Sarah married Israel Peck; Martha married Thomas Gold; Eunice, Darius Larned; Lucretia, William Millen; Elizabeth, Jonathan Allen; and Sophia, Fordyce Merrick, all of Pittsfield.

INDEX.