General Burgoyne, being indisposed, was the guest of Colonel Elijah Dwight in the quaint " Henderson house " which stands near the Berkshire Inn. This house was built by the distinguished General Joseph Dwight in 1759 and was long the finest dwelling in the township. In it William Cullen Bryant was married to Miss Lucy Fairchild. The Hessian General, Baron Riedesdel, was quartered in the old Episcopal Church.

We do not know whether the courageous and brilliant Baroness Riedesdel passed through Great Barrington on her way to Boston, after being entertained by Mrs. Schuyler during the stay in Albany. But under the unexpectedly adverse circumstances of the expedition, Madam Riedesdel never parted with her rose-colored glasses or interest in all things American;. for it seems the brilliant army left Canada with confidence in an easy victory [1] and many officers' wives attended their husbands, promising themselves an agreeable trip to New York. On the eve of surrender, the illuminated Mansion of General Schuyler rang, says the Brunswick journal, " with singing, laughter, and the jingling of glasses," as Burgoyne and his companions made merry over a royal supper. Outside, cold and hungry officers slept on the ground, and wet through & through by rains Baroness Riedesdel lay down With her children upon straw before an open fire. Next day General Schuyler's Saratoga mansion was burned to the ground as a military necessity, and rebuilt in fifteen days by General Gates's army with timber drawn from the forest.

The closing-scene of Shays's Rebellion, that singular revolt caused by hard times after' the Revolution, took place in Great Barrington. Paper money was worth nothing and the best of folks were obliged to go to jail for want of money to pay taxes. The editor of the Worcester Spy took subscriptions in salt pork. Captain Hamlin and other characters in Bellamy's Duke of Stockbridge were real personages hereabouts.

Great Barrington is rich in rivers,- the Housatonic, the Williams, and that loved by Bryant, the pellucid Green River, filled with sparkles of light; the Indians called it Waum-paniksepoot- White River,- but the Settlement Committee changed the name of this surpassingly beautiful stream- flowing down from Austerlitz, N. Y., through Alford and Egremont- to accord with the color of its waters. Bryant fled from the drudgery of law to the banks of Green River seeking a lonely hour in his favorite refuge under a tree overhanging the stream on the estate of the late J. Milton Mackie. Bryant filled several town offices and Dr. Arthur Lawrence writes: " It was Bryant's duty as town clerk to publish the banns of marriage in the church, which was generally done by reading them aloud; but in his own case he pinned the required notice on the door of the vestibule. and kept carefully out of sight." [2] As justice of the Peace, he twice performed the marriage ceremony, and an old gentleman made it his boast that he was "jined to his first old woman by Squire Bryant."
One of Nature's marvels is the sunset light flung against East Mountain, and to me the sweetest of Bryant's verse written here is A Walk at Sunset.

"Oh sun! that o'er the western mountains now
Go'st down in glory! ever beautiful
Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair,
Fairest of thy that earth beholds, the hues
That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews."

Every one climbs the flower-decked path of Mount Peter; blue-bells and columbine find a foothold in the crevices of blue limestone. North of Mount Peter (so called for Captain Peter Ingersoll) is Kellogg Terrace, the estate of Mrs. E. F. Searles. The Hopkins Memorial Manse of solid granite was erected by Mrs. Mary Hopkins Searles for the Congregational church, in honor of its first pastor, the pupil and intimate friend of Jonathan Edwards- Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D.D. He is the hero of The Minister's Wooing. General Ives and the Hon. John Whiting were Major-Generals of Militia. The Hon. Increase Sumner was prominent in civic affairs for nearly fifty years.

Great Barrington was the County Seat until the courts were removed to Lenox in 1787. In that epoch the distin guished lawyer Major-General Thomas Ives was prominent in town and military affairs. Mrs. Ives was a grand- daughter of General Dwight, and a daughter of the Hon. Jedediah Foster of Brookfield, Mass. The Misses Ives were great belles, and one of their ball invitations printed on the back of a playing card in 1810 is in the possession of Miss Harriet Wells.

Mr. Fuller's Public Ball
The Miss Ives
company is requested at Mr. Ruggles
ball-room on Friday Feb. 2nd, at 6 o'clock P.M.
H. D. Sedgwick
S. Jones    .....................Managers
C. Webster

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