Some of our East Coast Towns

As tenants of uncertain stay, / So may we live our little day / That only grateful hearts shall fill / The homes we leave in Haverhill.

THUS writes the poet Whittier, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the City of Haverhill in America. Most of us know there is a Haverhill in England, where resided Mr. D. Gurteen, who died recently in his eighty-fourth year, one of the grand old men-occasionally met with-who have spent all their lives in promoting the best interests, moral and pecuniary, of the community amongst whom they live. He was born when Haverhill was in a state of decay, its chief manufacture, that of silk, having dwindled all to nothing. He has almost rebuilt the place, and made it one of the most prosperous of our East Anglian towns. Haverhill, in a remote corner of East Anglia, is intimately connected with the American Haverhill. That was founded by the grandson of a well-known Haverhill clergyman-Rev. John Ward-one of the early Puritans who suffered for conscience sake, and against whom Romanising archbishops like Laud-in whose seat the present Archbishop of London tells us he is proud to be placed-made constant war. John Ward, whose monument is still to be seen in Haverhill Church, had a descendant named Nathaniel, who was educated at Cambridge, and went out into the wilderness of New England rather than remain the victim of persecution in the old country. He was a ripe scholar, and a man of great practical ability, a Puritan of the Puritans, who helped to mould the character and make the laws of the people of whom he became the minister. The hardy settlers, who had hitherto toiled in hope, overjoyed at Ward's coming, insisted on naming their plantation-hitherto called Pentucket, after the Indian tribe who had lived there till bought out by the whites-Haverhill, from the birthplace of their honoured minister. In the recent celebration Haverhill in England was not forgotten. Mr. Alderman Gurteen and the rector were invited.