IN OLDEN TIMES.

In Wickford, Rhode Island, is what is claimed to be the oldest Episcopal church in America. It was built in 1707, and was once stolen and transported a distance of seven miles. It was originally built on what was then called McSparren Hill, but in the course of seventy-five years the population had changed so that most of the worshippers came from Wickford, seven miles away. The proposition to remove the church was first made at a vestry meeting, but was so bitterly opposed by the few members who yet remained on McSparren Hill that the Wickford faction resolved on a coup d'état. The road from where the church stood to Wickford was all down hill. They mustered their forces one evening, collected all the oxen in the vicinity, placed the house on wheels, and, while the opposing faction were soundly sleeping in their beds, hauled the holy edifice to the spot where it now stands, and where it has since remained. As it was utterly impossible to move the house back up the hill again, the surprised hill residents could only vent their rage in unchurchly language. Although the old building is still standing, the present society worship in a more modern edifice.

The house built by Elnathan Osborn, in 1696, still stands in Danbury, Connecticut. One of the Osborns was six years old when General Tryon's British troops visited the place. The lad came home from school to find the house full of redcoats. They were making free with the contents of the buttery. The boy attempted to back out, when one of the men called to him, "Come in, lad, we won't hurt you." "Is there any cider in the house?" asked the soldier. The boy took out a large wooden bowl, went down cellar, and filled it several times with apple juice for the men. When the British fired the village, a few hours later, there was no torch applied to the home of Elnathan Osborn. The house still stands at the foot of Main street. It is a low, hip-roofed house, studded with enormous beams, and lighted with tiny diamond window-panes.

The oldest building in Boston is said to be the one which stands at the corner of Moon and Sun Court streets. It was built in 1677, and conveyed by Benjamin Rawlings to Ralph Barger, February 8, 1699, for £45, New England currency, as per record in Registry of Deeds, lib. 19, fol. 270.

John Hollis, Braintree, who died in 1718, left, as is recorded in the inventory of his estate, "one baptising suit."

Edwin D. Mead, of Boston, is to give a course of six lectures on "The Pilgrim Fathers," before the students of Bates College at Lewiston, Me. The lectures will begin March 1, and will be open to the public.

The New Haven Colony Historical Society has for its officers Simeon E. Baldwin president, ex-Governor English vice president, Thomas R. Trowbridge, Jr., secretary, Robert Peck treasurer, and a board of twenty-five directors.

A lively discussion has been started as to which is the oldest church in Connecticut. Stamford claims that its church that just celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary was the first organized on Connecticut soil. An old pastor of the First Church of Hartford writes to claim that that church was organized in 1633, and that the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary was celebrated in 1883. Stamford does not deny that the Hartford Church may have been organized in 1633, but says it was not in Connecticut at that time.

Hartford, Conn., has a public library of thirty-six thousand volumes, but it costs anybody five dollars a year to get books out of it, and there are only six hundred people in the whole city who care to pay that price for its privileges.

OLD MARRIAGE RECORDS.

The following authentic list of marriages, by the Rev. Thomas Skinner, second pastor of the Congregational Church in Westchester parish, in the town of Colchester, Conn., is furnished for use in the New England Magazine, by Mr. Martin L. Roberts, of New Haven, Conn.:—

1755.—Sept. 1, Caleb Loomis, Jr., and Ann Strong; Ezra Bigelow and Hannah Strong.—Sept. 24, John Carrier and Hannah Knowlton.

1756.—Nov. 5, Rev. Ephraim Little and Mrs. Abigail Bulkley.

1758.—Jan. 4, Policarphus Smith and Dorothy Skinner; John Mitchell and Hepzibah Shepardson.—Jan. 24, Jacob Smith and Jemima Fuller.—April, Joshua Bailey and Ann Foot.—April 27, Samuel Brown of East Hampton and Elizabeth Brainerd.—May 4, William Chamberlain, Jr., and Mary Day; Bezaleel Brainerd and Hannah Brainerd.

1759.—Paul Gates and Mehitable Rogers; ——, Jehiel Fuller and Sarah Day; ——, Daniel Shipman and Elizabeth Hartman.—July 10, John Bigelow and Hannah Douglas.—Nov. 8, John Murray and Desire Sawyer.—Dec. 6, Noah Day and Ann Loomis.

1760.—David Bigelow and Patience Foote.—April, Roswell Knowlton and Ann Dutton.—May 7, Thomas Chipman and Bethiah Fuller.—May 29, Levi Gates and Lydia Crocker.—Dec. 9, Lazarus Watrous and Lois Loomis.—Dec. 24, Hezekiah Waterman and Joanna Isham.

1764.—Jan. 8, David Bigelow and Mary Brainerd; Benjamin Morgan and Elizabeth Isham.

An Early Bell in Salisbury.—The town records of Salisbury, Mass., under date of 3, 1st mo. 1647: "it was ordered yt Richard North shall have fivetie shillings for ringing the bell tow yeares & a half past & twenty shillings to ring it one yeare more, beginning att Aprill next ensueing." A year previous it was "voated to daube the meeting house."

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The Boundary Line between Massachusetts and New Hampshire.—A committee appointed by the freemen of Salisbury, Mass., in 1658, to determine the boundary between Salisbury and Hampton (between Massachusetts and New Hampshire), reported, "the sayed line is very darke & doubtful to us." The same can be said in 1886, two hundred and thirty-three years later.

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The occasional revival of an old Indian name for an hotel, club, or street should interest every American. Indeed, such names should be more frequently revived than they are, to connect us in our history with the Indian who preceded us. They also have an educational value. For it is a fact that many, upon hearing, for the first time, of the Mas'cono'mo and Nan'nepash'emet hotels at Manchester-by-the-Sea and Marblehead respectively, have been led to seek for the origin of the names, and in this way have made their first acquaintance with the old Indian chiefs who held full sway where the hotels now stand. It is possible that many have been led to look up Indian history still farther since the new Algonquin Club was formed in Boston.

It is to be regretted that so many of the full-of-meaning, musical Indian names ever should have been replaced by such commonplace English ones as are now frequently met with. Who can say that Chelsea is an improvement on sweet Win'nisim'met? Or that the slight elevation which joins that city to Everett, called Mount Washington (how ludicrous that must strike strangers who are familiar with the Mount Washington!), was not better as Sagamore Hill, the Indian name for it? Some of its public-spirited inhabitants are going back to that; and they dare to prophesy that, by the time Chelsea is a part of Boston as the Winnisimmet District, it will have no other name.