eginning of
hostilities, this sprightly widow abandoned her spacious home in such
haste that she carried along with her, according to tradition, a young
companion whom she had not time to restore to her friends! Such of her
property as could be used by the colony forces was given in charge of
Colonel Stark, while the rest was allowed to pass into Boston. The barns
and roomy outbuildings were used for the storage of the colony
forage.

[Illustration: HOUSE WHERE DOCTOR CHURCH WAS CONFINED, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.]

It is highly probable that the Widow Vassall's house at once became the
American hospital, and that it was the residence, as it was certainly
the prison, of Doctor Benjamin Church. Church had been placed at the
head of an army hospital for the accommodation of twenty thousand men,
and till this time had seemed a brave and zealous compatriot of Warren
and the other leading men of the time. Soon after his appointment, he
was, however, detected in secret correspondence with Gage. He had
entrusted to a woman of his acquaintance a letter written in cipher to
be forwarded to the British commander. This letter was found upon the
girl, she was taken to headquarters, and there the contents of the fatal
message were deciphered and the defection of Doctor Church established.
When questioned by Washington he appeared utterly confounded, and made
no attempt to vindicate himself.

The letter itself did not contain any intelligence of importance, but
the discovery that one, until then so high in the esteem of his
countrymen, was engaged in a clandestine correspondence with the enemy
was deemed sufficient evidence of guilt. Church was therefore arrested
at once, and confined in a chamber looking upon Brattle Street. Some of
his leisure, while here imprisoned, he employed in cutting on the door
of a closet:

"B CHURCH, JR."

There the marks still remain, their significance having after a half
century been interpreted by a lady of the house to whom they had long
been familiar, but who had lacked any clue to their origin until, in the
course of a private investigation, she determined beyond a doubt their
relation to Church. The chamber has two windows in the north front, and
two overlooking the area on the south.

Church's fall was the more terrible because from a height. He was a
member of a very distinguished family, and he had been afforded in his
youth all the best opportunities of the day. In 1754 he was graduated at
Har