hat of
the Revolution. In 1778 he was publicly proscribed and formally
banished from Massachusetts. He thereupon took up his abode in
Kensington, Middlesex, and from this place, in 1789, he begged earnestly
to be allowed to return "home" to Medford, declaring he was "ever a good
friend of the Province," and expressing the wish to marry again in his
own country, "where, having already had one good wife, he was in hopes
to get another, and in some degree repair his loss." His prayer was,
however, refused, and he died of smallpox in England, October, 1781. By
his will, Harvard College was given a tract of land in Worcester County,
for the foundation of a professorship, which still bears his name.

It is not, however, to be supposed that in war time so fine a place as
the Royall mansion should have been left unoccupied. When the yeomen
began pouring into the environs of Boston, encircling it with a belt of
steel, the New Hampshire levies pitched their tents in Medford. They
found the Royall mansion in the occupancy of Madam Royall and her
accomplished daughters, who willingly received Colonel John Stark into
the house as a safeguard against insult, or any invasion of the estate
the soldiers might attempt. A few rooms were accordingly set apart for
the use of the bluff old ranger, and he, on his part, treated the family
of the deserter with considerable respect and courtesy. It is odd to
think that while the stately Royalls were living in one part of this
house, General Stark and his plucky wife, Molly, occupied quarters under
the same roof.

The second American general to be attracted by the luxury of the Royall
mansion was that General Lee whose history furnishes material for a
separate chapter. General Lee it was to whom the house's echoing
corridors suggested the name, Hobgoblin Hall. So far as known, however,
no inhabitant of the Royall house has ever been disturbed by strange
visions or frightful dreams. After Lee, by order of Washington, removed
to a house situated nearer his command, General Sullivan, attracted, no
doubt, by the superior comfort of the old country-seat, laid himself
open to similar correction by his chief. In these two cases it will be
seen Washington enforced his own maxim that a general should sleep among
his troops.

In 1810, the Royall mansion came into the possession of Jacob Tidd, in
whose family it remained half a century, until it had almost lost its
identity with the timid old colonel and