he stirring events of
the Revolutionary War; the settlements following peace; the adoption of
the Federal Constitution; the administrations of Washington and Adams,
and the final formation of parties which led to the defeat of Adams for
a second term and the election of Jefferson. It is not strange,
therefore, that he was a consistent Federalist, and subsequently
belonged to the old Whig party; that he venerated the worthies of the
republic, Washington, Franklin, and Lafayette, of national renown;
Josiah Quincy, Sam. Adams, and others of the State; and was an admirer
of those who, like Clay and Webster, continued in later years to labor
with the same devotion to the good and glory of a newborn and rising
nation.

His whole character seemed to have been formed of soberer and more
profound elements than in after years were generally recognized as
constituting the prevailing types.

Mr. Revere was one of the original members of the Boston Light Infantry,
whose first parade took place October 18, 1798, under command of Captain
Daniel Sargent; and was the last survivor of the original membership.[6]

His patriotism, inherited from a distinguished father, was pronounced,
and remained unshaken at the advanced age of nearly four-score years and
ten, through the terrible ordeal of parting with two sons killed, one
at Antietam and the other at Gettysburg, while contending for the
existence of a government their grandfather had exerted himself so
grandly in the struggle to establish.

Devoted and affectionate in his domestic relations; thorough, prudent,
and sagacious in business; impatient with meanness and strong in his
resentment of wrong; kind and considerate to those deserving his
confidence; courtly in bearing, while genial and sunny in his familiar
intercourse, he has left for us all a very precious memory. Every
recollection of him is simply delightful.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] From an unpublished History of the Boston Light Infantry. By William
W. Clapp, Esq.

V.

James Davis was the second son of James and Reliance (Cobb) Davis, and
was born in Barnstable September 28, 1777.

[Illustration: James Davis & signature]

He was a descendant of Robert Davis, who was living in Yarmouth in the
year 1643, removing thence to Barnstable in 1650, where he died in 1693
at the age of seventy-one. Of him it is said that "he was not a man of
wealth, nor distinguished in political life," but "his character for
honesty and in