e married in 1746 and had
one of those round old-fashioned families when twelve children seemed to
be the minimum and anything less created comment.

Two of the boys were later killed in the Revolution, another became
Supreme Court justice, but the likeliest one succeeded to the business of
Josiah Spencer & Son, which was then making a specialty of building
wagons--and building them so well that the shop had to be increased in
size again and again until it began to have the appearance of quite a
respectable looking factory.

The third Spencer to own the business married a Yankee--Patience
Babcock--but Patience's only son married a French-Canadian girl--for even
then the Canadians were drifting down into our part of the country.

So by that time, as you can see--and this is an important part of my
preface--the Spencer stock was a thrifty mixture of Yankee, Irish,
Scotch, Dutch and French blood--although you would never have guessed it
if you had simply seen the name of one Josiah Spencer following another
as the owner of the Quinebaug Wagon Works.

In the same year that the fourth Josiah Spencer succeeded to the
business, a bridge was built to take the place of the ford and the
waterfall was fortified by a dam. By that time a regular little town had
formed around the factory.

The town was called New Bethel.

It was at this stage of their history that the Spencers grew proud,
making a hobby of their family tree and even possibly breathing a sigh
over vanished coats-of-arms.

The fifth of the line, for instance, married a Miss Copleigh of Boston.
He built a big house on Bradford Hill and brought her home in a tally-ho.
The number of her trunks and the size of her crinolines are spoken of to
this day in our part of the country--also her manner of closing her eyes
when she talked, and holding her little finger at an angle when drinking
her tea. She had only one child--fortunately a son.

This son was the grandfather of our heroine. So you see we are getting
warm at last.

The grandfather of our heroine was probably the greatest Spencer of them
all.

Under his ownership the factory was rebuilt of brick and stone. He
developed the town both socially and industrially until New Bethel bade
fair to become one of the leading cities in the state. He developed the
water power by building a great dam above the factory and forming a lake
nearly ten miles long. He also developed an artillery wheel which has
probably rolle