THE two parishes have contained, on an average, the ten years past, 2500souls. The deaths then are to the number of inhabitants, as 1 to 59478, or 42 a year, nearly.

By comparing this bill of mortality with Dr. Holyoke's bills of mortality in Salem, for 1782 and 1783, the result will be much in favour of the healthiness and longevity of the inhabitants in Hartford, unless some epidemick disease prevailed in Salem during those years. Salem was supposed to contain 9000 souls, at the time these bills were made :— The number of deaths in 1782 was 175, and in 1783, 189—total 364. If Salem contained 9000 souls at this time, then in two years the number is 18000, out of which died 364, which is at the rate of 1 to 49, which makes a difference of one sixth in favour of Hartford. Or thus ; total number of inhabitants in Salem for two years, 18000; total number in two parishes of Hartford for ten years, 25000. Deaths in Salem, 364 Then 18000: 364: 25000: 50510 the number of deaths in Hartford to be proportioned to those of Salem. But the real number is 419-difference 86, in favour of Hartford. The difference in favour of Hartford is greater, if the deaths of old people only, be taken. Number of deaths in Salem, of persons above seventy years of age, ditto in Hartford 45. But

21;

25000: 45: 18000: 321 the number in Salem to be in proportion to those of Hartford.

In the third parish in Hartford, there have died, in the last eighteen years, 71 persons above seventy years of age. That parish has contained, on an average, 1250 souls, or perhaps 1300. This gives 1 to 312 that live to seventy years of age and upwards. But in Salem, according to the bills for 1782 and 1783, only 1 in 857 arrives to seven

ty years of age.

It is however to be observed that two years are not sufficient to determine the longevity of the inhabitants of any town or country; and it is probable that more accurate accounts, kept through a series of years, may make a material difference in calculations of this kind.

REMARKS,

GEOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL.

HARTFORD was settled by a company of English people in the year 1636. A few persons from Massachusetts seated themselves at Weathersfield in 1635, but the next year, a congregation from Newtown, now Cambridge, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Stone, removed with all their effects and settled themselves at Hartford. In 1637, New-Haven was planted: About the same time Windsor, Guilford, and Milford, were also settled. From the names of the proprietors of the town of Hartford, now on record, together with traditional accounts, it appears that about one hundred families settled in this town and about the same number in New-Haven, Guilford, Milford, Weathersfield, and Windsor. If we suppose five souls to a family and one hundred families in cach of these six towns, the original stocks from which have sprung all the

present inhabitants of Connecticut, and the emigrants from the State, consisted of three thousand souls. The present inhabitants are about two hundred and thirty-eight thousand; but the western parts of Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, Vermont, and the northern and western parts of New-York are mostly peopled by emigrants from ConnectiThese are estimated at one hundred thousand souls, at least; three hundred and forty thousand souls, therefore may be considered as the population proceeding from the original stocks of three thousand. The inhabitants therefore have doubled, notwithstanding a long war, and epidemick diseases, once in twenty-four years.

cut.

Hartford, since a late division of the town, lies on the west bank of Connecticut River, having Windsor on the north, Weathersfield on the the south, and Farmington on the west. Its extent is six miles square. The population in 1791 was four thousand and ninety, which gives one hundred and thirteen to a square mile. The population of the whole state is fifty-one to a square mile.

No very remarkable occurrences with respect to the Indians, are related in the records of Hartford. The natives in and near the town seem to have been of a pacifick disposition; but mention is made of fortifications erected in different parts of the town, in 1689 and 1704, rather, it should seem, to guard against distant tribes, than through fear of the neighbouring Indians. The records of the town mention, volume I, folio 5, a purchase of the land from Sunckquasson, the sachem and proprietor, about the year 1636. But the evidence of this purchase being imperfect, a new purchase was made, July 1, 1670, of the Indians; the deed, which is still on record, counting upon the former purchase.

A patent from the general assembly of the colony of Connecticut, after the union with New-Haven, was made ratifying the purchase and confirming the title of the town, A. D. 1685.

At the time the English settled in this town, the Dutch had a fort and trading house, at the confluence of Mill river and Connecticut river. The Dutch soon relinquished this settlement, and in 1653, all their lands were confiscated by virtue of a commission from the Commonwealth of England to Captain Underhill, and sold. A point of land, which formed a part of their possessions, is still called Dutch point. Hartford, May, 1793.

TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF YORK, BY THE HON. DAVID SEWALL, Esq.

HE town of York, in the county of YORK, in the district of

and seventy-two from Boston) is a maritime place, bounded south-westerly on the town of Kittery, north-westerly on said Kittery, and the town of Berwick, north-easterly on the town of Wells, and south-easterly by the sea, or Atlantick Ocean, to which it adjoins, ex

tending about seven miles. This being the shire-town of the county is accommodated with a court-house and gaol. There are two inlets or harbours for vessels in this place, one called York, and the other Cape Neddic; at four miles distance from each other. York River is principally salt water, which flows up six or seven miles from the sea, in a north-western direction; in which vessels of two or three hundred tons burthen may enter, but the entrance being narrow and crooked, renders it rather difficult of access to strangers. This harbour is five or six miles north-east of Piscataqua.

Cape Neddic is navigable but a mile, or less, from the sea, and at full tide only, for vessels of any considerable bulk, it having a bar of sand at its mouth; indeed at an hour before and after low water, this rivulet is generally so shallow, as to be fordable within a few rods of the sea.

There is another small inlet between this town and Kittery, and which makes the boundary at the sea, called Brave Boat harbour. This is a salt water creek, which shallops and small boats only ever make use of; it adjoins Cutt's island in Kittery (formerly called Champernoons) at the north-east end. When the tides are full, at the top of the tide, there is a communication from this inlet on the north-west side of the island, to the river Piscataqua, sufficient for floating canoes, small boats and gondolas.

Cape Neddic, and Bald Head, are the head lands; the former is a little to the south-west of Cape Neddic river, and makes one side of long Sands Bay. At the end of this neck of land, is a small hillock called the Nubble, this is the nearest land, on the main, to a small island of rocks eight or nine miles distant south-east, called Boon island.

Bald Head makes the south-west part of what is called Well's Bay; between Cape Neddic harbour and Well's Bay are several coves, where small vessels in a smooth time, and when a westerly wind prevails, haul ashore, and are loaded with wood in the course of a tide, with ease and safety.

The Long Sands are about three quarters of a mile in length, covered every tide by the flowing of the sea, when the tide is down, it is in a manner as smooth and hard as a corn-floor; and affords an agreeable place for riding in a carriage or on horse-back.

Fish of various kinds frequent the rivers and shores of the sea contiguous. In a calm season, in the summer, one may stand on the rocks of the shore, and catch them in the sea, with a line, or even with an angling rod, and a fathom or two of line: The salt water at such seasons being clear, you may discover a contention, almost, among the small fish, which shall first seize the bait.

The ponds of any consequence, are Cape Neddic pond at the head or source of Cape Neddic river: And York pond, the principal source of what fresh water runs into York river; though York pond lies almost wholly in the town of Kittery.

A corner boundary between York, Kittery, and Wells, is a fine spring of water, called Baker's Spring. This name to the spring is said to

have originated from the residence of a person, who concealed himself near it, by the name of Baker; and was supposed to have been active in the bringing of king Charles the first to the block.

The settlements began in this place about the year 1630; the name by which it was first known and called is Agamenticus, from a mountain in the north-westerly part of it, in latitude 43° 16′ north, and 70° 39′ west from the meridian of Greenwich.

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, soon after obtaining his charter or patent from king Charles the first of the Province of Maine, intending, as is supposed, this place for the seat of government, incorporated a considerable part of it into a city by the name of GORGIANA, appointing a mayor and aldermen, In consequence of this incorporation, the place was sometimes called Gorgiana as well as Agamenticus, until the year 1652, when Massachusetts colony claimed the jurisdiction, as lying within the limits of their charter to Sir Henry Rosewell and others, (anno 1628) according to the construction they made of its boundaries, and assumed the government by the assent of the inhabitants, calling it YORK, which name it has ever since retained.

This place, at various times, has suffered in loss of lives and property, by the Indians. On the 5th day of February, 1692, new stile, it was in a manner destroyed by them. They with some French came upon snowshoes and surprised the unwary inhabitants early on Monday morning, killing about seventy-five and captivating as many more, burning all the houses and property on the north-east side of the river, where the principal settlements and improvements then were; four garrisonhouses, viz. Alcock's, Prebble's, Harman's, and Norton's, only excepted.

After this calamity, the few remaining settlers had serious thoughts of abandoning the place altogether; but a number determined to remain. Such was their reduced and indigent situation, by this destruction of persons and property, that a year or two after, the town, in their corporate capacity, by their agents, contracted with a person at Portsmouth, to come and erect a mill for grinding their corn into meal, and besides, granting him a mill-stream, a considerable quantity of land in fee, and particular privilege of cutting timber. It was agreed, "that they, and all the inhabitants should always afterwards carry their corn and grain to that mill, while it should be kept up for that purpose.' What numbers the inhabitants amounted to, at the time the town was destroyed in 1692, has never been ascertained; but they were so considerable as to have had a settled minister, several years preceding, viz. the Rev. Shubael Dummer, who was that Monday morning shot down, and found dead, near his own door. Supposing the numbers remaining, and such as returned from captivity, were one hundred and fifty; this number, agreeable to the usual increase, in new plantations, by doubling in twenty years, would now have amounted to four thousand and eight hundred. But from the enumeration taken in 1791, they scarcely amounted to three thousand, from whence it may be inferred that many more have emigrated from the place than have come into it from other parts since that period. In 1764, the inhabitants, from an ac

count then taken, amounted to two thousand two hundred and ninetyeight, including twenty-one French neutrals, and fifty-six blacks. From that time to 1791, a space of twenty-seven years, the increase was but about seven hundred, a further evidence of large emigrations, as no remarkable mortality prevailed during that period. The climate is healthy, many living to between ninety and one hundred years; from computations for a series of years, (thirty or forty past) one in six or seven of the deaths have been of persons of upwards of seventy years of age.

The soil is rocky and very hard of cultivation, especially on the seacoast, and the northerly parts of the town. Indeed a large proportion of it, perhaps two-thirds, is incapable of any other cultivation, than what spontaneously arises. The principal settlements and improvements are within a mile and a quarter of the largest inlet, and upon each side thereof. There are in the town several saw-mills and corn-mills, which are rather convenient and necessary, than any profit to the owners.

The principal employment of the inhabitants is agriculture, many of whom must be frugal and industrious to obtain a subsistence. Wood and timber have been carried from hence to market; but there is not now more than a sufficiency for the inhabitants. Indian corn and barley are the principal grains cultivated; wheat and rye succeed but poorly. Potatoes of an excellent quality, and inconsiderable quantities, are produced. Various parts of the town have acquired, from one incident or other, particular names; as Scotland, a part of the second parish, from some person of Scottish extract that first sat down upon it. Ground-root-hill, from roots of that kind spontaneously growing there. Birch hill, Beach ridge, from the qualities of the wood formerly growing upon them. But there is a particular place of smail dimensions that still retains the name of the Devil's Invention, which originated from the following occurrence. A man in the town, on some account or other being affronted with his neighbour, determined to resent it, and avenge himself, by depriving him of his two inoffensive sons, (between six and nine years of age) by famine. He accordingly, in a solitary place, at some miles distant from the then inhabited part of the town, built up against some high perpendicular rocks, a kind of pound with logs jutting inwards in such a manner that when a person had once got within it, he was confined as safely as in prison. Having accomplished this, he decoyed the children into the woods, under pretence of looking after birds and birds' nests, and some how got them into this pound, and there left them to perish. The children, after various trials to get out, at length by digging with their hands the earth under one of the bottom logs, effected their escape; and after wandering in the woods the space of three days, by following the noise of the sea (from whence their prison was distant about three or four miles) got to the sea shore, where they were found. During the three days the town was alarmed, and its inhabitants were searching the woods after the children.