One day, after Furr had been drinking rather freely with his pretended friends, he was taken so violently ill, that a physician was immediately called.  I was with him when the doctor arrived.  He gazed upon the suffering man with an angry expression, and inquired in a tone of command, “Daniel, what have you been doing?” In vain the poor creature begged for relief, the doctor merely repeating his question.  After looking at him for some time, he finally administered a potion and hastily left the room, saying as he did so, “that Furr was as sure to die as though his head had been cut off.”  And so it proved, though not so speedily as the medical man had predicted; nor did he ever visit him again, notwithstanding he lingered for several days in the most intense agony.  It was a strong man grappling with disease and death, and the strife was a fearful one.  But death at last ended the scene, with none of all his professed friends, except his faithful but heart-broken wife, to administer to his necessities.  No sound save that of the moaning widow broke the stillness of his death-chamber.  A few friends collected, who prepared the emaciated body for the grave; enclosing it in a rude board coffin it was conveyed to its last resting place, followed by three or four men, just as the shades of evening had fallen upon this sin-cursed world; there in darkness and silence we lowered his remains, and left the gloomy spot to return to his disconsolate wife, who had been too ill to join the meager procession.

It has ever been my conviction that Furr was poisoned, most likely by some of his false friends who must have mingled some deadly drug with his drinks or food; nor do I believe that the medicine administered by the physician was designed to save his life.  But to Him who knoweth all things, we leave the matter.

His despised, forsaken, and bereaved wife soon followed him to the grave, where she sleeps quietly with her innocent babe by her side; and where probably this second Desdemonia finds the only refuge which would have been granted her by a heartless and persecuting world.

Oh, when will this nation “cease to do evil and learn to do well?” When will they judge character in accordance with its moral excellence, instead of the complexion a man unavoidably bears to the world?

CHAPTER XIV.

INCIDENTS IN ROCHESTER AND VICINITY.

After long petitioning, the inhabitants of that section succeeded in having the new county of Monroe set off from Genesee and Ontario Counties, in 1821, which gave a new impulse to the business interests of the already flourishing town, which had heretofore labored under some disadvantages in consequence of having all public business done at Canandaigua or Batavia.

About this time, too, was the Carthage bridge built by a company of enterprising gentlemen of that village which at that day was considered one of the wonders of the age; but as its history is well known to all interested in the enterprises of those days, it is only necessary to say, that the magnificent structure, so grand in its appearance, such a pattern of mechanical ingenuity, exhibiting in all its vast proportions, both strength and beauty, combined with utility and grandeur; and erected at such an enormous expense of time, labor, and cash, was destined soon to fall.