On a certain occasion he was taking a sleigh-ride with his family, and in one of the adjacent towns met a gentleman with his turn-out in a narrow and drifted part of the road, where some difficulty occurred in passing each other.  Colonel Ansart suggested to him that he should not have driven into such a place when he saw him coming.  The man denied that he saw the colonel, and told him he lied.  Colonel Ansart seized his pistol to punish him for his insolence, when his wife interfered, an explanation followed, and it was ascertained that both gentlemen were from Dracut.  One was deacon of the church, and the other “inspector-general of artillery.”  Of course the pistols were put up, as the deacon didn’t wish to be shot, and the colonel wouldn’t tell a lie.

In his prime, our hero stood six feet high in his boots, and weighed two hundred pounds.  He died in Dracut, May 28, 1804, at the age of sixty-two years.

Mrs. Ansart was born in Boston, and witnessed the battle of Bunker Hill, and often described the appearance of the British soldiers as they marched along past her residence, both in going to the battle and in returning.  She was thirteen years of age, and recollected it perfectly.  She said they were grand as they passed along the streets of Boston toward Charlestown.  The officers were elegantly dressed and were in great spirits, thinking it was only a pleasant little enterprise to go over to Charlestown and drive those Yankees out of their fort; but when they returned it was a sad sight.  The dead and dying were carried through the streets pale and ghastly and covered with blood.  She said the people witnessed the battle from the houses in Boston, and as regiment after regiment was swept down by the terrible fire of the Americans, they said that the British were feigning to be frightened and falling down for sport; but when they saw that they did not get up again, and when the dead and wounded were brought back to Boston, the reality began to be made known, and that little frolic of taking the fort was really an ugly job, and hard to accomplish.

Mrs. Ansart died in Dracut at the age of eighty-six years, January 27, 1849.  She retained her mental and physical faculties to a great degree till within a short time before her death.  She was accustomed to walk to church, a distance of one mile, when she was eighty years of age.  Colonel and Mrs. Ansart were both buried in Woodbine Cemetery, in the part of Lowell which belonged to Dracut at the time of their interment.

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BEACON HILL BEFORE THE HOUSES.

BY DAVID M. BALFOUR.