6081.  Bartlett, Paul, New Haven. 6136.  Boyle, John, Philadelphia. 6276.  Donoghue, John, Chicago. 6312, 6313.  Ezekiel, Moses, Richmond. 6371.  Gould, Thomas Ridgway, Boston. 6534.  Mezzara, Joseph, New York. 6661, 6662.  Saint-Gaudens, Augustus, New York
          
                                    —­J.J.R.

A PLOT FOR AN HISTORICAL NOVEL.

In Hawthorne’s American Note-Book, among his memoranda, into which he conscientiously put every scrap and detail which might be useful in his writings, is an allusion to the “Grey Property Case,” a lawsuit which held the Pennsylvania courts for more than half a century, and turned upon a curious story which will be new to some readers and may have slipped from the recollection of others.  It belongs to the history of Mifflin, Juniata county, first settled by Scotch-Irish colonists in 1749.  Two of the four men who claimed some land and built a fort had the name of Grey, and the narrative concerns the younger of these two brothers, John Grey.  One morning in August, 1756, he left his wife and children at the fort and set out on an expedition to Carlisle.  He was returning when he had an encounter with a bear, and was detained on the mountain-road for several hours.  This probably preserved his life, for when he reached the settlement he found that the fort had just been burned by the Indians, and that every person in it had either been killed or taken prisoner.  Among the latter were Grey’s wife and his child, a beautiful little girl of three years old.  Grey was an affectionate husband and father, and he was almost heartbroken by this catastrophe.  Fired with longing for revenge, he joined Colonel Armstrong’s expedition in September against the Indian settlement at Kittanning on the Ohio, with some hope that his wife and child might be found among the captives whom, it was rumored, the Indians had carried there.  Colonel Armstrong’s onslaught was successful:  he succeeded in burning the village, killed about fifty savages and rescued eleven white prisoners.  Grey gained no information, however, about his family, and, sick and exhausted by the disappointment and the fatigues of the campaign, went home to die.  He left a will bequeathing one-half of his farm to his wife and one-half to his child if they returned from captivity.  In case his child should never be given up or should not survive him, he gave her half of the estate to his sister, who had a claim against him, having lent him money.

The rumor was true that the Indians had first carried Mrs. Grey and her little daughter to Kittanning, but afterward, for greater security, they were given over to the French commander at Fort Duquesne.  They were confined there for a time, then carried into Canada.  About a year later Mrs. Grey had a chance to escape.  She concealed herself among the skins in the sledge of a fur-trader, and was thus able to elude pursuit.  She left her child behind her in captivity, and after