“But that which chiefly gave a colour of mystery to the story of Peter Rugg was the affair at Charlestown bridge.  The toll-gatherer asserted that sometimes, on the darkest and most stormy nights, when no object could be discerned about the time Rugg was missing, a horse and wheelcarriage, with a noise equal to a troop, would at midnight, in utter contempt of the rates of toll, pass over the bridge.  This occurred so frequently that the toll-gatherer resolved to attempt a discovery.  Soon after, at the usual time, apparently the same horse and carriage approached the bridge from Charlestown square.  The toll-gatherer, prepared, took his stand as near the middle of the bridge as he dared, with a large three-legged stool in his hand.  As the appearance passed, he threw the stool at the horse, but heard nothing except the noise of the stool skipping across the bridge.  The toll-gatherer on the next day asserted that the stool went directly through the body of the horse, and he persisted in that belief ever after.  Whether Rugg, or whoever the person was, ever passed the bridge again, the toll-gatherer would never tell; and when questioned, seemed anxious to waive the subject.  And thus Peter Rugg and his child, horse and carriage, remain a mystery to this day.”

This, sir, is all that I could learn of Peter Rugg in Boston....

[Footnote 2:  From Jonathan Dunwell of New York, to Mr. Herman Krauff.]