ITEMS AND INCIDENTS IN HOPKINTON.
BY C. C. LORD.
EXPLANATORY.
In reciting the items and incidents embraced in this and our immediately preceding article, an unusual carelessness of statement has been indulged. Only so far as any involved particulars have a direct historical character has attention been paid to exactness of narrative. In fact, many of these fragmentary reminisences have been gathered from miscellaneous sources and are of such an unauthoritative character as to be entitled to only a qualified credence. Probably based upon a substratum of truth, frequent repetition has undoubtedly modified widely their original forms. The safest present rule, is to allow them to pass gratuitously at their face value with the distinct understanding that they are not to be redeemed at any price.
A CASE OF BODY SNATCHING.
To advance at first into the domain of undisputable narrative, we mention an event that in its time moved the heart of local society to the profoundest depths. The natural sentiment of mystery and awe that is associated with death and the grave is only intensified by acts of grave-yard desecration. This fact, if in any degree different, could only be more real in earlier times. The case under narration is, we believe, the only one of its kind ever happening within the limits of this township.
In the year 1831, Mr. Joseph Philbrick died and was buried in the then new grave-yard in the village of Contoocook. A few days after, his widow followed him in death, expressing tenderness of conjugal affection in her last hours, and wishing that, in the grave, her coffin might be allowed to rest in actual contact, side by side, with that of her husband. In the proposed fulfillment of this dying wish, the new grave was dug unusually close to the one enclosing Mr. Philbrick's body so recently. Such close proximity revealed the unexpected fact that a quantity of rubbish was contained in Mr. Philbrick's grave, and which could not have been there at the time of his burial. Suspicion was aroused, investigation instituted, and discovery made that the grave had been robbed. Mr. Philbrick's body was missing.
Great excitement, profound suspicion and diligent search followed upon this shocking discovery. All this heated activity, however, failed of any practical result. The body was not found through any public detective skill. Some time after the event of the discovery of the empty coffin, the lost body was discovered in a swampy place in the southern part of the town, by a party engaged in building fence, which fact only tends to support the proposition that the act of desecration was performed by persons living not far away. The body was reburied in its original spot.
PRESUMPTUOUS GUESTS.
Keepers of public houses, like people of other vocations, are not without their particular liabilities to annoyances incident upon their peculiar calling. In the great incongruous mass of individuals steadily seeking the advantages of a prominent public house are many whose freaks of fancy or deceit are a constant source of vexation to the landlord, though his customary aspect of outward complacency may seldom allow of an expression of the impatient fervor that dwells within. The executive authority of Perkins' Tavern, so prominently connected with the history of this town, was in no sense exempt from the common lot of all those offer-
