generations as guides and examples to be studied in the spirit of these words of the sacred writer: Remember the days of old; Consider the years of many generations; Ask thy father, and he will shew thee; BELLE WHITE HIPPLE, MRS. CHARLES H. SMITH. IF distinction be acquired through an inheritance of patriotic blood, Mrs. Charles H. Smith is entitled to a rare degree as the lineal descendant of six soldiers who did active service in the war of the American Revolution. They were Lewis Ely, Elisha Farnum, Timothy Day, Simeon Granger, and Captain Joseph Merrick, all from the vicinity of Springfield, Massachusetts, and all on the maternal side of Mrs. Smith's family; also Elisha Stevens on her father's side. Her maiden name was Louise M. Johnson, and her parents, Luke Dewey Johnson, son of Lewis and Polly (Stevens) Johnson, of Richmond, Massachusetts, and Lucinda Maria Ely, daughter of Merrick and Lovisa (Farnum) Ely, of Deerfield, Ohio. Merrick Ely's father was Lewis Ely; his grandfather, Simeon Granger, and his great-grandfather, Captain Joseph Merrick, three of the five Revolutionary soldiers. Merrick Ely's wife, Lovisa Farnum, furnishes the other two, namely, her father, Elisha Farnum, and her grandfather, Timothy Day. The eldest of this valiant quintette, Captain Joseph Merrick, was at the least sixty-five years old in 1775, while at the same time Lewis Ely and Elisha Farnum were mere lads under twenty. Simeon Granger was forty-seven years of age and Timothy Day fifty-five. In the records of West Springfield, Massachusetts, is preserved the honorable roll of Minute Men, who stood ready to respond to any call to arms in behalf of their civil liberty. Upon this faded but priceless parchment we find the names of two of our heroes, Lewis Ely and Timothy Day, and on April 20, 1775, under Captain Enoch Chapin and Lieutenant Luke Day, they marched to Boston to avenge the massacre of Lexington and Concord. We trace them to Roxbury, to Dorchester Heights, where they worked in the intrenchments and assisted in worrying the enemy. They were away from home nine months. In 1776, under Colonel Woodbridge, we find them at Ticonderoga with General Ethan Allen, and sharing in the brilliant capture of that fortress. Again, in 1780, Elisha Farnum engaged in the disastrous battle of Stone Arabia, on the Mohawk River, from which he escaped the fate of relatives, friends, and neighbors, who lost their lives that October day. Of the services of Simeon Granger little can be learned until the Revolutionary archives of Massachusetts have been published. The genealogy of the Granger family simply states the fact that he was a soldier of the Revolution. Elisha Farnum and Captain Joseph Merrick also were soldier comrades, the latter as commanding officer, the former as a private in the same company of Springfield (Massachusetts) militia. Elisha Farnum volunteered in 1776 in the regiment commanded by Colonel David Mosely. The officers of his company were Captain Rowley and Lieutenant Roger Cooley. In 1777 he served under Generals Schuyler and Gates, and witnessed the surrender of Burgoyne, and was in the battle of White Plains. In 1778 he again enlisted, and his company (Captain Joseph Merrick's) was sent to New London, Connecticut, to guard the coast line and resist all attacks of the enemy in that direction. Afterward, in 1779 and 1780, he was in the company of Captain Levi Ely, in a regiment composed entirely of Massachusetts troops, headed by Colonel John Brown, which was sent into Tryon County, New York State, to protect the settlers of the Mohawk Valley from a threatened attack of Indians and Tories. In this same company were Timothy Day's two young sons, Lewis and Asa Day. They were stationed at Fort Paris, a small stockade in Stone Arabia, where, on October 19, 1780, while attempting to join the forces of General Robert Van Rensselaer, they fell into an ambuscade of the enemy and nearly half of their number were massacred. Captain Levi Ely was so badly wounded as to be easily overtaken by the Indians and tomahawked before he could reach a place of safety, and young Asa Day shared a like fate. It can be easily understood why Mrs. Smith should be especially interested in the battle of Stone Arabia when we consider the fact that two of her direct ancestors took an active part in it, and that two great-uncles lost their lives and were buried on the battlefield. It may be of interest to trace the outlines of Elisha Farnum's life after the war, in which he had taken so heroic a part, had ended in victory for the American cause. In the year 1800, with his wife and children, and accompanied by his brother-in-law, Lewis Day, and family, he moved from Blandford, Massachusetts, to Deerfield, Portage County, Ohio. The journey occupied six weeks. They traveled with an ox team, drawing a wagon containing four large chests, in which. were their supply of clothing and bedding. At night the latter was spread on top of their chests, upon which he and his family slept. Elisha Farnum was a shoemaker, a trade which always proved an exceedingly useful one in a pioneer country, as was Ohio in those days. In the first little log house he erected in Deerfield he plied his tools industriously through the day, and at night shoved his bench under his bed, out of the way. He lies in the Deerfield Cemetery, and a stone marking his grave reads: "Elisha Farnum, aged seventy-nine years. A patriot of 1776." THE ELYS.-The ancestor of the New England Elys (Nathaniel) emigrated from Kent, England, on the bark "Elizabeth," which reached Boston in April, 1634. He was at that time thirty years of age, and his family consisted of a young son and daughter. He settled in Cambridge, and in June of the following year accompanied the Rev. Thomas Hooker across the State of Massachusetts, through a trackless forest, to the Connecticut River, and thence down to Hartford, Connecticut, which they founded. The party consisted of one hundred men, women, and chil |