The ground along the roadside where he fell was long des-ignated by two magnificent chestnut trees which grew in con-tiguity, and seemed sentinels stationed to watch the identity of the place until a grateful country should erect some per- manent memorial. But these monarchs of the field have long since disappeared from their post, and consigned it to tradition. More than eighty years have now gone by, and yet nothing has been done to embalm with certainty the local-ity of never dying interest. Undistinguished by cenotaph or pillar, unmarked even by a mound of earth or a heap of stones that might provoke inquiry, the aspect of the spot remains essentially unchanged and the unconscious traveller as he pursues his journey across this memorable plain, gazes with-out reverence upon the soil where for him and for others a hero fell, and passes onward without emotion because he passes unwittingly.

110 THE MCDONALD PAPERS

Truth calls however for the admission, that Wooster has not been entirely forgotten. During the spring of 1854, his parent state relieved herself in part from the heavy charge of unthankfulness that rested upon her, by uniting with the people of Danbury and the Masonic Brotherhood, for the purpose of rendering to this devoted son monumental honors at the place of his interment. Until the erection of this tardy memorial the veteran who had served his country in three wars, and fell with her standard in his hand, had not a soli-tary stone or inscription, to preserve his name or commemo- rate his virtues; and slept in Danbury in a grave, which time had rendered as uncertain almost as it was unhonored. The death shot of Wooster is said to have proceeded from an American loyalist who carried a musket of unusual length. This man was posted along with some volunteers in a barn east of the road and on the right of the British rear-guard, as it appeared after having faced about.