essary adjunct to every well-regulated establishment. The people made their own shoes or were supplied from leather of their own making by the itinerant shoemaker, who sojourned with the family till his work was completed. In the preparation and manufacture of so many articles all the members of the family were employed, and each home was the scene of busy industries, furnishing all its inmates with a practical education that made them useful and selfreliant.

Their tables were furnished with simple and wholesome food, usually served in one dish, in the centre, from which each person helped himself as he required. Many of the dishes were of wood, but most of pewter, and these were valued heirlooms in the family.

The wealthier houses had dishes of delftware which their owners had brought with them across the Atlantic.

Our fathers knew nothing of ease. Stern necessity kept them ever on the alert. By nature they were active and full of courage. Difficulties never disheartened them, but nerved them to greater effort. They manfully overcame the obstacles that beset them; from rough materials they hewed homes of comfort and contentment ; they reared their families to virtue and usefulness, and their children rose up to call them blessed.

Tho.se were rich streams that flowed into Westchester County : the Dutch, the Puritan, the Huguenot and the Quaker. Each fought its battle for civil and religious liberty. Each knew the rights of humanity, and, knowing, dared achieve them. Flowing together, they gave to Westchester mote strains of good blood than any other section can boast, and they furnished an unequaled foundation stock for peopling the county and the State.