John Hunter, it was my fortune to realize, amid our surrotmdings in the gallery, all possible delight and mental quickening, limited only by the measure of receptivity. Outside of the family circle, Mr. Hunter, who, in his spirit and style of manners, represented a high ideal of the typal gentleman, the courteous and accomplished State Senator, reappears to the eye of memory as the first personality that I can recall as associated with my early life in Pelham. Ere long, after the death of his son, Des Brosses Hunter, Esq., the gallery was sold, the island passed into other ownership ; yet, whatsoever maybe its fortunes in the future, its relations to old Pelham and New Rochelle as a source of intellectual and aesthetic culture to several suggestive generations will brighten the record of its past and render its name a cherished memory in the annals of local history.'

' ' The mention of these names pertaining to the island's history, in connection with that of the manor and town, carries us back in thought to the Anglo-French life of old Pelham, as pictured out sixty or more years ago in our family talks, and illumined now by our memories of those who represented the remoter past. Fortunately for us our dear grandparents, uncles and aunts were lovingly communicative, reheai-sing to us of the third generation the local annals of the manor and the familiar facts of the revolutionary era ; little episodes as lively as any that Fenimore Cooper has woven into his romance of the 'Spy.' These incidental stories of the home life that followed the establishment of Independence and the 'Union' were equally winning, making us acquainted with our kindred and neighbors, with our parents, associates in their early days throughout rural and suburban surroundings.