The Travelers, AND HAVE THE BEST. OF HARTFORD, CONN. Issues Life and Endowment Policies, All forms, low rates, non-forfeitable. Accident Policies Cover accidents of travel, sport, or business. Health Policies Granting stated sums of indemnity for disability caused by sickness. Liability Policies covering the liability of Manufacturers and other Employers to strangers who may be injured upon their premises. The liability of Contractors to Employees and to strangers for injuries sustained upon buildings or other works under contract, etc. Assets, Excess Security to $25,315,442.46 21,209,625.36 4,105,817.10 JAS. G. BATTERSON, President. S. C. DUNHAM, Vice-President. JOHN E. MORRIS, Secretary. Please mention THE CONNECTICUT MAGAZINE when you write to advertisers. UST after the War of 1812, the JUST schooner "Mary," a Mystic vessel hailing from New London, was visited, while lying at Dublin, Ireland, by a British officer who asked Captain George Wolf, her commander, if he knew a place near New London by the name of Mystic. "It's a cursed little hornet's nest," said the English officer; "those Mystic fellows tried to blow up our ships with their torpedces. We meant to burn their place, and we came nigh doing it, too." How they tried it, and how they failed is another story that would be appreciated by the yachtsman who attempts to come up channel by night. It was a war time reputation, fairly enough won, no doubt, but first impressions are different now-adays. About a mile up from the Sound, on both banks of the Mystic river, lies the village of Mystic. On the east along the river a plain reaches back a quarter of a mile to a hill; on the west, the hill-side comes down to the river. And over the plain and the hill-side the roofs and the steeples appear amid the dark green of the maples, and the yellow afternoon light touches white walls and the leaves and the still water where sail-boats and launches come in to the wharves. The first view is usually from the river, where the "Shore Line" railroad bridge crosses just below the town. This first view is the true one : historically and artistically, the river has made Mystic-the whale-ships, the clipper-ships, the steam-ships, the yachts, the picturesque shores, and the breath of the salt sea which fills with singular contentment her four thousand inhabitants and brings back with unfailing devotion her wandering sons when the summer months come around. Happier than those peoples declared happy because they have no history, are those that are happy and fortunate because of their history. Mystic has borne "the white man's burden" from that June morning, in 1638, when Captain John Mason and ninety men fought the battle of the Pequot War, on the crest of the west hill overlooking the river. The Indian fortress was a stockade surrounding a village; from four to seven hundred Pequots were there. The Pequot name was so terrible in those days that the 400 Narragansett allies, who had led the column in its march through the Narragansett country, became very much afraid when they got upon Pequot ground. "Let them stay back, and see how Englishmen will fight," said Mason to Uncas. They turned. Save a handful of Pequots who bears this inscription: ERECTED A. D. 1889. by the State of Connecticut, to commemorate the heroic achievement of MAJOR JOHN MASON, and his comrades; who near this spot in The muster roll of the men who fought with Mason would be prized now-a-days by the makers of genealogies, but it is not known to be in existence. The sword of John Mason is still a cherished possession of his descendants, who live to-day upon the beautiful island which was granted their ancestor out of the land he had wrested from the Pequots. It is a good sword, a kind of Puritan sword-plain and |