not speak High Dutch,
that ever gained his entire confidence. Four times in each year, at periods
equi-distant, he left his low stone dwelling, on the banks of the Mohawk, and
travelled thirty miles, through the hills, to the door of the mansion-house in
Templeton. Here he generally staid a week, and was reputed to spend much of that
time in riotous living, greatly countenanced by Mr. Richard Jones. But every one
loved him, even to Remarkable Pettibone, to whom he occasioned some additional
trouble, he was so frank, so sincere, and, at times, so mirthful. He was now on
his regular Christmas visit, and had not been in the village an hour, when
Richard summoned him to fill a seat in the sleigh, to meet the landlord and his
daughter.
    Before explaining the character and situation of Mr. Grant, it will be
necessary to recur to times, far back in the brief history of the settlement.
    There seems to be a tendency in human nature, to endeavour to provide for
the wants of this world, before our attention is turned to the business of the
other. Religion was a quality but little cultivated, amid the stumps of Temple's
Patent, for the first few years of its settlement; but as most of its
inhabitants were from the moral states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, when
the wants of nature were satisfied, they began seriously to turn their attention
to the introduction of those customs and observances, which had been the
principal care of their forefathers. There was certainly a great variety of
opinions, on the subject of grace and free-will, amongst the tenantry of
Marmaduke; and, when we take into consideration the variety of religious
instruction which they received, it can easily be seen, that it could not well
be otherwise.
    Soon after the village had been formally laid out, into the streets and
blocks that resembled a city, a meeting of its inhabitants had been convened, to
take into consideration the propriety of establishing an Academy. This measure
originated with Richard, who, in truth, was much disposed to have the
institution designated a University, or at least a College. Meeting after
meeting was held, for this purpose, year after year. The resolutions of these
assemblages, appeared in the most conspicuous columns of a little, blue-looking
newspaper, that was already issued weekly from the garret of a dwelling-house in
the village, and which the traveller might as often see, stuck into the fissure
of a stake, erected at the point where the footpath from the