Lakes, without which no landscape is perfect, were added: Little Pond to the southwest, and Big Bantam Lake beyond, were the ones that were visible from the village, out of a large number that can be found in the township; but the Sawmill Pond, where Henry Ward caught his first fish, with an alder-stick for a pole and a bent pin for a hook—caught it so thoroughly that it was dashed in pieces upon the rocks behind him—has disappeared with the tearing away of the dam that held it. Brooks ran down between the hills and sang their way through the meadows, each one offering some new feature to the landscape, and each a field of new discovery for inquisitive youth. Woods, made up of every variety of tree and shrub native to our latitude, where nuts grew and all kinds of small game abounded, where crows and now and then a hen-hawk built their nests, were in easy reach upon the slopes of the hills both to the west and east. Ledges of rock to the north were the lair of wildcats, a vermin so numerous seventy-five years ago as to be a serious pest to the farmers; and stone walls, where woodchucks retreated from the clover-fields and thought themselves safe, were the usual division-fences for the fields. There were other things that were equally pleasing to a boy’s fancy, and perhaps equally influential in his education. The lakes, streams, and forests of the town had been the favorite fishing and hunting ground of the Indians; arrow-heads were occasionally picked up on the lake shore or turned up by the ploughshare upon the hillside; and, best of all, Mount Tom was one of the series of stations where blazed the signal-fires which the Indians of this region built to warn their brethren of the whole territory between the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers of the approach of their enemies, the fierce Mohawks. Litchfield, in short, was the paradise of a birth-place for any boy. It was paradise, school-house, gymnasium, church, and cathedral to Henry Ward Beecher. In it he experienced his sweetest pleasures, learned his best lessons, gained control of his powers, and offered his first worship. He breathed its pure air, climbed its rocks, wandered in its woods, wrestled with its winter storms, and in this way laid the foundation for that superb health for which he was remarkable through life. With the hunger and inquisitiveness of a growing boy, he searched nature’s storehouse of fruits and nuts, which opens with the wintergreen plums and squaw-berries of the melting snow-time of spring, and continues, a house of plenty for all that know her secrets—partridges, squirrels, and boys—until the snow covers the ground in December, and so gained that habit of investigation into the things of nature, and of close observation, that distinguished him ever after.