I found the members were largely made up of the faculty of Middlebury College, with a number of professional and business men of the city: Governor Stewart, Mr. Battell’s son in law, was the presiding officer, and he insisted in spite of my modest remonstrances upon my taking the seat of honor at the head of the table, as the living representative of the presiding Justice of one hundred years ago. The conversation, after reading the minutes of the Court by Gov. Stewart, was largely taken up with a discussion of the Strong family. John Strong settled the county in 1765: he drove up with his wife and three children on the ice of Lake Champlain from Salisbury, Ct., and took possession of a log cabin, which he had built the preceding winter, in an abandoned French settlement, while out on a hunting excursion. For a time bears and wolves were their only neighbors, but other settlers soon followed, and he lived to see the wilderness blossom like the rose. When the revolution broke out, Mr. Strong took the part of the colonists, although the British garrison at Crown Point had long been good customers and had filled his chests with British gold: And when Gen. Burgoyne and his Indian Allies approached, he rode down through the State, and warned the settlers to fly from the approaching army, and to take their flocks and herds with them—and it was doubtless due to this timely warning, and sagacious advise, that Gen. Burgoyne brought his army to Saratoga in an absolutely starving condition: the country over which he had been obliged to so slowly pass, had yielded no supplies, and at Saratoga he could do nothing but surrender. John Strong expected to return in time to remove his family to a place of safety, but he was captured by Indian scouts, who bound him for torture in their usual manner. He told them however that they must release him, and take him before Gen. Burgoyne, for whom he bore a message—the Indians were impressed by his coolness and imposing presence, and complied with his request; when brought to Gen. Burgoyne he asked for his parole—which was granted until the “Army returned.” “But suppose General that the Army does not return”—“In that event;” replied General Burgoyne, “you are released.” Had he known what especially good work Strong had done that the Army should not return, he might have returned him to the care of the Indians. Mr. Strong hastened to his home, which he found had been burned by the Indians—he raked the ashes for the bones of his family, and not finding them, concluded that they had escaped to the South, and looked for them in Salisbury, Ct.; they had found refuge in Dorset, Vt. where they remained until the close of the war. Mabel, my Grandmother, was born there in 1782.