The first room beyond the threshold of the door that one finds named in the houses "of the richer sort," is the entry. This was apparently always bare of furniture, and indeed well it might be, for it was seldom aught but a vestibule to the rest of the house, containing, save the staircase, but room enough to swing the front door in opening. Dr. Lyon gives the inventory of John Salmon of Boston in the year 1750 as the earliest record which he has found of the use of the word hall instead of entry, as we now employ it. In the _Boston News Letter_, thirty one years earlier, on August 24th, 1719, I find this advertisement: "Fine Glass Lamps & Lanthorns well gilt and painted both Convex and Plain. Being suitable for Halls, staircases, or other Passage ways, at the Glass Shop in Queen Street." This advertisement is, however, exceptional. The hall in Puritan houses was not a passageway, it was the living-room, the keeping-room, the dwelling-room, the sitting-room; in it the family sat and ate their meals--in, it they lived. Let us see what was the furniture of a Puritan home-room in early days, and what its value. The inventory of the possessions of Theophilus Eaton, Governor of the New Haven colony, is often quoted. At the time of his death, in 1657, he had in his hall, "A drawing Table & a round table, L1.18s. A cubberd & 2 long formes, 14s. A cubberd cloth & cushions, 13s.; 4 setwork cushions, 12s. L1.5. 6 greene cushions, 12s; a greate chaire with needleworke, 13s. L1.5. 2 high chaires set work, 20s; 4 high stooles set worke, 26s 8d L6.6.8. 4 low chaires set worke, 6s 8d, L1.6.8. 2 low stooles set worke, 10s. 2 Turkey Carpette, L2; 6 high joyne stooles, 6s. L2.6. A pewter cistern & candlestick, 4s. A pr of great brass Andirons, 12s. A pr of small Andirons, 6s 8d. A pr of doggs, 2s 6d. A pr of tongues fire pan & bellowes, 7s." Now, this was a very liberally furnished living-room. There were plenty of seats for diners and loungers, if Puritans ever lounged; two long forms and a dozen stools of various heights, with green or embroidered cushions, upon which to sit while at the Governor's board; and seven chairs, gay with needlework covers, to draw around his fireplace with its shining paraphernalia of various sized andirons, tongs, and bellows. The low, heavy-raftered room with these plentiful seats, the tables with their Turkey covers, the picturesque cupboard with its rich cloth, and its display of the Governor's silver plate, all aglow with the light of a great wood fire, make a pretty picture of comfortable simplicity, pleasant of contemplation in our bric-a-brac filled days, a fit setting for the figures of the Governor, "New England's glory full of warmth and light," and his dearest, greatest, best of temporal enjoyments, his "vertuous, prudent and prayerful wife."