Not long after the departure of the Doctor we heard while sitting in the cabin a hail from the head of the wharf commanding the captain to haul at once into the stream and have no communication with the shore. A watchman was placed at the head of the wharf by the board of health, and I began to wonder how I was to escape a quarantine. I waited until after dark and then giving the captain directions to proceed to Boston with the first favorable wind, I went ashore, and sneaking up behind a store house with only the cap log of the wharf to walk on, I found an opening between two buildings about four feet wide, and came out on the street unobserved. As I walked to the hotel I found the town in a panic, and groups were standing here and there discussing the situation. I spoke to no one but on reaching the hotel gave orders to be called to take the six o’clock mail chaise, and went to bed. At six o’clock I was off and reached home the same day. It was eight days before my vessel was able to reach Boston, and thus I narrowly escaped a prolonged confinement on board, and the watchfulness of the Provincetown board of health. In view of my experience I advise my readers in visiting a town, to follow my example, and say nothing and keep open the avenues of retreat. After the death of Dr. Rossiter Cotton in 1837, and the return of his son to Newport, the house in question was kept as a hotel named the Mansion House for some years by James G. Gleason, succeeded by Benjamin H. Crandon and N. M. Perry. In still later years the post office occupied the corner room down stairs for a time, and the Custom House a room upstairs, until finally the whole upper part of the building and the northerly and easterly part below were occupied by newspaper offices, and the corner by Charles P. Morse for a drug store, until the building was taken down in 1888. Since the mention of N. M. Perry in a previous chapter, I have learned that he was a native of Holliston.