During the exciting period of anti-masonry which extended from 1828 to 1835, an anti-masonic political party sprang up in many of the Northern states, and candidates were generally nominated for State and National offices. The party had its origin in the belief that William Morgan of Batavia, New York, a former mason, who was reported to intend publishing the secrets of the order of free masons, had been kidnapped and drowned in Lake Ontario. It was believed that the masonic oath disqualified those in the higher degrees from serving as jurors in cases where members of the same degrees were parties. The anti-masonic party originated in New York in 1828, and in 1830 Francis Granger, its candidate for Governor, received 128,000 votes. In 1831 a National Anti-masonic convention nominated William Wirt of Maryland, and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania, for President and Vice-President. Vermont was the only state which threw its electoral vote for the anti-masonic candidates. The anti-masonic excitement reached Plymouth, and for one or more years Mr. Russell was chosen a member of the legislature on the anti-masonic ticket. I am not a mason, but as a somewhat close observer of public affairs for nearly seventy years, and many times a successful candidate for public office, I feel bound to say that I have never suspected any masonic participation either collectively or individually in the selection of nominees to office, or the election of candidates. In 1840 after the death of Barnabas Hedge, Mr. Russell was chosen to succeed him as President of the Plymouth Institution for Savings, which was incorporated in 1828, and continued in office until his death. In 1847, during his incumbency, the name of the institution was changed to the Plymouth Savings Bank. CHAPTER XXVIII. The house in North street occupied by Dr. Brown, stands on the site of a house, which in my youth, was owned and occupied by Stephen Marcy. The old house was during the revolution kept as an Inn by Thomas Southworth Howland, and there on December 22, 1769, the Old Colony Club for the first time celebrated the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. On that occasion at half-past two a dinner composed of the following dishes was served: “A large baked Indian whortleberry pudding, a dish of sauquetach, a dish of clams, a dish of oysters, and a dish of cod fish, a haunch of venison, a dish of sea fowl, a dish of frost fish and eels, an apple pie, a course of cranberry tarts and cheese.” The pudding alone preceded the meat, and the dessert was as now the last course. This custom went out before my day, but it was no more strange than that now in vogue, of beginning a breakfast with fruit and oatmeal. I remember the house well with a front door near its westerly end, and an office door near its easterly end opening into a room which in its last days was occupied by Dr. Robert Capen. In 1833 Jacob Covington bought the estate and built the house now standing.