The Spragues of Melrose, formerly North Malden, were one of the old families. They descended from Ralph Sprague, who settled in Charlestown in 1629. The first one, who came to Melrose about the year 1700, was named Phineas. His grandson, also named Phineas, served during the Revolutionary War, and a number of interesting anecdotes are told about him. He was a slaveholder, and Artemas Barrett, Esq., a native of Melrose, owns an original bill of sale of "a negro woman named Pidge, with one negro boy;" also other documents, among which is Mr. Sprague's diary, wherein he gives the following account of the wonderfully dark day in 1780, a good reminder of which we experienced September 6, 1881, a century later: FRIDA May the 19th 1780. This day was the most Remarkable day that ever my eyes beheld the air had bin full of smoak to an uncommon degree so that wee could scairce see a mountain at two miles distance for 3 or 4 days Past till this day after Noon the smoak all went off to the South at sunset a very black bank of a cloud appeared in the south and west the Nex morning cloudey and thundered in the west about ten oclock it began to Rain and grew vere dark and at 12 it was almost as dark as Nite so that wee was obliged to lite our candels and Eate our dinner by candel lite at noon day but between 1 and 2 oclock it grew lite again but in the evening the cloud came, over us again, the moon was about the full it was the darkest Nite that ever was seen, by us in the world.[A] [Footnote A: This was printed in the sketch of Melrose in "History of Middlesex County," vol. II.] * * * * * NAMES AND NICKNAMES. BY GILBERT NASH. To the antiquarian, the historian, or the general scholar, there are few more interesting studies than that of names. It is a pursuit of rare delight to trace out the derivation of those with which we have been long familiar, and to follow up the associations that have rendered them dear, curious or ridiculous, as the case may be. The names themselves may be of no value, but the spot or circumstance that gave them birth cannot fail to throw around them an atmosphere of peculiar interest. The subject is a broad one and may be, with time and inclination, extensively cultivated; and, even in the limits of a short article, many phases of it of general importance and interest may be satisfactorily treated, and it is proposed in the following paragraphs to present only a few of them.