"The respectable age and character of your venerable patient lead me to regret that it is not in my power to suggest a remedy for the cure of the disorder you have described in her breast. I know nothing of the root you mention, found in Carolina and Georgia, but, from a variety of inquiries and experiments, I am disposed to believe that there does not exist in the vegetable kingdom an antidote to cancers. All the _supposed vegetable_ remedies I have heard of are compounds of some mineral caustics. The arsenic is the most powerful of any of them. It is the basis of Dr. Martin's powder. I have used it in many cases with success, but have failed in some. From your account of Mrs. Washington's breast I am afraid no great good can be expected from the use of it. Perhaps it may cleanse it, and thereby retard its spreading. You may try it diluted in water. Continue the application of opium and camphor, and wash it frequently with a decoction of red clover. Give anodynes, when necessary, and support the system with bark and wine. Under this treatment she may live comfortably many years, and finally die of old age." [Illustration: The Dam of the Water Power Co., the Canal emerging from left corner furnishes power for town. (See page 329)] [Illustration: "Meditation Rock," Mary Washington's favorite retreat for reading, prayer and meditation. (See page 157)] The house on the south corner of Prince Edward and Fauquier streets, purchased in 1898 by Mrs. Bernice Hart, tradition says, was for over one hundred years the clerk's office, and the court records of the trustees of the town were kept there. There may have been a court held in that small place under the Colonial charter of the town, but not a criminal court since that time, as the records show to the contrary. The records of courts held here before the War of the Revolution--if any were held here--and the record of proceedings of the trustees cannot be found at present. The house was a small, one and a half story frame building, similar in architecture to the old part of the Mary Washington House. The additions made to it in recent years have completely destroyed its original form and architecture and have given it a modern appearance. No one, of course, knows when it was built, but, judging from its style and the material of which it was constructed, it must take its place with the oldest of our ancient buildings.