“The donor of this library was the youngest son of James Blackstone. To many of you his history and life are well known. He left the east more than forty years ago to pursue his chosen profession. He married, in 1868, Miss Isabella Norton of Norwich, and since that time his home has been upon Michigan Avenue, in that great metropolis of the west, Chicago. There, for over thirty years he has managed with consummate skill the affairs of the most successful of all the great railroads of the west. Of him, his character, his generosity, and his remarkable modesty, but great ability, I am not at liberty to speak ... but this is not complete as a memorial of James Blackstone unless I mention briefly the other descendants. The eldest son of James Blackstone, George, died in 1861, never having been married. The eldest daughter, Mary, married Samuel O. Plant. One of her daughters, Ellen Plant, is with us to-day. Three grandchildren of Mrs. Mary Blackstone Plant, being the children of her daughter Sarah, are William L., Paul W., and Gertrude P. Harrison. “The second son of James Blackstone, Lorenzo Blackstone, who lived for many years in Norwich, and died there in 1888, had five children. The eldest, De Trafford Blackstone, has one son, Lorenzo. The second child of Lorenzo is Mrs. Harriet Blackstone Camp of Norwich, who has three children, Walter Trumbull, Talcott Hale, and Elizabeth Norton Camp. The second daughter of Lorenzo is Mrs. Frances Ella Huntington of Norwich. The fourth child of Lorenzo Blackstone is William Norton Blackstone of Norwich; and his youngest son, Louis Lorenzo Blackstone, died in 1893. “The second daughter of James Blackstone, Ellen Elizabeth, married Henry B. Plant, now of New York City. She died in 1861, leaving one son, Morton F. Plant, who is married and has one son, Henry B. Plant, Jr. James Blackstone’s third son was John Blackstone, who died several years ago, leaving three children, George and Adelaide Blackstone and Mrs. Emma Pond. “Sir William Blackstone, the great authority upon the common law of England, was a cousin of the fifth degree to our James Blackstone, and the portraits of the two men bear a marked family resemblance. “Ten years ago James Blackstone passed to his reward. His influence for good still exists in this community, where the old New England ideas are yet strong, though modified by the leaven of modern industry, education, and thought.” [Illustration: text decoration] [Illustration: text decoration] CHAPTER IV.