In no town in Litchfield County, I fancy, was there quite such a sitting-down place as the store of Mr. Levi S. Knapp on Bank Street in our own town of New Milford, which was conducted by him until his death at the age of ninety-three, and, afterward, by his son, Gerardus Knapp. The place was known to everybody in the towns around. During the Kansas-Nebraska troubles in the late “Fifties,” a witty neighbor christened it “Topeka Hall”; and the name was accepted as quite the proper thing. For a half century, “Topeka Hall” was an informal congress, where earnest men threshed out the problems of the hour. As our late Governor Andrews said of it, “It was the place where the world was wound up.” Had it been honored by a historian, like the late George William Curtis, and a _Harper’s Magazine_ for record, its quips and repartees might have furnished the “Easy Chair” with abundant and amusing copy; and its “wise saws and modern instances” would fairly have covered the history of the town. While its good stories made fun for the day, the place became, none the less, an educator of public opinion, and wielded an influence second to no institution in the town. The remarkable longevity of the men who assembled there is worthy of special record, covering, as it does, the greater part of the nineteenth century. Below is a list of several of the prominent men, and their ages at death. It is a matter of regret that a more complete list cannot now be made: Col. William J. Starr, 97. William Roberts, 92. Royal I. Canfield, 76. William N. Canfield, 86. Ralph E. Canfield, 85. Judge David C. Sanford, 66. Sheldon Blackman, 69. Eli Mygatt, 86. A. B. Mygatt, 80. Augustine Thayer, 70. Rev. John Greenwood, 85. Rev. David Murdoch, 76. John S. Turrill, 64. Benjamin J. Stone, 78. John Peck, 81. Cornelius W. Peck, 78. Elijah Hall, 70. William Hartwell, 87. Theodore Buck, 78. Charles H. Booth, 81. Frederick G. Bennett, 74. Col. Gerardus Roberts, 70. Levi S. Knapp, 93. Gerardus Knapp, 74. Charles C. Noble, 72. John Glover Noble, 77. Hiram B. Noble, 70. Van Rensselaer Giddings, 79. Merritt Beach, 79. William Bostwick, 80. Ethiel S. Green, 84. Rev. J. B. Bonar, 79. John P. Treadwell, 64. Isaac B. Bristol, 84. Anan Hine, 71. Dr. James Hine, 80. William H. Hine, 77. Clark Hine, 84. Eli Clark, 87. Charles Sabin, 74. Royal Buckingham, 81. Samuel Randolph Hill, 62. [Illustration: ALANSON N. CANFIELD Born Oct. 6, 1807. The oldest resident of New Milford.] Albert N. Baldwin, 80. James H. McMahon, 68. Henry Merwin, 77. Robert Ferriss, 87. Eleazer T. Brewer, 81. Cyrus Northrop, 95. Robert Irwin, 88. Ezra Ferriss, 90. Joel W. Northrop, 74. And, living with us to-day, the only survivor of the older men, Mr. Alanson Canfield,[8] who will be one hundred years old on the eighth day of October, 1907. TRAINING DAYS IN THE FORTIES AS TOLD BY AN “OLD BOY”