In one of the counties fronting on Lake Ontario there lived one W--B--, a descendant of one of our earliest settlers in this locality, a man who bore an honored name. Among his possessions was a farm, a homestead of about two hundred and fifty acres, situated upon the shore of Lake Ontario. He was a most exemplary man and a member of the Disciples’ church at B----, where he usually went to worship. A son of this man, having a liking for the water, induced his father to buy him a large well-found schooner, at a cost of about $9,000, which he sailed as captain on Lake Ontario. For several seasons he [Illustration: HAULING CANNON. WAR OF 1812.] plied this vessel conveying general merchandise as freight. He was not successful, but, on the contrary, continued at ever increasing loss. Finally his ship was sold for debt, and he came back to his father’s farm, where he built a second house and lived with his family. Being without occupation or friends, he asked his father (now an old man) for a deed of the home farm. This time the father refused, telling him he had “sailed away $9,000 in a ship, and he would sail away the farm, too, if he had a chance.” Then the son went to the leaders and elders of the Disciples’ church, of which his father was a member, and told his story and his desire for a deed of the farm. A general special meeting of the church was called, and it was filled with both sexes, all being members. J--S--, merchant and agent of a bank doing business in B----, and afterwards a senator, arose. He spoke earnestly and pointedly about it being Brother B--’s duty to deed his farm to his son, and for quite twenty minutes urged upon the assembly the justice, desirability and reasonableness of the act, advocating it as a matter of duty, and a proof of fatherly love for the son. One L--, a resident, and a member and leader of the church as well, followed in the same strain. His words were listened to with rapt attention, and after speaking some fifteen minutes he too-sat down. No one arose to speak on the other side of the question. No one cared to be opposed to S--, for he was very powerful at that time. Though they keenly felt the undesirableness of acceding to such a demand, they had not the courage to express it publicly. The stillness became painful, and for a moment it seemed there could no way be found to break it. The aged father, at the time stiff with rheumatism, was present. He grasped the seat before him. It creaked as the strain of his weight came upon it, and slowly and laboriously the old man arose. Once on his feet he stood somewhat bent, but, being a large man, towered majestically above the rest, and in a clear audible voice said, “I’m not going to take off my coat and throw it down and ask the Church or anyone else whether or not I shall put it on again.” The strain was broken, adjournment followed, and the son did not get the deed he coveted.