For several years after this date there is nothing to connect the poet with his native town, but in 1596 the Register at Stratford contains an entry recording the burial of his only son Hamnet, which took place on August 11. The following year the poet purchased from William Underhill, gentleman, “one messuage, two barns, two gardens, and two orchards, with appurtenances, in Stratford–on–Avon,” for the sum of £60, the house being that erected by Sir Hugh Clopton in the reign of Henry VII., and known then as the Great House. Shakespeare renamed it New Place, and by this name the site (for the house has disappeared) is known to this day. From this time onward the poet seems to have enjoyed very material prosperity, and became at various times the purchaser of other property in the town and neighbourhood. In 1607 his elder daughter Susannah married one of the leading medical men of the town, Dr. John Hall, and in the following year a grand–daughter was born to the poet, named Elizabeth. His younger daughter Judith married in 1616 a vintner of Stratford named Thomas Quiney. Of this marriage there were three children born, two of whom survived to attain manhood, but died without issue. These somewhat bare facts unhappily constitute almost all that is known of Shakespeare and his family life. His death occurring on April 23, 1616, after an illness of some weeks. Of the latter part of his life his first biographer, Rowe, writes, it “was spent, as all men of sense may wish theirs may be, in some retirement, and the conversation of his friends. His pleasurable wit and good nature engaged him in the acquaintance, and entitled him to the friendship of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood.” But, however meagre may be the details of the poet’s life at Stratford and elsewhere, fortunately for pilgrims to his native town and admirers of his plays, there are still surviving the ravages of time and modern changes, so often destructive of these things, many buildings and spots directly or indirectly connected with him and incidents in his career.