aspersion into which some of his neighbors had been led, and the bad repute put upon him by scandal-mongers.  He was evidently an industrious, hard-working man.  He was a person of some means, a holder of considerable property in lands and other forms.  Deeds are often found on record from and to him.  He owned meadows near Ipswich River.  His homestead, during the last thirty years of his life, was a farm of more than a hundred acres of very valuable land, which has been in the possession of the family, now owning it, for a hundred years.  The present proprietor, Mr. Benjamin Taylor, some twenty years ago, ploughed up the site of Corey’s dwelling-house; the vestiges of the cellar being then quite visible.  It was near the crossing of the Salem and Lowell, and Georgetown and Boston Railroads, about three hundred feet to the west of the crossing, and close to the track of the former road, on its south side.  The spot is surrounded by beautiful fields; and their aspect shows that it must have been, in all respects, an eligible estate.  What is now known as “the Curtis Field” is a part of Corey’s farm.

Giles Corey lived previously, for some time, in the town of Salem.  He sold his house there in 1659.  The contract with a carpenter for building his farmhouse is preserved.  It was stipulated to be erected “where he shall appoint.”  While the carpenter was getting out the materials, he selected and bought the farm, on which he lived ever afterwards.  The house was to be “twenty feet in length, fifteen in breadth, and eight feet stud.”  Nothing strikes us more, as strange and unaccountable, than the small size of houses in those days.  One would have thought, that, where wood was so plenty and near at hand, and land of no account, they would have built larger houses.  In a letter, dated Nov. 16, 1646, from Governor Winthrop to his son John, of Connecticut, he gives an account “of a tempest (than which I never observed a greater);” and mentions that the roof of “Lady Moody’s house, at Salem,” with all of the chimney above it, was blown off in two parts, and “carried six or eight rods.  Ten persons lay under it, and knew not of it till they arose in the morning.”  The house had a flat roof, was of one story, and nine feet in height!  Lady Deborah Moody was a person of high position, a connection of Sir Henry Vane, and a woman of property.  She bought Mr. Humphreys’ great plantation.  But, like Townsend Bishop, she was dealt with, and compelled to quit the colony, on account of her doubts about infant baptism.  Winthrop calls her a “wise and anciently religious woman.”  She went to Long Island, where her influence was so important, that Governor Stuyvesant consulted her in his administration, and conceded to her the nomination of magistrates.  It seems very strange that such a lady should have had a house only nine feet high.  The early houses were built either as temporary structures or with a view to enlargement.  Perhaps Lady Moody intended