Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, BY WARREN CHASE In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. STEREOTYPED BY BOSTON. PREFACE. THIS little volume-a true and literal history of the struggles of an ardent and ambitious mind to rise from a dishonorable birth, and the lowest condition of poverty and New England slavery—is published more for a guide and advice to those who live in the humble walks of life, and for a rebuke on the tyrannical and malignant spirit of arrogant and selfish individuals and societies, who ever attempt to trample upon and despise such reformers as attempt to rise, by individual effort, to distinction or fame, than for the book market, or for the pecuniary reward it may bring the author. The name is only left in obscurity to those who are unacquainted with the subject of the narrative; and to such it is of no value. The subject of the narrative has passed to a plane of reconciliation and harmony, in which he feels only a spirit of forgiveness for those whose consciences have already punished them for their physical abuse, or moral and religious misrepresentations, slanders, and falsehoods, or their political curses. In every relation and condition of life he is now beyond their shafts, and hence is in a condition to forgive. As the persecuted Jesus, when the malignity of his enemies had done its worst, and he was about to triumph in the personal demonstration of his own theory, could afford to forgive Peter and Judas, and say of those who took his life, "Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do;" so the Lone One has often exclaimed of those who attempted to crucify his reputation, and destroy his efforts to make others happy, "They are forgiven: for they know not what they do." Speak gently to the erring one, "A kind and gentle word, perchance, The pleasant dreams of early youth, "Harsh words may be the only ones "In joyous hours, with friends around, "But only think, if yours had been, Like his, a cheerless life, Your soul, perchance, might then have been, Like his, as full of strife. "There's seldom found a heart so hard But love may enter in ; And love hath ever magic power "Then spare not gentle words, that bring The erring unto God, To learn that life is beautiful, When spent in doing good." LIFE-LINE OF THE LONE ONE. CHAPTER I. FIRST DECADE OF THE LONE ONE. The Unwelcome Birth. The Unhappy Childhood. - The Untimely Deaths. The Uncharitable Bondage. The Unmerciful Treatment. SECTION I. THE IMPERFECT LINEAGE. Not long after the Pilgrim Fathers made their homes on the rocky and bleak coast of Massachusetts, a vessel from the European side of the ocean landed, among her passengers, from the "sea-girt isle," three brothers, who brought to this country the name which has since gained many a niche in the records of our country's local and general history, and which may now be seen permanently or temporarily posted in many business villages of the nation, but which I shall dispense with, as too common for my narrative. The history of these three brothers, and of several generations of their descendants, is robed in a mantle of obscurity, and cannot now be easily unwrapped and spread before their descendants, even by those who seek through it a fortune of dollars. Most that is well known is, that they had Abraham's blessing, to increase and multiply. It is deeply to be regretted that there are not more and better words on the hard old granite and marble tomb-stones of New England, bearing to us more of the history of the each one each bears the name of. But our Christian style of epitaphing brings us little knowledge, except the name of the |