Mr. Editor:

In this year of celebrations connected with interesting periods of our history as a nation, state, county, as well as town, one is much inclined to look at the past as he sees it, in the main, most clearly from his own stand point in life. And in so doing finds much of recent date in the social as well as political events of his own town of interest and pleasure to look at. Take for instance our little town of East Bloomfield, settled in 1789, and now has a population of about 2700, about one-fourth of which are foreigners and their descendants who began to settle here about 1840, and now owning some of our best farms. Many of them make good citizens, but it is not a pleasant thought to an old resident born here in 1817, that so many of our old families are giving way to strangers. But few farms or homes are now occupied by the posterity of those who felled the first trees, plowed the first furrows and rocked the first cradle in Western Ontario. But one farm in town is now owned and occupied by a son of the first settler. Elisha Steele still lives where his father purchased nearly one hundred years ago; is about 78 years of age, as active and hearty as many men at 50, and whose golden wedding we celebrated Feb. 19, 1889. Another item of interest is our fertile soil and salubrious climate. No stagnant pools of water nor swamp holes to breed disease or invite epidemics. The only serious epidemic ever in town was that of 1813. A young M. D. who settled here a few years since said to the writer, "This is the healthiest place in the world, not much for me to do here." We stand high and dry, from 600 to 1000 feet above water level. It is said that the highest point of land on the road between Albany and Buffalo is about one mile west of this village. With a glass, I have seen from my own door Reed's Corners, thirteen miles away, plain enough to recognize buildings with which I am acquainted. Again it has been said of late that the longevity of the people of this country was on the increase, and judging from our town, I should think it was so. For instance only 13 have died this year whose aggregate ages is 910, an average of 70 years, not including infants. About fifty years ago a new cemetery was opened in this village in which we count about 700 graves and less than fifty of them those of octogenarians, until the present year during which five over 80 years old have been buried. Referring to a statement published five years ago, there were then twenty in town over 80 years old, now, 1889, there were 31. Then, 1884, there were thirty septuagenarians, now they number more than fifty. The oldest person living, born here, is Myron Adams, Sr., now for twenty years a resident of Rochester, 90 years of age.

The oldest living in town and born here is Mrs. Betsey C. Hamlin, aged 88 years. Two ladies over 90 years old are now living in town thought not born here. Also in 1875, we are credited with six nonagenarians the same as Canandaigua. Phelps, the only town in the county ahead of us, having nine, with a population much larger. Stephen Salmon, the last of our 1812 veterans, died Nov. 26, 1889, aged 94. And the only living memorial of that war, now with us, is Mrs. Laura Butler, aged 84 years.

Now, as to the late civil war, we enlisted 160 of our young men, many of them the best; forty of whose names are engraved on a monument erected to their memory in our village park by a grateful people at a cost of $6000. About twenty-five are still with us, as it were, to remind us of the last bloody strife for the legacy left us by our forefathers, a free government and liberal institutions -- doubly secured, we believe, to us and our posterity by the valor and heroism of "our boys in blue."          E. B. W.