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her interesting neighbor was, and was content with her husband's explanation that he was 'a very knowing and learned man.'
"An aged pear-tree, long since past bearing, stands on a portion of the Dixwell lot now owned by Mr. Edward A. Anketel. The story has been passed down from one generation to another that the tree was bearing in Dixwell's time, and that the venerable regicide used to gather fruit from it. In view of the great age attained by this class of trees, we may here have a survivor that 'gave shelter and comfort to a traitor' without having its head severed from its trunk.
"One time when Sir Edmund Andros was visiting New England, he had occasion to spend Sunday in New Haven, and while attending public worship noticed an old gentleman of striking face and bearing sitting in front of him. After the congregation was dismissed, he inquired who the old gentleman was. The answer was, 'He is a merchant living in town.' But Sir Edmund was suspicious, and said, with a shake of the head, 'I know he is not a merchant. He has been a soldier, and has figured somewhere in a more public station than this.' Tradition says that the Colonel spent the rest of the day in his room in meditation. At any rate, he is not mentioned as having attended service in the afternoon. Sir Edmund was too busy to follow up his suspicions, and nothing came of it.
"While at church at this time it is said that Sir Edmund was treated to a rather singular mark of respect. During the service the following verses were sung, from the old Sternhold and Hopkins version. They were first 'deaconed off;' according to the custom of the time, which made the lines seem doubly personal:—
'Why dost thou, tyrant, boast abroad,
Thy wicked works to praise?
Dost thou not know there is a God
Whose mercies last always?
'Why doth thy mind yet still devise
Such wicked wiles to warp
Thy tongue, untrue, in forging lies
Is like a razor sharp.
'Thou dost delight in fraud and guile,
In mischief, blood, and wrong;
Thy lips have learned the flattering style,
0 false, deceitful tongue!
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"These verses were sung con expressione, and Sir Edmund inferred that they were chosen in honor of his visit. He waxed wroth, and was about to deliver himself; but was told that the psalms were always sung by course.
"Before his death, Col. Dixwell requested his friends to erect no monument to his memory which should reveal his name, 'lest his enemies might dishonor his ashes.' Accordingly a plain stone was placed at the head of his grave, bearing the simple letters 'J. D., Esqr.,' and giving his age and the date of his death.
"In 1849, about one hundred and sixty years after his death, one of his descendants, Mr. Dixwell of Boston, removed the remains to their present resting place on New Haven Green, and caused a monument to be erected over them. So after a long life of faithful service in the cause of human liberty, his old age spent in exile and obscurity, his bones resting for nearly two centuries under an humble stone in a foreign churchyard, he finally sleeps beneath an imposing monument of marble, on which is inscribed a proper testimonial to his life and services.
"There was a famous legend chiseled upon one of the bowlders at West Rock; that breathes the noble spirit which animated these so-called regicides. It should also have been cut high up on the monument of Dixwell, where all mankind might read and ponder, as defining the principles under which he lived and died: 'Opposition to tyrants is obedience to God!'"
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