REHOBOTH and ATTLEBORO. 242

of seamless wire, or wire coated with gold, so as not to show a seam where it is put on, has been a great help. Several firms have branched off into the manufacture of silver novelties. The Whiting Manufacturing Company at North Attleboro has for years stood at the head perhaps for this line of goods, including not only novelties, but standard silverware. This section of the industry has kept up to all requirements. New and attractive styles of chains, pins, lockets, bracelets and collar and cuff buttons, besides every conceivable thing in the way of silver ornaments for the hair, for belts, for pocketbooks, for match safes, for innumerable purposes, are made in astonishing quantities.

The Attleboros have an invested capital of three millions, and employ nearly four thousand people, a goodly percentage of them women. They turn out annually five and one half millions dollars’ worth of goods, pay in wages one and three quarters millions of dollars, and consume stock to the value of a million and a half.

Both towns rank high in the character of their schools, each has a good public library, an efficient fire department, good waterworks, and electric street lighting. ‘~hey have all the common social organizations, and they have a large agricultural association which owns considerable property and gives an excellent annual fair. In fact, in the estimation of their own people, at any rate, who enjoy their privileges and know their good points, they are pretty nearly model towns. Harvard and Brown, Smith and Wellesley contain many Attleboro names. Ex-President Robinson of Brown University, who lately died, was born in Attleboro.

Rehoboth has grown in grace and goodness, but not much in numbers. Her children have risen up to call her blessed, and there are many who look back lovingly to her quiet home life and her fertile farms. Manufacturing has not been large in her territory. No railroad vexes her borders, and no great enterprise of any kind attracts her people; but she has an enviable record of patriotism and good citizenship, a good record for her schools. her churches and her homes. She has lost much territory to make new towns. The largest town among these offshoots has been that which is the principal theme of this article. Others have kept on in the quiet way marked by the mother town. Rehoboth’s population in 1890 was seventeen hundred and eighty-six; the population of Seekonk was thirteen hundred and seventeen; and that of Swansea, fourteen hundred and fifty-six.

On the tenth of May, 1886, the Goff Memorial Hall was dedicated at Rehoboth. The laud was given by Darius Goff, a prominent mill owner of Pawtucket. The hall occupies the site of his old homestead. The old house was removed to make place for the modern building. This cost about S14,000, of which Mr. Golf contributed $10,000 the balance being given in different sums by friends of the work, largely townspeople. It contains a high-school room, an antiquarian room with many interesting relics of bygone days, a library and a town hall. The building is the headquarters of the Rehoboth Historical Antiquarian Society, which largely owes its existence and prosperity to the efforts of Rev. George H. Tilton, recently one of the Rehoboth ministers. This society has done a work which might well be imitated in many a New England country town. The library contains, with its other volumes, six hundred and twenty-five volumes, the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. Bicknell. Mr. Bicknell was born in Barrington, formerly a part of Swansea, and his wife was born in Rehoboth. The library is called the Blanding Library, in honor of the parents, of Mrs. Bicknell, who were Rehoboth people the name always having been an honored one in the town. Mr. Goff was present at the dedication, and Mr. Bicknell delivered the address; while other descendants of the old town took part in the impressive exercises.

Rehoboth has produced a goodly number of notable men. Some of them have been already mentioned. Nathan Smith, professor in the medical schools of Harvard, Yale and Brown, Benjamin West, the distinguished mathematician, and a long list of learned clergymen, lawyers,