Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1900 — DANIEL WEBSTER’S CHOWDER. [ARTICLE]

DANIEL WEBSTER’S CHOWDER.

Anecdote Told of the Orator by a Man Who Heard It Every visitor to Scituate cr the neighboring villages along the shore and farther inland knows Capt. Pratt. He is among the oldest of the town’s inhabitants, and from an inexhaustible fund of entertaining stories he relates with inimitable drollery many amusing happenings cf a time before the South shore became a famous resort. It is counted an important part of the summer’s programme nowadays to call on this old man and hear him relate some of the varied experiences of his 90 years’ life. He dearly loves company, and when the wind is in the right direction he can be very entertaining. For more than 40 years he was master of ships that visited all the ports along .the Atlantic coast. After that he retired to a somewhat quieter life, fishing round about the zigzag shores of his native Massachusetts. He believes himself to be the only survivor of the company that built the first Minot’s Ledge lighthouse, and, although his memory lapses when recent events are under discussion, he is undisputed authority on matters relating to that wonderful undertaking as well as the disastrous storm that swept itanditsoccupants from the earth, and the rebuild- ' ing, six years after, when he was also I one of the workmen.

Sitting beneath the apple trees that shelter his home, with his little granddaughter at his feet, Capt. Pratt looks up at the sounds of every passing vehicle and nods and smiles at the neverfailing friendly greeting of “the sum- ' mer folks.” All his reminiscences are worth hearing, but there is one ' which he tells with special, 1 relates to a certain day, long when he was fishing in his hort jii?t i eff shore with several companions. I They anchored at noon and prepared | to feast upon a fish chowder the cook : had made. Just then a rowboat ap- ! neareu, parrying two men in rough atI tire. They askeu '? r ,)£ Ut> was promptly handed over the siuC, as they started away the hospitable ' captain mentioned the chowder and invited the strangers to come aboard and join the hungry company. They • accepted readily and ate with a keen appreciation of the savory dish. “They do say,” remarked one of the fishermen, “that Dan’l Webster brags about the chowders he makes over to Ma’shfield. 1 don’t believe that he could hold a candle to this one. Why, it’s the best-chowder I ever eat.” “Daniel Webster thinks so, too!” came in thunderous tones from the man who had borrowed the bait. “Sure enough," says Capt. Pratt, after a series of chuckles, “it was the great statesman sitting on a pile of rope and holding an empty tin plate in his hands. We yere all stirred up, you better believe, hut he enjoyed the joke. He and I were great friends after that, and many’s the fine luck at mackerel fishing we’ve had together.”—Boston TniincriDt.