General Knox once owned a square
of thirty miles in this part of the country, and he wished to settle it
with a tenantry, after the fashion of English gentlemen. He would permit
no edifice to be erected within a certain distance of his mansion. His
patent covered, of course, the whole present town of Waldoborough and
divers other flourishing commercial and country villages, and would have
been of incalculable value could it have remained unbroken to the present
time. But the General lived in grand style, and received throngs of
visitors from foreign parts, and was obliged to part with large tracts of
his possessions, till now there is little left but the ruinous mansion
and the ground immediately around it. His tomb stands near the house,--a
spacious receptacle, an iron door at the end of a turf-covered mound, and
surmounted by an obelisk of marble. There are inscriptions to the memory
of several of his family; for he had many children, all of whom are now
dead, except one daughter, a widow of fifty, recently married to Hon.
John H------. There is a stone fence round the monument.
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