Nathaniel Dummer, Judge

The marriage of Judge Dummer and Mrs. Mary Kilton was preceded by a romantic courtship, the glamour of which still lingers about the story of their lives. During the war of the Revolution, Nathaniel Dummer, then a young lieutenant in the Continental army, was stationed at Providence, Rhode Island. One day a pretty little seven-year old girl, attracted by the fascinating pomp and circumstance of military life, strayed into the soldiers' camp. The child had a delectable half-eaten doughnut in her hand. The young officer was hungry. Visions of his childhood's home in old Newbury, and of the crisp, brown dainties from his mother's frying-pan flitted through his brain.

"Come here, little girl," said he. "Where did you get that doughnut.?"

"My mother made it," replied the child.

"Take me to her!" exclaimed the young officer in a dramatic tone. "Mayhap she will make me a doughnut also!"

When the pretty young widow, Mistress Mary Kilton, looked out from her cottage window a few minutes later, she saw a handsome young soldier coming to the house leading her little daughter Sally by the hand. The negotiations for the doughnuts were successful; and the young widow earned many sixpences during the next few weeks by the results of her culinary art. This new source of income proved, for the time, very acceptable to Mrs. Kilton, who, by the death of her patriotic young husband at the beginning of the war, had been left without adequate means of support.

Four years of widowhood had passed; but Mary Kilton was still young and beautiful, with a tenderer grace than that of girlhood. The lieutenant's heart was deeply touched. The quest of the doughnut soon changed to the wooing of a bride; and Lieutenant Nathaniel Dummer and Mary Kilton were married, in Providence, August i, 1779. The young patriot remained in his country's service until the close of the war. In 1789, he removed to Hallowell with his wife and five children, including the little Sally whom he loved as his own

no Old Hallowell on the Kennebec

daughter. We have learned of the success and honor that here crowned his Ufe. We also know of the charm and happiness of the Dummer home, and of its refining and helpful influence in the social life of the rapidly growing village at the Hook. In this home little Sally Kilton grew into beautiful young womanhood and married one of the wealthiest and most distin- guished residents of old Hallowell, Mr. John Odlin Page.

Judge Dummer died in Hallowell, September 15, 181 5; and "seldom," as the old records tell us, "has a death in this part of the country produced a more general sympathy." His widow, who survived him for a number of years, was much beloved and respected in the community.

A great-granddaughter of Mrs. Mary Kilton Dummer, Miss Sophia B. Gilman, still has in her possession a beautiful ring which was once worn upon the hand of her revered ancestress a century ago. This ring is not only a treasured souvenir of olden days, but a visible sign of the verity of this old romance of the Revolution.

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