USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Shirley > Shirley uplands and intervales; annals of a border town of Middlesex, with some genealogical sketches > Part 1
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SHIRLEY VILLAGE, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1863
SHIRLEY UPLANDS AND INTERVALES
ANNALS OF A BORDER TOWN OF OLD MIDDLESEX, WITH SOME GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES
BY ETHEL STANWOOD BOLTON
.
GEORGE EMERY LITTLEFIELD BOSTON, 1914
74
F14
TO MY SON GEOFFREY BOLTON BORN AT POUND HILL PLACE
CONTENTS
PAGE
A Border Town of Old Middlesex
I
The Eighteenth Century Farmer II
The Business of Farm Life 29
Country Roads.
43
Cellar Holes
63
Taverns. .
81
Shays's Rebellion
97
The Pound
109
Our Schools .
II7 143
Our Doctors.
Things Religious.
I55 183
The "Shaking Quakers"
Abram Hartwell's "Fire"
199
An Ancient Litigation 2II
Our Oliver Holden 219
Our Celebrities. 229
Occupants of Shirley Houses 24I
Genealogies. 317
Index .
367
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Pen and ink drawings are by the author
PAGE
Shirley Village, Massachusetts, in 1863.
Frontispiece
Map of Shirley in 1794 .
2
James Wilson's Carding Mill . 6
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Edgarton. To face 8
Map of Local Names in Shirley. To face
IO
James Parker's House (No. 117)
I2
Hezekiah Patterson's House (No. 127) .
18
The Hop House and Cider Mill 30
Elisha Dodge's Blacksmith Shop
38
David Bennett's Garrison House (No. 14)
46
John Whitney's House (No. 28) 50
Map of Green Lane. 58
Fredonian Houses, Fredonian Street, and the "Great Road" at Bull Run, 1913. To face
60
Jonas Parker's House (No. 86) 64
Stephen Holden's House (No. 89) . 68
James Dougherty's House (No. 100) .
74
Joseph and Ann Longley Hazen. To face 76
Nathaniel and Rhoda Maria Holden. To face 82
Door of Hazen's Tavern 86
Almond Morse's Tavern (No. 53) 90
Wallis Little's Tavern (No. 67).
94
Nathan Smith, Jr.'s House (No. 54)
98
Stephen Stimpson's House (No. 139)
104
The Pound IIO
Edward Dunn's House (No. 140) .
II2
David McLeod's House (No. 156)
122
The Old South School I26
The Old North School . I30
The Pound Hill School . I34
The Pound Hill School, about 1850 I 36
x
PREFACE
helped me in many ways, as have Herman S. Hazen, John E. L. Hazen, Jacob P. Hazen, Mr. and Mrs. Frank J. Lawton, Alvin Lawton and John R. Holden and Peter Tarbell, of Ayer. Mr. Charles E. Goodspeed has called my attention to much that would have escaped my notice. More than all, my thanks are due to Emerson S. Parker, his sister Pamelia, and their cousin James C. C. Parker, who not only lent, but gave me, all their family papers. I would acknowledge here the debt I owe to many more whom I do not name, for their encouragement in this enterprise.
POUND HILL PLACE, July, 1914.
I A BORDER TOWN OF OLD MIDDLESEX
IN THESE days it is hard for us to realize that each Massachusetts town in turn was in truth a border town, menaced by the Indians, and struggling with the un- broken forest to push the ploughed fields a little far- ther west. Think of one's peaceful lawn echoing to the war-whoop, and the house across the road, now marked by an old cellar-hole, burning during the massacre. Yet these things happened, and our ancestors tried with never-failing persistence to conquer their obstacles. Here in Shirley, on the border of old Middlesex, we hear less of pioneer times, since no tragic occurrences marked the early days of settlement; yet all over the town were houses whose wooden walls were lined with brick, or some- thing equally repellent to the arrows of the marauding Indian. This last town of old Middlesex, this nursling of an older town, lies along the Nashua as it flows northward. In shape it resembles a child's awkward attempt to write the letter D. Boldly the downward stroke was made along the western towns of Townsend and Lunenburg, straight east across the Lancaster line, then wavering up along the Nashua and Squannacook, making the D so broken-backed and wavy. Within these bounds lie the uplands and lowlands, marshes, woods and hills of the town. From south to northwest extends an irregular line of hills with narrow gaps between. The southern- most, in Stow Leg, on the Shaker and Hazen farms, bears
2
Shirley 1794.
Fulling Mill Saw and Grist Mill
Mulpus Brook
County Road
Shirley Church
Grist 18:00
Grist Mizz
Longday's Mills
recoonemug Brook
Shabakin Bridge
T
3
A BORDER TOWN OF OLD MIDDLESEX
no name, except on its southeast end which was once called Round Hill. The next, north of the village, once was Catacoonemug Hill; now, divided by the road, it bears a divided name. The western part is called the Major Hill, the eastern Davis Hill. Northwest along the Lunenburg line lie Robbs Hill, Page Hill, and Chaplin Hill, with Benjamin Hill to the east. Benjamin Hill once had on its eastern slope a bound for farms known as Tin Corner. One deed explains that it was a "white oak with tin in it," but that leaves us almost as mystified as before. The northwest slope of Ben- jamin Hill has always been known as Pound Hill, be- cause the first pound was there. The hill or plateau on which the Centre is built has no name, nor has the longer plateau where the North School stands, but west of these going north are the Deacon Hill, back of the old poor-farm, Davis's Hunting Hill on the Townsend line, and the Ridge. East of the Townsend Road and north of Mulpus Brook lie Rattlesnake Hill and the Brattle Woods, and farther east still Squannacook Hill, along the river. These hills form part of the eastern barrier of a huge glacial lake which once filled our valleys and low- lands to the west and south. Out of the gaps in the hills, where now flow our peaceful brooks, the Mulpus and the Catacoonemug, flowed torrential glacial streams from melting ice to the west. Even these hills them- selves were once ice covered, and were worn to their pres- ent rounded contours by the constant, long erosion of the ice. And now nothing is left of that time but our rounded hills and boulders, and the ghosts of the polar bears that once gambolled over our chimney pots.
After the era of ice came the era of man, and the In-
4
SHIRLEY
dian occupied the lands. Almost every frontier town has more antiquarian remains than ours to connect it with the Indian and his time, either in the form of kitchen-middens, arrow-heads, shell deposits, or the less tangible one of names. Almost nothing here in Shirley is left of that time. No one ploughs up arrowheads or broken pottery, and Catacoonemug is the only Indian name that remains to us. Dr. Green says that all Shir- ley was known by that name to the Indian, and that the white man has restricted it to the hill, the brook, and the great sandy plain near the Nashua in the southeastern part of town. There are no traditions here of massacres or troubles, though Groton and Lan- caster, north and south of us, suffered extremely, and more than once; so that the dawn of the white man here was tranquil, and somewhat wrapped in obscurity.
Indians did not entirely disappear from the land for eighty years, though they were rare enough to be a curiosity. In March of the year 1770 James Parker writes in his Diary, "their was 7 or 8 Injons Squaws at Mr. Ivory's. I Bought a Broom & a Basket of them." In 1797, he records meeting "a Company of Injons" at a trooping.
One tale of Indians has come down to us, and one ghost story of those days. Mr. Edwin L. White, who owned the basket-shop on Mulpus some years ago, said that Stewart Phelps, who lived on the Groton Road, told how one of his ancestors came over to Shirley and built a cabin on Sugar Loaf Hill. The hill lay to the east of Mr. White's, and was levelled to allow the east- ern wing of his great house to be built. There were just the man and his wife. The Indians became rather hos-
5
A BORDER TOWN OF OLD MIDDLESEX
tile, and the little family decided to move to Lancaster. So one morning the man rose early and started to go for help in his moving. The wife saw two Indians come up the river after he had left. They drew up their canoe on the bank and came toward the house, so she pulled in the latch-string, barricaded the door and then hid herself. The Indians came to the house and stayed around for some time. After a while they left and she undid her door. About four o'clock her husband came with some men and they moved to Lancaster.
As early as 1745 there was a house on this same place, for a Page was born there that year. Simon Page was the settler. Page built a small house, with one story, two rooms below, and an open attic. The truth is that this is the type of the first framed houses all over town. Oliver, the twelfth and youngest son, turned the house half round, added two more rooms and a second story. This he crowned with a hip roof so that it looked much as the Joseph Hazen house looks today. Mr. White made the great addition in 1862 when Wood's Village was a thriving place, building army wagons. The oldest Page house can still be seen in the two east- ern rooms of the main house. Simon Page married Hannah Gilson, the daughter of our first miller.
The Mulpus was a goodly stream for a mill, and early in the eighteenth century Eleazer Gilson came from Groton to set up a rival to the "old mill" in Harvard. The distance from Groton was almost as great as that to the "old mill," but as that was always taxed to the limit of its capacity, the new one prospered from the first. Eleazer married Hannah, daughter of Joseph and Hannah Farwell, on her eighteenth birthday, and
JAMES WILSON'S CARDING MILL, THE GREAT ROAD
....
7
A BORDER TOWN OF OLD MIDDLESEX
it is probable that it was in that year, 1719, that he settled at the mill. Here on February 19, 1720, Eleazer the younger was born, the first white child that we are absolutely sure was born in our territory. We can hardly realize the isolation of these young people, for when the Groton proprietors granted him three acres "lying near his mill pond" and "bounding east on his own land" every other bound was on "common land," which means unbroken forest and no neighbors. His mill-dam was the one just west of "Kilbourn's Red Mill," so called in later years. You can still see the abutments of heavy stone if you are brave enough to crawl through the bushes. The Gilsons stayed until 1727, and then they sold the mill and its belongings, and all the land to Ebenezer Sprague. The Gilson family started another mill on Stony Brook in Groton, sold that and moved to Pepperell. There Eleazer became one of the "first citizens" as well as the first miller. Just opposite the mill-dam, at the cross-roads, a ghost of an Indian brave was supposed to "walk o'nights." No one has ever seen the ghost to my knowledge except Mr. Edwin White. He saw something white there one night as he was going toward home, but when he had worked his courage up to meet the ghost, he found it was only an old white horse peacefully grazing.
Ebenezer Sprague stayed but three years, just long enough for his son, Ebenezer, to be born, and then he sold all Gilson had sold him, and thirty-seven acres more to Seth Walker. He sold a "farm on both sides of Mulpus Brook containing a dwelling house, barn, saw-mill and corn-mill." I think, as the deeds read, that the mill was on the north side of Mulpus, because the
8
SHIRLEY
greater part of the land was on thatside. Walker held the mill till 1742, and, being then of Narragansett No. 2, sold it all to Francis Harris of Watertown, our most famous
1798
Jurk : harris
miller on the Mulpus. The land contained fifty-seven acres, with a "highway through"-the Great Road -which Groton had by that time laid out. It was at this mill site, in 1828, when James Wilson owned it, that an incident occurred of which Mr. Herman Hazen used to speak. His grandfather, Stephen Longley, spent all one Sunday morning sawing a log almost in two; the log was used as a foot-bridge across Mulpus Brook near the mill where the water was deep. There he lay in the bushes until Oliver Laughton, who was courting Polly Phelps Jennerson, should come across in his Sunday clothes. Laughton came, and was ducked. Mr. Hazen says that his grandfather would work very hard for a result like this.
Mr. Chandler has told about the later mills so well and so fully that it is unnecessary for anyone else to at- tempt the task. It is only the inaccessibility of the very early records, that makes this supplement of any avail. All kinds of things have been made in Shirley at one time or another, and one can find dams and mill sites on streams that have now grown so small as to be dry for half the year. One dam can still be found on the small
MEHITABLE WHITCOMB WIFE OF JOSEPH EDGARTON
JOSEPH EDGARTON BORN 1777
9
A BORDER TOWN OF OLD MIDDLESEX
stream which runs south through the land now owned by Mr. James P. Tolman.
The Longleys, who started the mills on the Catacoone- mug, built their first mill on the north bank, for the "road to the mill" on the north bank of the brook was laid out by the town and accepted very early in its his- tory. I believe that there has been a dispute of late upon this question, but the road has never been discontinued as a public highway.
Mulpus has had four distinct "water privileges," one just south of the poor-farm and three east of the Horse Pond Road. The Catacoonemug has three mill sites, and Bow Brook one. This, with the one upon the Nashua, makes nine, a goodly number for so small a town. Those on the Mulpus are all abandoned but one, the haul to the railroad track being too far. The rest are all still doing their work.
.
Pumpkin Brook
Trap Swamp
Squawna cook Road
Kezar H.18
The Ridge
Townsend Road
Garrison Road
Tarbell! Mills
Davis's
Hunting 1.12
Groton Road
Savanna cook River
Bolton Mendory
HiML
Deacons Hill
Bruttie or Rattlesnake Hi ??
Heathy
Branie Woods
Meadow
R.
1
Great Road
ROAS
P.nT
Bridge
Road
Great Rond
Harris's Myils of
How's Village
Whitney Road
NATri
rt Common
Horse Pand
Chaplin Hill
Horse Pand Road
Plam
Spruce Swamp
Warren
walker Brown
Haven Road
Love Swamp
Merse Brack
Brook
Hatt
Ribs 1.21
Patterson Road
Benjamin
Clark Roar
Peabody Road
Mam Street
Shahay Bricks
Tray
Salandine Meadow
Catecoonemna Hills
The Major Hill
Mount Hende- Road
Cattecashemay Brook
Mount Heavy
Silvey Mme Let
Leominster Road
Frost's or Wildes's Bridge
Haven
Shakof Road
for line
mvq Plam
Boardmana Tophet Swamp
Harvard Road
Wills Road
Share. Village
Round
Him
MAP OF LOCAL NAMES IN SHIRLEY
Monacoics
Stal Col ort The North Bend
Centre Road
Benjamin Paar
Hill
Farm. Now Ayer
Dead Pons Thanker Hill
Trest Road
Longleys Mille
Nashua River
Phiêniv And
Bowers or Bow Breek
Cattlecoone
Lancaster Road
Stowleq
Kitridge Road
Sqvannacesk
@ Beaver Pond Brook
Little Turnpike
Mulpus Brosk
Beat Pand
Beaver Pond
Parker Road
Green Land
Mmg Road
Lunenburg Road
Holden Rods
Inter vale
Pound
- Chase's Brings
Farm
Run
Squannacook
Mulpus Rom.&
Town Meeting Rand
Lawton Road
Mulbus Drop.
The Os Bove
II
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FARMER
IN THE old days, when methods of work about the house and farm were prized for their hoary antiquity rather than, as now, for their novelty, and all farmers did as their ancestors had done, there was hardly a man in the New England towns who was not engaged in the pleasant occupation of farming. The storekeeper and the miller plowed, harrowed, and cultivated in the in- tervals of their other work, and the minister himself hung up his gown after the last service on Sunday, and, like the rest of the community, worked his land on Mon- day morning. A century ago each town owned a farm, the use of which was allowed the minister, rent free, as a part of his salary.
The struggle in modern times is for the money to buy the necessities of life; then there was less to buy, and each man was dependent on his own exertions to get the necessities themselves from the soil or from the stock which he could afford to keep.
In those days, aside from the work which the miller or the itinerant cobbler performed, each farm was a nearly self-supporting entity, both for food and cloth- ing. In modern times the great English artist, printer, and socialist, William Morris, founded a settlement which tried to be independent of the outside world, grow- ing and making all its own necessities and luxuries. The experiment was no more of a success than Mr. Alcott's
. . .
SQUIRE JAMES PARKER'S HOUSE, VALLEY ROAD
I3
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FARMER
similar scheme at Fruitlands, in the town of Harvard. In our great-grandfathers' time, however, this was no experiment, curious and interesting, but a fact to be reckoned with from day to day throughout their lives.
The village store sold the few luxuries of life-white and brown sugar, salt, West Indian goods, such as molas- ses and spices, and, most of all, New England rum.
Nearly every town boasted a foundry, where articles were made by hand, which would be far beyond the ability of our modern blacksmith. Here were made the plows and scythes, if the foundry was equipped with a trip hammer; shovels and hoes for outside work; nails for the carpenter, from the great iron spike to the shingle nail. The tools the carpenter used also came from the hands of the local blacksmith. In many country towns, old garrets will yield great chisels, primitive axes, and wrought iron bitstocks, all made by hand and testify- ing to the excellence of workmanship by their age and condition. The household utensils, too, were his work, the fire dogs, toasting racks, hobs, iron kettles, skillets, and an endless array of less common things; and all this in addition to the shoeing of horses and oxen.
From 1770 to 1830 almost without a break, a good man of Shirley kept a line-a-day diary, and from that I am going to quote, from the four seasons of the year, to show the dull routine of work in which the lives of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were passed; how it lacked the diversified interests which we consider nec- essary to our happiness today, and yet how little the unrest of modern times enters into any of its spirit.
Take these short sketches of the life of James Parker, known as "Squire James," a young and newly married man in 1770:
14
SHIRLEY
January I. I went to Groton as an Evidence against Thos Little at Colo. Prescott, & from thence to my Mothers, & Lodged there that Night & It Rained that Night & Carried off all the Snow.
Ye 2 Day Moses Dickenson Cut Hogshed Pools on Philemons Holdens Land. Cold weather for Until ye 6, & then warm & Rainy. Ye [6] I was gone from home all this week. Moses was gone 5 Days to old Mr Graves &c.
Ye 8 Day It Cleared of Cold, & their was a Great flood. Ye same day Moses Dickinson Brought 200 of Hogsd whop poles. Ye Same Day I cleaned up my Oats, 5 Bushels
I worked att Mr Ivorys this 13 Day, & ground, & Boutled 3 Bushel of my own wheat for Doct Taylor. It snowed some this Day, & cleared off att Night. Ye snow Came about 8 Inches Deep.
Ye 15 Day I went to Lunenburgh & Carried Doct Taylor 3 Q' 22 Ib &. A Cold Day as Ever you See. Moses Dressed flax for Philemon Holden.
Ye 16 Day Sleded wood for myself.
Ye 17 I Load my Cord of Bark, & sent to Wesford by Fletcher; it was fair & cold.
Later on in April he began the spring house-cleaning that has to be done on every farm, and we find fencing, plowing and kindred occupations taking the place of the barn and indoor work.
April ye 3. Jonas & I went to George Perces, & had a scag, & also we went to Phelpps.
Ye 5 Day was ye Fast.
Ye 7 Day I finished keeping school at Dacon Longleys. Their I keep it one week.
Ye 9 I Begun to Lay Loague fence; & Mr Ivorys mill wheal Brook, & I went & sawed some stuff for Another. Moses Cleared Down the Brook. Nabby went to ye forge & my wife ye Same Day. It was a Cold Backward Weather, or Season.
Ye 12 My old Cow Calved. Nabey went to Mr Whitneys. Paul Dickinson Came & Swaped jacoats with Moses. Jonas made me a Cagg; my stear Bill Broak this same Day.
Ye 13 Jonas went to Groton this 13 & 14 Days. Moses & I Layed Up my loag fence. It Rained a little this Day, or Else their was no rain for a Month.
15
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FARMER
Ye 15 was warm, like spring the most of any.
Ye 16 Moses went and Brought my Plow from Hastings. Jonas Came to my house. It was warm it Rained at Night. Ye 17 Moses went away to old Graveses.
Ye 18 Jonas & I walked out, & he went with B. L .*
Ye 19 I Plowed at Cattecunemug Farm. Jonas went away this morning. wentworth made my Plow Plates this Day.
The midsummer work is most interesting to us be- cause our modern methods are so very different. In July, with us now, the farmer thinks of nothing but hay and again hay. Here during the first two weeks of July, Parker makes not one allusion to that most necessary product.
July Ye 3 & 4 I Helped M' Sam11 Walker with my oxen Brake Up. It was very Coul for the season. Moses worked for ye old Graves, then went to Beamans.
Ye 5 I sot out some tobacco Plants.
Ye 6. I Helped Philemon Holden Brake Up with my Oxen. We went with 16 Oxen.
Ye 7. I Begun to how my Purtatoes at Cattacunemug farm. Moses was at Beamans. It was very Dry weather, & Coul Nights.
Ye 10 Day finished howing this Day at my Purtatoes. Hired Na1. Chase half ye Day to help me. I swaped hats ye same.
Ye II I went to John Littles for Cherries. I begun to hill my Corn att home ye Same Day. It Still Remained Dry Weather.
Ye 12 Day Jest att Night their was a fine Shower. Fine showers the Day following.
Ye 13 & 14 I was hilling Corn att home.
Ye 16 I finished Brakeing up my great field, father Willard helped me & with his oxen. Elijah Jur. Helped me with his father's four, & I had M' Ivorys, & Joshua Chases. I finished in the four noon.
*Betty Little.
16
SHIRLEY
All this shows the constant reiteration of plowing, mowing, raking, hoeing, all done by hand or with the slow-paced oxen. How many lessons in patience the farmer learned in those days, and what a dignified ease there was about it all!
In October preparations for the winter began.
October ye I I thrashed my Beans, & Brought home; & Carried 16 Bushell of Ashes to Wm Longleys Potash.
Ye 2 I Brought home a Pigg from Sd Longleys, & I went to fathers Wild.
Ye 3 I carried 2 Barriels for Elijeh Wilds to fill with syder. Wentworth Griped for my Cart. It was a Cold Storm.
Ye 4. I Begun to Dig my Purtatoes at Cats. Fetched two Barrels of syder with my stears from Hazens mill.
Ye 5 I Carried my 5 Barrels to father Wild, & got Nine Bushell of Appels for winter. It was warm weather.
Ye 6 I got in my stalks & husked.
Ye 8 I fixed my hovel. It still remained warm.
Ye 9 I begun to Harvest my Corn.
A little later, after frost had set in, more animals were killed-cattle, sheep, and pigs-and frozen. The crea- tures were hung whole in the attic or in some conven- ient shed, and represented the winter's supply. Apples were dried or turned into cider, for few were kept in barrels for the winter's use, as we now keep them.
December This I Day of December Came In Like a Lion. I was Tending mills at M' Ivory's.
Ye 3 James Dickenson has 135 feet of Boards. Fine this Day.
Ye 4 Mr Ivory Helped me kill my fat Stear. He weighed 8214 Qr
Ye 5 Jonas Parker, & Wm Wasson was att my house at knight, & got his new Coloaths, & they swaped theirs; & I swaped with Jonas ye same (knight.)
Ye 6 Day, was thanksgiving. Jonas Parker, James Dicker- son, Nathan Willard went to supper att my house.
17
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FARMER
Ye 7 I & my wife went to father Willards. It was warm these Days & but little snow. A Great many wedings this week in several Towns.
Ye 8 I carried 14 Bushels of ashes to Longleys.
Ye 10 I sleded some Coper stuff, & fetched home some Cloath from Deacon Longley.
Ye II I worked att ye Mills, some Att Longleys.
Ye 12 I carried 6121b Cotton to Peter Willards. It was warm weather, & very little Snow.
Most towns had cider mills in which the neighbors had rights. The mills were usually stone-walled and sometimes were cut into a hillside, like a cellar open in front. Inside was the great press, which was worked by a horse going round and round, harnessed to a great bar overhead. The size of the press is evidence of the universal use of cider.
There is one note which is dominant throughout the diary, and that is one of mutual helpfulness. When haying time came, it was not each man for himself, but all the men of a small neighborhood worked together, and harvested the hay from each farm until it was all well housed. Even then the harvest was slow in com- parison with what our modern machinery will accom- plish. If any were in trouble, help was immediate and practical. If a man were sick and the burden fell on the woman alone, the cattle were tended and the work done by the neighbors.
The food of our forefathers has always had a certain enchantment. Who can read of the chicken roasting on the spit before the open fire without wanting a taste; or who can listen to the tales of one's grandmother about the great bakings of these days without a feeling of long- ing? In hunting over dry deeds in the Court House in Cambridge, I came across one which interested me very 3
1100
HEZEKIAH PATTERSON'S HOUSE, CLARK ROAD
19
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FARMER
much, as it gave an enlightening touch to the question which to all housekeepers is a most vivid daily one -- the food problem.
In 1823, Hezekiah Patterson, who lived in the east- ern part of Shirley, being old and tired of the respon- sibility of farming, sold his forty-eight acres of land and his house and barn to Thomas Hazen Clark, in exchange for the support of himself and his wife, Jane, for the rest of their lives. They reserved room enough for their horse and its hay in the barn, and room enough in the house for themselves, and then gave an itemized ac- count of what they called "support" for one year.
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