OCR Text |
Show A DESCENDANT OF SHAKESPEARE - Speaking of some Shakespearian relics now being exhibited in Middleton, the Press of that place says: Until this exhibition drew out the fact, it was not known that this village held a lineal decendant [descendant] of the great poet. Mrs. Mary A. Bakewell, a widow residing on North street, contributes several interesting relics which have been handed down to her, through her family, from the poet himself, and from his wife and mother. One relic is a heavy silver snuff box, which the record says was presented to William Shakespeare by a friend during his theatrical career in London, about the year 1600. It came down in regular descent to James Shakespeare, the fifth generation from the poet, and from him to his daughter Mary, wife of Thomas Thomas Vernon, and remained in her custody until her death, and with her children in England until 1802, when it was sent with a bag to the United States, to Mrs. M. A. Bakewell by the hands of her husband when returning from a visit to England. |