Never were husband and wife better mated. They lived together
most happily and long,--she dying, at an advanced age, only two years
before him. Meantime, she had, from the first, brought him some
marriage-portion beyond that which the Muses are wont to give with
their daughters,--namely, laurels and bays; and she bore him three
sons and five daughters, near half of whom the parents survived. Three
(Joseph the younger, Winifred, and Sarah, now Mrs. Seaton) were born
in England; a fourth, at the town of Altona, (near Hamburg,) from
which she was named; and the rest in America.
To resume this story in the order of events. Mr. Gales went on with
his journal, and when it had grown quite flourishing, he added to his
printing-office the inviting appendage of a book-store, which also
flourished. In the progress of both, it became necessary that he
should employ a clerk. Among the applicants brought to him by an
advertisement of what he needed, there presented himself an unfriended
youth, with whose intelligence, modesty, and other signs of the future
man within, he was so pleased that he at once took him into his
employment,--at first, merely to keep his accounts,--but, by degrees,
for superior things,--until, progressively, he (the youth) matured
into his assistant editor, his dearest friend, and finally his
successor in the journal. That youth was James Montgomery, the poet.
On the 10th of April, 1786, Mrs. Gales gave birth, at Eckington, their
rural home, to her first child, Joseph, the present chief of the
"Intelligencer.
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