Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/61

On the Marsh road, to the eastward of St. John and just beyond the Rural Cemetery, (Fernhill) is what a reflective stranger would take to be "a house with a story." It stands on the slope of the hill which rises gently from the dead level of the marsh through which run the railway and the highway, and there is a distinctive old-time look about the building and its surroundings. It is a wooden mansion dating back to the first half of the century, and it is approached by a semi-circular avenue lined with trees. In its early days it was considered to be out in the country, and at different periods in its history it was the property of well known old-time residents of St. John, who used it as a place of recreation and summer holiday resort. Among its owners were such men as the Hon. Hugh Johnston, Barton Powlett Wallop and others whose names are familiar to students of the city's history. It is likely the house of itself has much to interest the people of today, could its walls be made to speak, but the strangest story about the place belongs to a large spruce tree which used to stand in a forest growth further back on the hill, but only a few hundred feet from the highway.

Everybody with observant eye who has travelled much in the woods with some better motive than to seek out and slaughter harmless creatures, has noticed the strange resemblances to human forms and faces found in woody growth. Very often, too, the spreading base of some very old tree is fantastic enough to