This lasted for some years and finally came to an
end through the death of Joseph and the invalidism of Thomas, who was
always lame and unable to give the work his personal supervision.
Meanwhile their friends came over from the mainland to visit them, and
admired the climate so much and remained so long that the brothers
concluded to build a small hotel where these and others could pay for
their entertainment. It was a three-story building, almost square, the
parent stem of that great banyan-tree which has since spread over a
large portion of the island. The accomodations at first were primitive.
A visitor in '51 was obliged to wait an hour for a room and an
opportunity to wash his hands, though he was at the time the only guest
in the house. An empty flour-barrel turned upside down served for a
wash-stand. However, the sailing and fishing were good, as also were
Mrs. Laighton's doughnuts, of which there was always an unfailing
supply, so that numbers of people came there.
Among them was a recent graduate of Harvard, from the vicinity of
Boston, named Levi Thaxter. He was a young man of refined tastes and
rare intellectual endowment; afterwards widely known as the apostle of
Browning's poetry in America. He was not one of those college graduates
who seemed to have been run in a mould like bullets, but already
possessed character and a mind of his own.
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