As soon as I could get my nieces started for Providence, I started for Stonington,--the most easy of the ways of getting to New York, as I should avoid Point Judith.
"I went to the boat at the Stonington wharf about noon, and remained on board until morning--there were few passengers, it was very quiet, and I slept well.
"Arriving in New York, I took cars at 9 A.M.for Poughkeepsie, and reached the college at dinner-time.

I went to work the same evening.
"As I could not tell at what time the comet would pass the meridian, I stationed myself at the telescope in the meridian-room by 10 P.M., and watched for the comet to cross.

As it approached the meridian, I saw that it would go behind a scraggy apple-tree.

I sent for the watchman, Mr.Crumb, to come with a saw, and cut off the upper limbs.

He came back with an axe, and chopped away vigorously; but as one limb after another fell, and I said, 'I need more, cut away,' he said, 'I think I must cut down the whole tree.' I said, 'Cut it down.' I felt the barbarism of it, but I felt more that a bird might have a nest in it.
"I found, when I went to breakfast the next morning, that the story had preceded me, and I was called 'George Washington.' "But for all this, I got almost no observation; the fog came up, and I had scarcely anything better than an estimation.