In the month of August, 1840, the twenty-seventh day, to be exact, I was still at the “old H——n Place” with my grandparents. “Just before bedtime” of the night of that day my grandmother called the attention of the household to the mournful and unusual howls of the little house dog that was sitting in the front yard with his nose pointed straight up, crying most piteously.

The incident connected with that sad sound was destined to affect me so 196 nearly that I have never lost it, and can hear it to-day as clearly as I heard it fifty-four years ago. In about three weeks after the demonstration by the little dog, the news arrived that my father, Lorenzo Dow Hawkins, to whom I was passionately attached, had died at St. Louis, Mo., late in the afternoon of August 27th. My kind-hearted old grandmother looked down tenderly upon me, and said, “I knew something dreadful had happened. Poor child, you will never see your father again!”

In 1854 I visited St. Louis and saw Dr. Simmons, who had attended my father during his last illness, and he remembered his death having occurred in the afternoon, probably, between five and six o’clock. The difference in time between Vermont and Missouri, would make the moment of his death late in the afternoon at one place 197 and between eight and nine at the other.

    Since writing this account, a doubt has arisen in my mind in relation to the time when the two important incidents occurred. I am not quite certain that the death of my father and the howling of the dog took place at the same moment. I do remember, however, that both incidents occurred about the same time, and I have a vague recollection of having heard my grandmother say, that the unusual and peculiar howl meant a death in the family. And when the news of my father’s decease arrived she expressed her belief in the certain connection between the two incidents.

AUGUST 12, 1864

In the month of August, 1864, I was visiting at the country residence of my wife’s mother, in the State of Rhode Island. Her oldest son, Alfred Nicholas Brown, was at that time staying at the New York Hotel in the City of New York. His younger sister was the owner of, and had with her at her mother’s residence, an intelligent little French poodle of a most affectionate and sensitive nature. He suffered from 198 the effects of the summer heat and was very much annoyed by the attacks of house flies, and in order, as far as possible, to avoid both annoyances, spent the greater part of his time in a dark closet adjoining the sleeping room occupied by my wife and myself.

“Tommy” was an unusually quiet dog, seldom barking, and had never been known to howl save when certain notes of the piano were touched. About three o’clock in the morning of the 12th of August we heard a most plaintive and sorrowful howl from “Tommy” in his closet, which continued until he was stopped by being spoken to. At half past seven o’clock, the same morning, while the family were at breakfast a telegram was handed to the mother, announcing the death of her son at the New York Hotel at ten minutes past three o’clock that morning.

The fact of “Tommy’s” howl had 199 been mentioned previously, and I am not quite certain if it was discussed, but have been informed that at least one member of the family had insisted that it was the forerunner of bad news. The bad news undoubtedly followed, but did “Tommy” obtain it in advance, and if he did, how? Or was his unusual howl an accidental coincidence?
MARCH 8, 1871

On the afternoon of March 8th, 1871, I was called to the bed-side of an old and intimate friend who resided at Newport, Rhode Island. He had spent six weeks of the winter at the Everett House in New York, the latter part of the time confined to his room, and when I saw him he was very near his end.

Our friendship was very close and 200 of many years standing, and we had had an understanding between us to the effect that the one who survived the other should inspect, and, at his discretion, destroy, letters and other private papers left by the one deceased.

In pursuance of that understanding my friend handed me a package of keys, and requested me to take the boat that afternoon for Newport, to go to his house, to open his safe, to look over his letters and other papers, and to destroy such as I might think ought not to be preserved.

I arrived at Newport at one o’clock the next morning, and drove directly to his house. As I opened the front gate, a hundred feet or more from the front door of the house, his Irish setter dog “Charlie” came bounding down through the lawn to greet me. When he discovered I was not his master, he showed 201 signs of great disappointment, but, when he came to realize that I was an old friend, he was better satisfied. The servants l............