in our limits. No native white inhabitant of this town has ever suffered death by the hand of the law, nor any one, it is believed, in the Old Colony. Nor has there been any instance of duelling in our territories, since that in 1621, noticed in page thirty-eight. We conjure every citizen to hold to his integrity, and resolve sternly to resist the influence of the emissaries from the old world, who would gladly subvert our free institutions and enthral the minds of the rising generation in the dark clouds of corruption and ignorance.

It has been the anxious desire of all nations in all ages of the world, that genealogies from their original foundations should be correctly recorded, and transmitted to future generations. Posterity love to trace back their progenitors in an uninterrupted line to the earliest periods. In no instance do we recognize a people who have a more peculiar interest in the transactions of their ancestors than the descendants of the puritan fathers of New England; nor are the descendants of any people furnished with more abundant data for the purpose of tracing the founders of a nation. When the Saxons came over and settled in England, the British sirnames were emerged, and all record of the original inhabitants by their sirnames vanished from the page of history. But in our country the reverse of this is our happy destiny. By far the largest proportion of our sirnames are those which were precious to our puritan fathers, and ever will be to their posterity. The spreading branches of the genealogical tree from the stock of the pilgrims will ever command admiration and respect, and it would be exceedingly gratifying could we be able to delineate the descendants through their generations by family genealogies; but although so early as 1646, the court ordered that in each town a clerk should be appointed whose duty it should be to record all marriages, births and deaths, yet no one was appointed in this town till 1679, and the records prior to that time were very imperfect.

The following are the names found among the first comers and early settlers in this town. Those with this* mark died the first winter.

Free Schools. Our ancestors were well apprised of the great importance of school establishments for the education of the rising generation. So early as February 11th, 1635, we find among the court orders the following: Benjamin Eaton, with his mother's consent, is put to Bridget Fuller, being to keep him at school two years, and employ him after in such service as she saw good, and he shall be fit for.' We find no further notice of this subject till June, 1662, when the court recommended to the consideration of the several towns, some preparations for schools; and in 1663, it was enacted by the court, 'That the several townships in the jurisdiction, ought to take into their serious consideration, that there may be a school-master in each town to teach the children in reading and writing.' In 1668, John Morton, who was a nephew of the Secretary, offered to teach children and youth of the town to read and write and cast accounts, on reasonable considerations. In 1670, a grant was made by the government of the colony, of all such profits as might or should annually accrue to the colony, from time to time, for fishing with nets or seines at Cape Cod, for mackerel, bass, or herrings, to be improved for and towards a free school in some town of this jurisdiction, provided a beginning were made within one year of the grant.' And in August, 1671, John Morton appeared at town-meeting, and renewed his proposal to erect and keep a town school, which was accepted. In the following year, the court declared the school in Plymouth entitled to the profits of the Cape Cod fishery, and appointed Thomas Hinckley, steward of said school, to take charge of its funds. In the same year, 1672, the profits and benefits of the Agawam and Sippican lands were appropriated by the town to the maintenance of the Free School, then began in town, and not to be estranged from that end.' This was the first Free School ordained by law in New England. We are not, however, unmindful of a prior law in the neighboring colony of Massachusetts, in 1647, for a similar purpose. But that law did not in reality ordain Free Schools, but a reasonable tax on the scholars was left to the direction of the towns. Nearly all the schools in that colony in 1671, and much later, were supported in part by such a tax; but there can be no doubt that in Boston a free school actually existed before this period, or perhaps one or two elsewhere in the jurisdiction. Though Mr. Morton's school in Plymouth was strictly entitled by the terms of the colony grant to its benefits, yet, as he only taught to read and write, and cast accounts,' it failed, perhaps, under his instruction, to meet the expectations of the country. In the year last mentioned, 1672, a Mr. Corlet, a graduate of Cambridge, was the instruc

tor. It would seem that the higher standard of school learning, under Mr. Corlet, did not please the town much better than the plain education by Mr. Morton, had satisfied the government. Two years after, viz., in 1674, the town, as if apprehensive that the Latin and Greek were encroaching on the more useful departments after limiting the grant, which it had made of the Agawam and Sippican lands, to such only as had purchased of the Indians previous thereto, entered these directions, that their children be instructed in reading, when they are entered, in the Bible: and also that they be taught to write and cypher, beside that which the country, (that is, the colonial government)_expects from said school.' Notice is again taken of the Free School, by the general court in 1675, and the Cape Fishery money appropriated to it. The profits of this fishery amounted to from 30 to 40 pounds per ann. In 1677, notwithstanding the distressing war with King Philip, the court ordered that, ‘In whatever township in this government, consisting of 50 families or upwards, any meet man shall be obtained to teach a grammar school, such township shall allow at least twelve pounds, to be raised by rate on all the inhabitants of said town: and those that have the more immediate benefit thereof, with what others shall voluntarily give, shall make up the residue necessary to maintain the same, and that the profits arising from the Cape Fishery, heretofore ordered to maintain a grammar school in this colony, be distributed to such towns as have such grammar schools, not exceeding five pounds per ann. to any town. And further this court orders, that every such town as consists of seventy families and upwards, and hath not a grammar school therein, shall allow and pay unto the next town that hath a grammar school, the sum of five pounds to be levied on the inhabitants by rate, and gathered by the constables of such towns, by warrant from any magistrate of this jurisdiction.'

In 1669, it was ordered that the selectmen procure a school master for the town, and settle him as near the centre as may be convenient, and that every scholar who comes to write or cypher or to learn Latin, shall pay three pence per week; if to read only, then to pay three half pence per week, and what remains due to the school to be levied by rate on the inhabitants. 1703, at town meeting it was voted, that there shall be a grammar school master provided for the use of the town, and that there shall be a rate on the inhabitants to defray the charges thereof. In September, 1705, the town voted to pay £30 per year for a school master for the term of seven years, provided that said schoolmaster be settled within 40 rods of the old meeting house, and that the town pay £20 per year during the said

seven years, and all children sent to said school, excepting the children of those who have subscribed for the support of the teacher, that live within one mile of said school, pay four pence a week for instruction in Latin, writing, or cyphering, and two pence a week for reading, and all those that are without the bounds of one mile and within the bounds of two miles to pay two pence per week for Latin, writing, or cyphering, and one penny for reading, excepting the children of such as through poverty are unable to pay, who are to go free, and all fines that are by the law devoted towards the support of a school and the money to be paid per week as above said to be improved toward paying the town's part of the said £20, and the subscribers to have no benefit thereby.

In 1712, September 8, the town voted that for the four years next ensuing, the use or interest of all the money voted by the town for the use of a school forever in said town, for the lands within the mile and half already sold or yet to be sold, shall be, by the town treasurer, yearly paid to Captain James Warren, Mr. Nathanie! Thomas, and Mr. John Murdock, provided they shall keep or cause to be kept, in the middle of said town, in the school house, a good grammar school, according to law for the said four years, voted also to pay or cause to be paid yearly, during the said four years, ten pounds per annum unto said Warren, Thomas, and Murdock, to be raised by rate on said inhabitants, and all fines which by law shall belong to said school within four years, shall be paid to said Warren, Thomas and Murdock; and it was also voted that during the said four years the school grant to be paid to the persons above named according to the vote, September 17th, 1705, and the said three persons, empowered by the town to collect and gather the same and to have the benefit of it.

1714. It was voted to allow £20 to the north end and £20to the south end of the town to build school houses.

1716. It was voted at town meeting on the 22d of October, that there shall be three free schools set up in the town, one at each end to teach reading and writing, and one in the middle of the town to be a grammar school, and that there be a committee chosen to provide suitable persons to keep the said schools, and the interest of the money, of what lands are sold within the mile and half, to go towards the support of the schools and the town will make up the deficiency, and the school to be continued five years. The committee was composed of Major Bradford, Isaac Lothrop, Captain Benjamin Warren, and Mr. Abiel Shurtleff. 1724.-At town meeting February 15, there was a long and warm debate whether one school or three