The next year, September 12, 1728, Mr. Smith was married to Sarah Tyng, daughter of William Tyng, Esq., of Woburn. On his return, he was met at Scarborough by a number of his parishioners, who escorted him home and regaled him and his bride with "a noble supper," prepared for the occasion.' The town was a long time finishing his dwelling-house; we find as late as October, 1732, an appropriation of one hundred and forty-six pounds fourteen shillings and ten pence made for completing it... It was the best house in the village for many years, as late as 1740, it contained the only papered room in town, and this, by way of distinction, used to be called "the papered room;" the paper was put on with nails and not by paste.

'Smith's Journal. For further particulars relating to the settlement of Mr. Smith, and a copy of the church covenant, etc., see Smith's Journal, 2d edition, notes, pp 60-65.

CHAPTER XIV.

EDUCATION-SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS-EDUCATED MEN-PUBLIC LIBRARY.

In the first years after the revival of the town, the inhabitants were so much occupied in providing for the security of their estates and for their very existence, that but little thought or attention was bestowed on the education of their children. The earliest notice we have on this subject is from the records, September 15, 1729, eleven years after the incorporation of the town, when "the selectmen were requested to look out for a schoolmaster to prevent the town's being presented." Their consideration was then aroused, it would seem, rather from fear of the law than a proper regard to the importance of the subject. The existing laws required every town containing fifty families to support one schoolmaster constantly, and those containing one hundred families to maintain a grammar school. It was not until 1726 that the number of families brought the town within the lowest provision of the statute; it is therefore probable, considering the poverty of the people, that no measures for public education had been taken previous to the time mentioned in the record; nor does it appear that any person was procured on that occasion.

The first notice we meet with of the actual employment of a teacher is in 1733, when Robert Bayley was hired at a salary of seventy pounds a year, to keep six months upon the Neck,

three months at Purpooduck, and three on the north side of Back Cove. The next year the places of his labor were varied and he was required to keep two months each, on the Neck, at Purpooduck, Stroudwater, Spurwink, New Casco, and Presumpscot, and his salary was raised to seventy-five pounds. In 1735 his services were divided between the first and second parishes, seven months in the former and five in the latter. In 1735 he received six pounds extra as grammar schoolmaster; this is the first intimation we have of the establishment of a grammar school in town, although it must have had the statute number of families several years before. The same year Mr. Sewall kept here six months, and as no further notice is taken of Mr. Bailey it is probable that Mr. Sewall took his place. The next year Nicholas Hodge was employed, under a vote of the town to keep the grammar school, and the first parish was allowed the privilege of fixing the location on paying twenty pounds toward the salary.3 Mr. Hodge was then a student at Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1739; he kept here again in the three years 1739 to 1741, while preparing for the ministry under the care of Mr. Smith; he preached for Mr. Smith in 1743. It is probable that in 1737 the grammar school became a distinct school, in which higher branches were taught than had been before practiced, as in that

Robert Bailey was admitted a proprietor on the payment of ten pounds, August 17, 1727, and in February following a house lot was granted to him on the south side of Middle street, where Plum street has since been laid out. He probably came from Newbury where the Bailey family settled about 1642. The ancestor was John, who came from Chippenham, England, to Salisbury, about 1639, with his son John, and died in Newbury, 1651. A John Bailey was admitted an inhabitant here, December 14, 1727, and Joseph in 1728. In 1745 Robert Bailey and his wife Martha were dismissed from the church in Falmouth to the church in North Yarmouth.

2 Purpooduck had then been set off as a second parish.

3 Mr. Hodge came from Newbury and was probably a relative of Phineas Jones, one of our principal inhabitants, whose wife was a Hodge from that town. Nicholas was born in Newbury, May 20, 1719, and died in 1743.

year a person of liberal education had for the first time been employed. About this time Samuel Stone kept a school in his house on the bank of Fore river near the foot of Center street: Thankful Poge, born in 1731, in a deposition which she has left behind her, says she went to him two summers some time before Capt. Breton was taken the first time. In 1745 one hundred and thirty pounds were voted "to pay the schoolmaster now among us," and the selectmen were authorized to proportion his time in the several districts according to taxes; the same year fifty pounds were raised by the town toward paying a grammar schoolmaster, and the people on the Neck by making up his salary were to have the school kept among them; this favor was annually granted them until the division of the town. In the same year Stephen Longfellow, the first of the family who settled in town, and the ancestor of all of the name now among us, came here April 11, and opened a school in six days afterward: it was probably the grammar school. He continued to be the principal instructor in town until he was appointed clerk of the court on the division of the

Stone was a boat builder by trade, he was admitted an inhabitant in 1727, and a house lot was granted him at the foot of Center street. He subsequently moved to Manchester, Massachusetts, where he died in 1778, leaving several children. Mrs. Poge was a daughter of Cox, who lived in a house which stood near where High street now enters Fore street, on the spot where the late Mr. Tinkham's house stands. There were then no streets opened in that quarter of the town. In going to school, she says, she went down a foot-path and crossed the gulley on a stringpiece. This gulley was formed by water running from the fountain and the wet lands in that neighborhood and entered the river near where Mrs. Oxnard's house is. These landmarks have been obliterated by modern improvements, and we may now define the gully as crossing York street about where Brown's sugar-house is. Teams had to pass on the beach under the bank.

2 The currency at this time was old tenor, which was at a depreciation of seven to one; upon this scale the salary of the schoolmaster was humble indeed, not exceeding eighty dollars in silver.

county in 1760. In the early part of this time he occupied a

1 Mr. Longfellow was grandson of William, who was born in the county of Hampshire, England, about 1651; he came over a young man and established himself in the parish of Byfield, in Newbury, November 10, 1678; he married Anne Sewall, daughter of Henry Sewall, by his wife, Jane Dummer. Their children were William, Ann, Stephen, Eliza, and Nathan. In 1687 he went to England to obtain his patrimony: after his return, he joined the Canada expedition as ensign in 1690, under Sir William Phipps, and perished by shipwreck on the island Anticosti, October, 1690.

His son Stephen, born in 1685, married Abigail, a daughter of the Rev. Edward Thompson of Marshfield, who were the parents of our schoolmaster Stephen, the fifth of their ten children; he was born in Byfield, February 7, 1723, and graduated at Harvard College in 1742. In 1749 he married Tabitha Bragdon, a daughter of Samuel Bragdon of York, by whom he had three sons, Stephen, Samuel, and William, and one daughter, Tabitha, married to Capt. John Stephenson, 1771. Stephen was born in 1750, and became an honored and valued citizen here. William died young. Samuel was a loyalist in the revolution and died on Long Island, New York, in 1780 or 1781. William and Samuel left no children.

Stephen, who first came here, was for many years one of the most intelligent, active, and considerable of our citizens. He was clerk of the first parish twentythree years, town clerk twenty-two years, register of Probate and clerk of the Judicial Courts sixteen years from 1760, and was the first who held the latter two offices in this county; he wrote a clear, distinct, and beautiful hand, in which accomplishment ho was followed by his three successive generations of the same

name.

He lived, at the beginning of the revolution, on that part of Fore street which fronted the beach, east of India street; his house was destroyed in the sack of the town by Mowatt, October, 1775, when he moved to Gorham, where he died May, 1790, universally beloved and respected. He was brought to this town for burial.

Mr. Longfellow had been keeping school in York when he was invited here. The following invitation, a letter from the Rev. Mr. Smith, brought him.

"Falmouth, November 15, 1744. Sir, We need a schoolmaster. Mr. Plaisted advises of your being at liberty. If you will undertake the service in this place you may depend upon our being generous, and your being satisfied. I wish you'd come as soon as possible and doubt not but you'll find things much to your content. Your humble ser't. THOS. SMITH.

P. S. I write in the name and with the power of the selectmen of the town. If you can't serve us pray advise us of it per first opportunity."

The number of scholars in 1746, was fifty, embracing girls and boys of the familiar names of that day, Smith, Moody, Mountfort, Brackett, Waite, Bradbury,