It is not difficult to imagine the appearance of a congregation in 1650, the men on one side, and the women on the other, sitting on wooden benches, in January, under a thatched roof, with one or two open window-places, without stoves, singing Sternhold and Hopkins and the New England Psalms, and then listening to a two-hours' service with devotion !

On Sunday, March 11, 1770, our fathers and mothers, with their entire families, entered, for the first time, their new meeting-house. Unfortunately, their beloved pastor was ill; and the services of the day were performed by Mr. Andrew Elliot, jun., a tutor in Harvard College. The celebrated George Whitefield preached a dedicatory discourse in this house, Aug. 26, 1770, fron 2 Chron. v. 14. Our fathers had no special services for the dedication of a new house of worship, because they could not tolerate any imitation of the English church; and we have always had to regret their further indiscretion in banishing, for the same poor reason, the sacred observance of Christmas and Good Friday.

June 11, 1770: "Voted not to grant seats for singers.' July 28, 1771, Sunday: On this day was used, for the first time, the new pulpit-cushion given by William Pepperell, Esq., who imported it from England, at a cost of eleven guineas.

March 5, 1787: Some inhabitants of taste and public spirit propose to plant ornamental trees in front of the meetinghouse. The town voted not to have them!

May 10, 1802: Voted to buy a new bell.

Oct. 5, 1812: Voted not to have a stove in the meetinghouse!

Never was there a house that received fewer repairs. In 1814, they who are first to discover needs, and quickest to relieve them, subscribed one hundred and fifty dollars; and soon the pulpit wore a new color, showed a new cushion, and rejoiced in new curtains. One gentleman was admitted to participation in this pious offering of the ladies, by presenting a copy of the Sacred Scriptures in two volumes.

341

SCHOOLHOUSES.

Where the first schoolhouse stood is not known; but it was probably near the meeting-house, at the West End.

The second was built according to the following order of the town, Oct. 5, 1730: "Voted to build a new schoolhouse, twenty-four feet long, twenty feet wide, and ten feet stud, on town's land, by the meeting-house." It was near Marble Brook, on the north-west corner of the lot, upon the border of the road.

The third schoolhouse stood very near the street, on land now owned by Samuel Train, Esq., about ten feet east of the house he now occupies; and, when that mansion-house was first repaired, the schoolhouse was moved, and now makes part of the rear of said dwelling.

The fourth schoolhouse stood as ordered by the following vote: March 11, 1771, "voted to build the schoolhouse upon the land behind the meeting-house, on the north-west corner of the land.” This spot is three or four rods northwest of the present meeting-house of the first parish. The building-committee were "Benjamin Hall, Captain Thomas Brooks, and Mr. Willis Hall."

These houses, above noticed, were of wood; but the town, May 5, 1795, voted to build a brick schoolhouse behind the meeting-house. They agreed to give William Woodbridge two hundred and twenty pounds, and the old schoolhouse, to build it. This was the fifth house built by the town. It consisted of one large room, sufficient for sixty or seventy pupils: it was arranged after the newest models, and furnished with green blinds, hung at their tops! The arrangement within was simple. The master's desk was on a raised platform, in one corner. Undivided seats ran lengthwise through the whole extent of the room. The oldest pupils sat with their backs to the windows, and their desks before them. The younger pupils sat below them, with their backs against the desks of their seniors, and their own desks before them. The smallest children sat below these last, leaning their backs against the desks of their seniors, but having no desks before them. The above arrangement occupied one side of the room; and the other side was exactly like it. Thus the three rows of boys on the north side faced the three rows of girls on the