There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, The village master taught his little school.', Goldsmith.
"Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." Id.

The deep, damp vault, the darkness and the worm." Young.

THE School!
Of Course it continued to exist with the Settlers, for they, almost all, had themselves fed on the pabulum of education. They knew its sweetness, its vital nourishment, the quick, noble energies it inspires, and its glorious fruitage. And their 11 wee ones" were many, for they were a prolific race. How their baptisms stare one in the face in the second volume of our Town Records! They gathered their offspring numerously "as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings"-and tended them with as much care, till feathered and firm with years, the adolescent bipeds could take care of themselves. It is not how ever until 1642, that we find any direct notice in the records of their School, though beyond doubt it exist.. ed before. Then, December sixth, thirty pounds are settled upon it. Again, 1643, it is directed that sixteen pounds a year shall be paid to Mr. Andrews for keeping it. This is William Andrews. He is the first Town Schoolmaster then mentioned in our Records.

He lived on the north corner of the present Elm and Bliss Streets, and had a house on this site. Wonder if he kept school there! Probably he did. Wonder how he kept it! Was he skilled to rule?' Did his boding tremblers' learn to trace " The day's disasters in his morning's face?" Or was he kind? Had he his I jokes'-and if I severe in aught,' was " The love he bore to learning all his fault?"

Who can tell? And what did he teach? A. B. C's, writing, and arithmetic, of course. The Psalter, of course. His pupils sucked too, doubtless, the "Milk for Babes," that Catechism by John Cotton, while their master devoured the "Meat for Stron,- Men" by the same eminent divine. How interesting his biography would be, as that of the first man probably in our Town who taught the young idea how to shoot!" But Time, that devourer, has eaten up his idiosyncrasy along with the one head' that carried all be knew'-so that even that day and night-dream of all that relates to schools and schoolmasters, our present able State Superintendent of Common Schools, would not be able to enlighten us about his history.

The same act which gave Mr. Andrews his sixteen pounds a year, provides that the Town shall pay for the schooling of the poor, and for all deficiencies-a noble, beneficent provision, that clutches and applies ,at once, in all its strength, that grand principle of public support for education, which, more than aught besides, has given to Connecticut its prosperity and its glory-a principle which was not confined by the Settlers, be it marked, to the Town alone, but which, in a contribution required, of almost every family, of the quarter part of a bushel of corn, or grain and provisions, or of something equivalent thereto, and of a part of twenty pounds, was extended to the maintenance of poor scholars, and to the support of a fellowship in the College at Cambridge, Massachusetts!

Hartford's first School-house, lamely made up without doubt, like I the straggling fence' that skirted it, soon wore out-and we find the Town, 1648 (9) appropriating forty pounds for a new One, and individuals are requested to add to this sum, since the want of "better conveniency in schooling hath been both unComfortable to those who have been employed in that service, and prejudicial to the work under hand, which is looked upon as conducing much to the good of the present age, and that of the future." Reflection most profound ! Philosophy most solid and immortal! Aye, Spirits of the Founders of our Town, that "Future Age" your wise forecast embraced, and for which so signally in love and hope ye strove, now after Time has rolled the circuit of two hundred years, pours from the deep, firm-walled, magnificent Fount ye established, pours back that floodlight of knowledge which your vision touched, and writes and illuminates upon your tombs the epitaph of " BLESSED!"

From the School to the Church-that first one of Hartford, whose organization we have already, in a former Article, explained. What was its progress during the First Period? In attendance, considerable-for in 1644, the Settlers had to build a gallery in their Meeting-house to accommodate the increased number of worshippers. The Church gained also in equipment-for by 1640 it had obtained a bell, and Thomas Woodford first taught its clapper 'how to strike.' He was the first Bell-Ringer of Hartford! What an improvement-that Bell-over the drum, that of Farmington for instance, which was used" to call folks to meeting on Sunday," and over the hoarse resounding conch shells elsewhere used in olden time! Its voice was dulcet in comparison, and must have been to the Settlers, amid the wild echoes of their new home, imposing even as is to the Parisians at the present day the voice of the "Emanuel" of their Notre Dame, whose clapper alone enforces tones with the weight of nine hundred and seventy-six pounds! The church also gained in time-for in 1640 Henry Packs, by will, bestowed I uppon' it 11 the Clocke which [his] Brother Thorneton had bought!" But it did not long adorn the old Meeting-House, for this, rudely built at first, though from time to time new clapboarded, and furnished with a gallery, and with a porch, and with new stairs that I led up into its chamber, I yielded at last to decay, and in 1649 was given by the Town to Mrs. (Mr.) Hooker. The clock doubtless passed to the new Meeting-house, and clicked, we trust, with special accuracy, the devotional hours to which it was consecrated.

But how many souls, during the First Period, did -the First Church of Hartford save?
We know not. 'How many persons adopt into its membership? We know not. How many excommunicate from its embrace? But one that we can learn-Matthew Allen-and this distinguished Settler without cause, he says, and unjustly, for in 1644 he presented several 'Petitions to the General Court "in regard of his censure of excommunication," affirming that he had been wronged, and he was ordered to bring into Court the particulars of his accusation. But he did not. Yet we shall never believe him guilty of anything sinful or heinous-for he was a good man, a just .man, a high-minded man, and one of the props of the Colony. Perhaps he entertained sentiments on baptism, church-membersbip, or church discipline, variant from those of a majority of the church, and so "fell under the ban," as did others, not many years after, for the same cause. The South Congregational Church in this City, is the offspring, 1670, of difficulties of this character. Yet notwithstanding these, the First Church in Hartford, during the period under consideration, enjoyed generally great harmony, and was nourished all the while with intense care. Very soon, 1644, the maintenance of ministers, which for nine years previously had been purely voluntary on the part of -the people, was made by law compulsory. Good for the clergy! "Let the trees of the field" ecclesiastical throughout Connecticut "clap their hands!" "Let the [pulpit] hills be joyful together!" Two persons indeed were first to solicit contributions for the Church, but in case any one refused I to pay a meet proportion,' he was then to be"rated by authority in some just and equal way," and the civil power was to be exercised in collecting "as in other just debts."

By the Church a Burying-Yard, of course. We have to notice such Yard here again, because the Town, 1640, appointed a new one, of which we have not spoken, and because this new one contains distinguished dust. It was " Richard Olmsted's lot," and for this the Town gave him a parcel of ground lying at the North Meadow gate, and called the Cow Yard. It is the present Yard in the rear of the Centre Church, only in former times it was larger than now. Heaps of bones, as well as coffins, in digging cellars for Kellogg's and for Robinson's buildings, and in sinking the foundation of the Church at the north. west corner, were carefully taken up and removed within the present enclosure. Thomas Woodford, the Bell-Ringer and Crier of the Town, was also the first Sexton of this Yard. He was 4 to attend the making of graves for any corpses deceased'-to lay no corpse less than four feet deep-to lay none above four years old less than five feet deep'-none above ten less than six feet deep.' He was to keep each grave 6 in seemly repair, so that it [should] be known in future time,' and for one of I the lesser sort' was to receive two shillings and sixpence, for one of the middle sort, three shillings, and for one of the highest sort, three shillings and sixpence.

What, we wonder, would the lineal successor of Thomas Woodford say, our present worthy I man and boy' Sexton of ' thirty years,' if the I well-plumed' hearses of our day came I nodding on' to his beautiful "Spring Grove Cemetery," but to leave him for all his painful care, less than four shillings-two shillings even and a meagre sixpence ? He I builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter'-we have Shakspeare's authority for this- but would he, for the lean compensation of Hartford's first sexton, build the house that lasts till doomsday, and let the dead sup with their progenitors?' Marry, we think not. He could not, now a days, long I live upon the dead' at the primitive rates of burial, unless some pestilence should huddle corpses. Yet he's a kind-hearted old man, and would not, for all the world, let a poor body go I ungraved. Strange that the familiars of death, your sextons and your hangmen, are remarkable for sensibility!

But who did Thomas Woodford, or his successor within the First Period, bury?

James Olmstead- William Spencer-TItomas ScottSeth Grant- William -Butler-Robert Day-Daniel Steel, who was an infant son of our first Town Clerk-Timothy Standley-Gov. George Wyllys-and Rev. Tnomas Hooker.

Also the following-whose names have been kindly furnished us by our friend J. Hammond Trumbull Esq.-to wit: Thomas Johnson, 11 the cobler," as he is called in the order of the Court for the settlement of his estate-the first wife of the Rev. Samuel Stone, who, according to Mr. Hooker, " smoaked out her days in the darknesse of melancholle"-Richard Lyman, and soon after him his widow-Thomas Crump, a servant or retainer of Gov. Hopkins-John Purchas-11 Mistress Callick," supposed to have been the first wife of Capt. John Cullick, Secretary of the Colony from 1648 to 1658-Richard Sawyer-WilliamWhiting-and "Goody Bets." Upon these last three, Mr. Trumbull remarks as follows:

"Richard Sawyer, who died in 1648, was a hired servant or retainer of Capt. Cullick. His inventory would lead us to infer that servants in those days were at least as well dressed as their masters,-or that Richard Sawyer was an exception to the general rule, which forbade all persons to I exceede their condition and ranks,' in excesse of apparell.' Richard had, a I musk colored cloth doublet, a bucks leather doublet, a calves, leather doublet, a liver colored doublet and jacket and breeches, a hair colored jacket and breeches, a 4 stuff jacket, green knit hose, colored hats, &c. &c., with a good supply of the minor accessories of a well furnished wardrobe.

W illiam Whiting, a prominent, wealthy and influential citizen of the Colony, and one of its magistrates, died July, 1647. He was largely interested in trade and commerce; was for several years Treasurer of the Colony, and seems to have been relied on by the General Court for the transaction of all business requiring the investment of large capital or the exercise of financial skill. In conjunction with his friend and partner, Gov. Hopkins, he was entrusted with a monopoly of the exportation of corn and grain raised in the Colony; and in 1647, the Court granted him the exclusive privilege of prosecuting the whale fishery, for seven years; a design which he did not live to carry into execution. His estate was inventoried at L2854-a large fortune for that period.

" Goody Bets,' was the School-dame.'It appears then that Hartford, at this early period, had at least two schools; the one, taught by William Andrews, an accomplished clerk and scholar, (as the records which are yet preserved, in his exact and beautiful penmanship, sufficiently indicate;) and another, probably under more humble auspices, as a primary school 'Lest weakly wights of smaller size should stray, Eager, perdie, to bask in sunny day! Where sat the dame, disguised in look profound, And eyed her fairy throng, and turned her wheel around.'

The School Master' was a dignitary in his way. He received a salary from the town. He rejoiced in the prefix of Mr.,' at a period when such titles had a significancy which rarely attaches to honorary titles now-a-days. The mistress of the I woman's school' held, of course, a somewhat humbler position.

'No pompous title did debauch her ear! Goody, good woman, gossip, n'aunt, forsooth, Or Dame,-the sole additions she did hear!"

"All that I can learn of her or her school, is contained in the brief record of her death which I have quoted. Yet doubtless there were many of the future Magistrates and Ministers and public men of the Colony,
"who conned their first lessons, from the horn book, at Goody Betts' side, in her little school-room."

Doubtless other persons than those now mentioned-quite a number-died within the period under consideration. Not a record of them, however, that we can find, remains-not even a head or a foot stone. But of those whose names we have given, there were Governor Haynes and Mr. Hooker-highly distinguished both, as the Reader is aware. Let us notice them briefly-and so conclude.

The first spent but a short time in the New World-but six years-ere he was called to his rest. Born in the hereditary mansion of Penny Compton, at Knapton, in the County of Warwick, in England, where lie enjoyed an estate of five hundred pounds a year, he came to this country in 1638, and settled upon the hill long known as the Wyllys Hill, the prescut Charter Oak Place. In 1639, he was chosen into the magistracy of the Colony, and again in 1640. In 1641 he was elected Deputy Governor; in 1642 Governor, and after this continued to occupy the post of Assistant till his death-which occurred March 9th, 1644-(1645 according to the present computation.) His position was always a leading one in the Colony. He took great interest in agriculture-had a large landed estate, and employed many men. He was a devout Puritan, earnest in his love for undefiled religion, exact in his attention to divine ordinances and worship, peculiarly careful of the education of his children, dignified yet affable in his deportment, and was beloved by all. He lies buried in the old Yard of the Centre Church, directly beneath, or close by the monument erected to the memory of the First Settlers, and there repose the bones of his family down to the present time. He never had a monument, nor did any one of his distinguished family have one. In this respect they were peculiar. One of the latest male members being asked why they did not follow the custom in this respect, replied, in the impulse of a strong pride, that "if the State of Connecticut could not remember the Wyllyses without a monument, their memory might rot!" Peace to the ashes of the worthy old third Governor of Connecticut!^*

"Brother, I am going to receive mercy," said Tnomas Hooker, in the sixty-first year of his age, to one who stood by his couch when dying-and "closing his eyes with his own hands, and gently stroking his own forehead, he gave a little groan, and so expired his blessed soul into the arms of his fellow-servants, the holy angels, on July 7th, 1647." "In memory of the Rev. Thomas Hooker," says a modern inscription on an original monument over his grave "who in 1636, with his assistant, Mr. Stone, removed to Hartford with about 100 persons, where he planted ye first church in Connecticut-an able, eloquent and faithful minister of Christ. He died July 7th, 'Et. LXI."

4 See a biographical sketch of him, from our own pen, in the Connecticut Courant of September 8th, 1845.

* By Hon. Seth Terry, of Hartford. The monument in the Centre Burying Yard, consists of a plain slab of red sandstone or freestone, about five inches in thickness, raised on blocks of the same, a short distance from the ground.

THE SCHOOL

This founder and father of Hartford was born at Marshfield, England, and was a man eminent I alike a for his piety, his learning, his prudence, and his energy. A graduate of Emanuel College, Cambridge, in youth, says Trumbull, "he received the spirit of adoption, and was enabled to exhibit a life of the most exemplary patience and goodness. Naturally a man of Strong and lively passions, he obtained a happy government of himself. In his day he was one of the most animated and powerful preachers in New England. In conversation he was pleasant and entertaining, but always grave. He was affable, condescending and charitable. Yet his appearance and conduct were with such becoming majesty, authority and prudence, that he would do more with a word, or a look, than other men could with a severe discipline. It was not an uncommon thing for him to give away five or ten pounds at a time to poor widows, orphans, and necessitous people"-a charity be was fortunatelly table to perform, for he was rich for the time-his es ate, upon his decease, being appraised at thirteen hundred and thirty-six pounds and fifteen shillings, of which his library alone was valued at three hundred pounds. He was," say Edward Hopkins and William Goodwin, his cotemporaries, "one of a thousand whose diligence and unweariedness, besides his other endowments in the work committed to him, were almost beyond compare." He was distinguished for his excellence in prayer. It was observed, says his biographer Edward W. Hooker,* " that his prayer was

We commend his little work to the Reader. It will amply repay perusal usually like Jacob's ladder, wherein the nearer he came to the end, the nearer be drew to heaven, and he grew into such rapturous pleadings with God and praisings of God, as made some to say that, like. the master of the feast, he reserved the best wine until the last. Hooker, says Bancroft, was a man "of vast endowments, a strong will, and an energetic mind; ingenuous in his temper, and open in his professions; trained to benevolence by the discipline of affliction; versed in tolerance, by his refuge in Holland; choleric, yet gentle in his affections; firm in his faith, yet readily yielding to the power of reason; the peer of the reformers, without their harshness; the devoted apostle to the humble and the poor; severe towards the proud; mild in his soothings of a wounded spirit; glowing with the raptures of devotion, and kindling with the messages of redeeming love; his eye, voice, gesture and whole frame animate with the living vigor of a heartfelt religion; public spirited and lavishly charitable; and I though persecutions and banishments had awaited him, as one wave follows another,' ever serenely blest with a I glorious peace of soul;' fixed in his trust in Providence, and his adhesion to that cause of advancing civilization which he cherished always, even while it remained to him a mystery. This was he, whom, for his abilities and services, his cotemporaries placed I in the first rank of men,' praising him as I the one rich pearl with which Europe more than repaid America for the treasures from her coast."

With this testimony, both clerical and lay, to the character of Hooker, we cheerfully coincide. Fare

HARTFORD.
well, Venerable Saint! Thou art in heaven- sure' Listen a moment there to voices now, which, - tones Of infancy, the shouts of youth, the peal in the of manhood, and the whispers of age, would fain make themselves heard in thine immortal ear, while, in thanksgiving to thee, and thy God, and their God, they pour in one royal song from twenty thousand happy Dwellers in the Town which Thou didst found, and where thy Spirit lingers still!

SCAEVA.