Manners And Customs.

Early Schools. - The settlers were not unmindful of intellectual training, and in the act of March 10, 1683, which set forth that "to the end that the Poor, as well as the Rich, may be instructed in good and commendable learning, which is to be preferred above wealth," is given the first outline of the public-school system which promises to be in the future, as it has been in the past, the anchor of safety to the nation in times of public peril. It is difficult to determine when the first school was established in our county, but certain it is that at the middle of the last century there were quite a number scattered throughout the territory now included within our boundaries. These structures were generally of logs, and the urchins sat on frames fashioned in every case from the side slabs from the saw-mills, while books were scarce. Townsend Ward¹ describes the manner of teaching practiced towards the end of the last century by no less a person than Alexander Wilson. "His scholars were instructed in the mode of those days, which has become so obsolete now that the very first steps in it are a puzzle to the adult. The alphabet in the form of a cross was called the Christ Cross Row. Each vowel had to be sounded 'by itself,' when it was reached, and the word 'by itself' repeated. The rapidity of pronunciation, however, soon turned 'by itself' into 'bisself,' so the anxious urchin rushed through his alphabet in this way, 'A, bisself a, B, C, D, E bisselfe, F, G, H, I bisselfi, etc. He ended with a z as now, but called it izard, and the flourish at the end, Ampeisand, he called Ann pussy Ann."

In a letter² dated Chester township, Tenth month, 1725, from Richard Park to his sister, Mary Valentine, then in Ireland, the writer states that "Uncle Nicholas Kooper lives very well, he rents a Plantation & teaches School and his man doe his Plantation work," which is the first mention of a pedagogue by name since Evans Petterson, in 1672. The schoolmaster of that day was a local despot; the children were under his absolute sway from the time they left their homes until they returned thereto again in the afternoon. His sceptre was the birch, and often would he wield his emblem of power to the discomfiture of the unhappy lad who had aroused his wrath.

was often proved a truth. Her household duties were severe and varied, demanding some knowledge of medicine sufficient to open a vein in a ease of emergency, or the preparation of certain infallible remedies to cure intermitting, remitting, and bilious fevers and children's disorders, composed of the most nauseating herbs, simmered to a sickening decoction, which was doled out to the unfortunate patients in generous potation. With the exception of her husband's Sunday coat, which was the one, carefully preserved, that he had worn at his wedding, the mother had to make all the garments worn by the father and boys from the flax and wool; all the bedding and household linen had to be made at home, as well as the beds, which required that a goodly flock of geese be kept to supply the feathers, which had to be steamed and cured for that purpose; the poultry came under the supervision of the women, as did also the care of the young calves; cheese and butter had to be made for the market; frequently, too, the gardening for the family table was left to the care of the females of the household, and the gathering and drying of herbs always was a part of their duty. In the butchering season pork and salt meat must be cured sufficiently for the whole year, sausage and lard made for the winter. These were extra matters just thrown in to fill out the odds and ends of the matron's time, for the duties mentioned did not include the every-day work of cooking, milking, carrying water, scrubbing, darning, and for the first twenty odd years of her married life to still the crying babe or nurse it, and often then, as she hushed the sobbing child asleep, her busy fingers plied the knitting-needles, so that not a moment of her time should be idled away, and the weekly washing and ironing, nor yet the day set apart for dipping candles, which entered into the domestic economy with the regularity of the annual county taxes. It was an interesting and intellectual occupation on candle day, when several huge kettles filled with melted tallow were suspended from the crane over the blazing logs, while at the opposite side of the kitchen two or more long poles, about two feet apart, stretched their full length from one chair-seat to another, the abutments on which the ends of the rods rested. Across these poles were pendent strands of tow at designated distances, for at the time of which I now write candle-wick had not been invented.