r va-. rious purposes, includes an item of £ 7 to Mr. Morley, Scholemaster ; said rate is to be made out and collected of the Inhabitants by the Constables.
Frothingham (page 155), under date 1659, says that twenty acres in wood and three and one-half acres in commons were assigned to Mr. Morley.
Wyman's History informs us that John Morley was the schoolmaster one year from April 26, 1652, and again also in 1657.
He, with his wife Constant (Starr), was admitted to the Charlestown church in 1658.
He is said to have been the son of Ralph Morley, of Braintree.
His mother may have been the widow Catharine Morley who sojourned thirty weeks with John Greene, of Charlestown, at two shillings and sixpence per week.
John Morley died January 24, 1660-1, and in his will bequeathed his estate at Lucas and at Chesthunt Leyes, Hertford county, Eng., first to his wife, and secondly to his sister, Mrs. Ann Farmer.
The will of the wife was probated in 1669.
In 1660 one thousand acres of land,
free schools in the modern acceptation of the term.
A list of those accredited to Charlestown, who graduated from Harvard College previous to 1701, may prove interesting.
(From Bartlett's Address, 1813.)
Comfort Starr, 1647,Nathaniel Cutler, 1663,
Samuel Nowell, 1653,Alexander Nowell, 1664,
Joshua Long, 1653 (?),Daniel Russell, 1669,
Thomas Greaves, 1656,Isaac Foster, 1671,
Zechariah Symmes, 1657,Samuel Phipps, 1671,
Zechariah Brigden, 1657,Nicholas Morton, 1686,
Benjamin Bunker, 1658,Nicholas Lynde, 1690,
Joseph Lord, 1691.
A personal examination of the town records shows that from the opening of this century, almost without exception thereafter, the inhabitants of Charlestown, in town meeting assembled, discussed the welfare of the school and voted the annual appropriation for the same.
Thus they were building, better, perhaps, than they knew, for upon foundations, similarly well laid, has risen, slowly but surely, the magnificent structure of our present school sy