reports of the several schools for the deaf in America (as that of New York Institution, 1839, p. 8; 1843, p. 11; 1876, p. 48; American School, 1844, p. 25; 1867, p. 13; Pennsylvania Institution, 1843, p. 9; 1892, p. 64; Kentucky School, 1857, p. 8; 1867, p. 13; Michigan School, 1858, p. 40; Illinois School, 1868, p. 42; New York Institution for Improved Instruction, 1869, p. 26; Mississippi School, appendices, 1907, 1909, 1911); "Histories of American Schools for the Deaf", edited and with an introduction by Dr. E. A. Fay, 1893 (containing accounts of individual schools, and a most valuable work). CHAPTER IX HISTORY OF EDUCATION OF THE DEAF IN THE UNITED STATES EARLY ATTEMPTS AT INSTRUCTION The first instance of which we have record in America of an attempt to teach the deaf was in 1679[164] when a man named Philip Nelson of Rowley, Massachusetts, tried to instruct a deaf and dumb boy, Isaac Kilbourn by name, in speech, though with what success we do not know.[165] These, however, were the witchcraft days, and the work of Nelson seemed such an extraordinary thing that the ministers of the community are said to have made an investigation, fearing that witches might be involved in the affair. The next instance of which we have mention occurred in Virginia a century later, when John Harrower, a school-master of Fredericksburg, had in his school from 1773 to 1776 a deaf boy named John Edge, reference to whose instruction is made in his diary.[166] The earliest effort for the establishment of a school for the deaf in America of which we know was made almost contemporaneously with the opening of the nineteenth century, and at the time that such schools were being created over Europe. There lived at this time in Boston a man named Francis Green, who had a deaf son. This boy he sent to the school in Scotland which Braidwood had started; while he himself became much interested in the subject of the education of the deaf. In 1783 he published in England a work entitled "_Vox Oculis Subjecta_." In 1803 he had, with the help of some of the ministers, a census made of the deaf in Massachusetts, when 75 were found, and it was estimated that there were 500 in the United States. Green felt the need of a school, and in several of the publications of the time appeared his writings, in which he urged the creation of one.[167] It was in 1810, however, and in the city of New York that the real beginning of deaf-mute education in the United States was marked. This was when John Stanford, a minister, found several deaf children in the city almshouse and attempted to teach them. Though his efforts continued but a short time, it was these from which resulted the establishment a few years later of a school in the city, the New York Institution.[168]