Up to this time no reference is found here to any musical instrument but the pitch pipe. The bass viol and the rest of the stringed instruments must have come into use in the church services soon after. How the old fugue tunes, with the parts chasing each other all the way through, must have shaken the rafters and waked all the sleepers, without the help of the tithing man! This town very early began to uphold morality and order. In that first century it fined certain persons “for bringing into the town unwholesome inhabitants.” The care with which the town guarded its temporal interests is shown by an early vote, “that a black bonnet, a red woman’s cloak, and a worsted gown belonging to Hannah Beeman, deceased, be kept for her daughter till she is of age; if she die under age, the town to have them.” The cause of education went hand in hand with that of religion in those early days. When there were but twenty-five families in the town, a public school was ordered. In town meeting, September, 1721, it was voted that a school be maintained for four months, the town to bear half the charge. The next year a committee was appointed to raise money to hire a schoolmaster three months in winter, and a schoolmistress three months in summer. One of these early schoolmistresses was the little daughter of John Noble, who had come hither with him alone through the wilderness. Deacon Sherman Boardman, son of the Rev. Daniel, mentions going to school to her, and says she was an excellent teacher. The “little red schoolhouse” was preceded by the log schoolhouse, which was soon a frequent landmark through the town. The town was often divided into new districts. In 1782 there were twenty-one school districts. In 1787 a new building for townhouse and schoolhouse together was erected at the north end of the Main Street. The singing schools were a pleasant feature of early days, and, in a time of few pleasures, afforded a harmless enjoyment. They were usually held in the schoolhouses, but sometimes at a dwelling in the neighborhood. In 1792 Mr. Cyrene Stilson is recorded as beginning a singing school at a private house. There are to-day treasured in many of our homes, brass candlesticks that were kept bright by our grandmothers to carry to the schoolhouse for the evening singing school. They suggest many bits of romance. When the boys were privileged to walk home with the girls, they carried the candlesticks, we hope, and they doubtless lingered on the broad doorstep sometimes, in spite of zero weather. [Illustration: CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH HOME OF NATHANIEL TAYLOR. JR. HOME OF REV. NATHANIEL TAYLOR. Gen. LaFayette lodged here for a night Count Rochambeau spent a night here during the Revolution during the Revolution]