[Extract from the "town meeting warrant" (call) for 1779]: As for some time past, the Sabbath has been greatly profaned, by persons traveling with burthens upon the same, when there is no necessity for it,--to see whether the town will not try to provide some remedy for the same, for the future. The Bedford church has been ever the center of all public activity. Its officers have been the officers of the town. From its pulpit have been made all formal announcements. Within its walls have been inspired every important home measure, and its influence has stimulated each wise public action. In the early records the school-house also shares prominence with the meeting-house, and the later generations of Bedford's inhabitants were men and women of solid primary education and thorough religious training. Thrift and industry made them prosperous, and they raised large families of powerful men and vigorous women. The mothers and daughters shared in the field work, and even carried on foot to Boston the linen thread from their busy spinning wheels. Physical and moral strength characterized the race, and they built up a community of comfortable homes, severe virtues, strong religious instincts, a stern morality, and long lives. Neither poverty nor riches were to be found among them, and the simplest habits prevailed. Silks were unknown, and homemade linen was the choicest fabric. Brown bread was the staple of life, and wheat flour a luxury. Tea and coffee were rarely seen, but barley broth was on all tables. Shoes were only worn in winter, except to church on Sundays when they were carried in the hand to the neighborhood of the meeting-house. The saddle and pillion were used in journeys. Splinters and knots of pitch pine furnished lights. The hymns were "deaconed out" by the line at the meeting-house, and at the appearance of the first bass-viol in the gallery (about 1790) there was a fierce rebellion among the more austere of the worshipers. There was community of effort in all important enterprises, and no man needed aught if his neighbor could supply it.