The history of the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, By a committee of the Dorchester antiquarian and historical society ...

458 HISTORY OF DORCHESTER.
voted, "That Ebenezer Trescott, Nathaniel Weatherby and others be allowed their proportionable
part of the school money-they using and improving it for the purpose of educating their children."
Miss Polly Williams (who was afterwards the wife
of Mr. Ebenezer Vose), a daughter of Dea. Isaac Willians, of Roxbury, kept the first school there, in a
corn-barn, before any school-house was built. Miss
Williams was engaged by Mr. Richard Clarke, who
moved the barn into his yard, opposite where the
present school-house stands. This corn-barn, after
being used for a school-room, was converted into
a hen-house.
The town from year to year made small appropriations for the educational wants of the district.
About the year 1786, a school-house was built, near
where the present one stands-" by Messrs. Trescott,
George and Richard Clark, William Sumner, Lemuel Crane, Jeremiah McIntosh, and others, inhabitants of the district. It was one story in height,
fourteen feet long, twelve feet wide, with no plastering inside or clapboards outside, and was only comfortable in summer. It had four small glass windows, and one without glass, closed with a wooden
shutter. A door was in one corner, with no porch
or entry. It was filled in, or lined, with brick, in
the year 1791, but not plastered, and was sold," as
has been stated, "for twenty-five dollars, in 1804."
Mrs. Hawes, wife of Joseph Hawes, Miss Gillespie,
and other female teachers, taught here in the sumter season. In the winter of 1790 and 1791, Mr.
Lemuel Crane kept school in his own dwelling