The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 | Page 7

associated with him in any service.
You had not to wait for him. He remembered his appointments. He was
in his seat in the sanctuary before the opening of the service. No special

message was required to secure his attendance at town meeting. The
power of his example was elevating and wholesome, and as we review
his life and deplore the loss of his presence and cooperation, it is
interesting to hear the frequent and hearty testimonials to his kindness,
and fairmindedness coming from men who were long in his
employment; while others gratefully acknowledge his friendly counsel
and assistance in their youthful days.
In politics, Deacon David was Whig and Republican; he believed in the
policy of protecting American manufactures, and, during the most
active period of his life, his opinions were in harmony with the
sentiments of Mr. Webster. With the dissolution of the Whig party, and
the undeniable intention on the part of the South to extend the area of
slavery, he became a staunch Republican. On the election of Lincoln he
put forth his best endeavors to maintain the government, and when the
call was made for troops, he was among the foremost to pledge himself
and all that he had to sustain the imperilled cause of Liberty. He
encouraged his sons to enlist in the army and two of them entered the
military service of the country.
Deacon David had seven children, of whom five attained majority and
became heads of families; three of this number are now living, two
sons and a daughter; and there are fifteen grandchildren. He retired
from active business in 1875, but interested himself in the affairs of the
Church, and in the business of a son in Boston. But his health, never
very robust, became impaired with the advance in years, and he
withdrew more and more from public notice. His wife and children
were constant with their grateful ministrations, and, under the oversight
of attentive physicians, his life was prolonged beyond expectation. He
retained his mental powers in great activity until the end, his memory
of recent, as well as remote occurrences, serving him with unusual
accuracy. He was seldom depressed, and had none of the "melancholy
damp of cold and dry," of which Milton speaks, to weigh his spirits
down. Being able to see friends, he conversed with the animation and
intelligence of one in middle life.
The change came at length, and sustained by an unfaltering trust in the

Lord Jesus, whom he had publicly confessed for nearly half a century,
he fell asleep on the third of September, 1883. He had lived with his
wife fifty-seven years, and in the same house for fifty-two years. Soon
after his death, the Church adopted formal resolutions, setting forth the
grounds of their gratitude to God for his valuable life and services as an
officer, and expressing the sincere affection with which they cherished
his memory as a citizen and friend.
* * * * *

THE BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL.
The one educational institution in this country which has the honor of
ante-dating Harvard College by a few years, and of thus being the very
oldest in the land, is the Boston Latin School. For two hundred and
fifty years it has been a part, and an important part, of the town and city
of Boston, influencing all its other institutions, social, literary, moral,
political, and religious, and largely giving to the metropolis, directly or
indirectly, its wide-spread fame as the "Athens of America."
The establishment of this School has its origin in a vote of which the
following is a transcript:
"... 13th of the 2d moneth 1635 ... att a General meeting upon public
notice ... it was generally agreed upon, that our brother Philemon
Pormout shall be intreated to become scholemaster for the teaching and
nourtering of children with us."
At this time, Boston was a village of perhaps, fifteen hundred
inhabitants, and it was a hundred years later before it had reached as
many thousands.
The first school-house was on the north side of School street, close by
the burying-ground which had already received the mortal dust of
several of the early settlers. It was a century before King's Chapel was
built, but at the foot of School street, near the site of the Old South
meeting-house, was Governor Winthrop's imposing mansion; and

nearly opposite this, was the Blue Lion Tavern.
The foundation of this school was soon followed by several others.
Charlestown had a school in 1636, Salem and Ipswich in 1637, and the
Eliot school in Roxbury was established in 1645. The Latin school was
alone in Boston, however, for nearly fifty years, and it was wisely
cherished and nurtured by the town. Mr. Pormout was paid a salary of
sixty pounds a year,