Indeed, the general knowledge of letters, in so far at least as reading and writing are concerned, may be inferred from the fact that among a list of sixty names subscribed to a petition to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in connection with the Church of England in 1743, only five individuals signed by making a cross. But alas, for poor human nature ! All the devotion of these people to their religion, and such learning as they could command, did not prevent them from perpetrating an act of barbarism. In 1776 they burned to death a negro by the sentence of three of the magistrates of the town, for the crime of murder. The revolting details are given in Coutant's " Reminiscences," with a minuteness and particularity that are sickening. Mr. Bolton, in his history, says : "In a portion of the Guion property once owned by the late George Case, Esq., nearly opposite the old Eels mansion, on North Street, the remains of a large bed of charcoal were discovered a few years since, marking the site of this summary execution." '^

" Tradition reveals to us the existence of two school-houses in the town of New Rochelle, used as such probably before the Revolution and during the closing years of the 18th Century. One was situated in the neighi)orhood of the old tollgate, and the other on North Street, opposite the residence of Mr. Simeon Lester, and just in fi'ont of a high clump of rocks, which at this place divided the road into two parts, running around the rock on both sides, leaving a triangular space between them, and on this gore of land the school-hou.se was built."