The moneys were distributed by school commissioners specially selected. But the present system of school commissioners dates from the legislative act of 1819.' Ever since colonial times, the people of this county had always been rated as exceptionally intelligent, with but a small percentage of illiteracy. The New York newspapers enjoyed a very considerable patronage among our citizens before the Revolution, and after the beginning of the present century there was scarcely a farmhouse that did not receive some newspaper from New York. There were several early enterprises in the line of local newspaper publication in the Westchester villages. According to a generally reliable chronicler, a journal called the Vomers Museum was published by Milton F. Cushing in 1810,. and in the same year Robert Crombie started <il Peekskill the Westchester Gazette, which, after various changes of name. f. % finally became the Peekskill Republican. Other early newspaper ventures &*? Cyf^^C^^-C in West Farms, Sing Sing, White Ceo/?Plains, Port Chester, Morrisania, etc., are recorded by this authority.1 The Eastern State Journal, of White Plains, appears to be the oldest present newspaper of the county retaining its original name. It was begun in 1815 by Edmund G. Southerland. In 1810 the population of Westchester County was just about double that attained in 1790. During the half century there had been an average growth every ten years of slightly more than 1,000. The original character of the population had not yet been materially modified. Men engaged in active daily business in New York had not become regular inhabitants, although there was an increasing tendency to build country residences in which to spend portions of 1 French's