Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/643

Rh the last named date until the present time. The earlier schools were itinerant in character, being maintained for a series of months in one quarter of the town, and then removed to another for the purpose of furnishing equal chances for improvement to the youth in all parts of the town. In 1730 it was voted "that the town provide a schoolmaster for seven months; that the school be kept three months at New Meadow Neck, and two months at the meeting-house or thereabouts, and two months at Benjamin Viall's or thereabouts." During these years before schoolhouses were built, the records state that school was kept at intervals at Josiah Humphrey's, Zachariah Bicknell's, Samuel Barnes's, Nathaniel Peck's, Nathaniel Viall's, Joseph Chaffee's, and other houses in the town. The division of the town into three districts was probably made about the date of the separation of the town from Warren. The original number of districts remain unchanged until 1873, when, owing to the increase of the population in Drownville and vicinity, a fourth district was formed to accommodate the citizens in that quarter of the town. The buildings in which the schools were kept belonged to individuals, and were held by proprietors in joint ownership, as the following receipt shows:

This was probably the first school-house in the North District.

The following estimate for a schoolhouse in the North District shows the dimensions and method of construction about the year 1800: