He evidently gave satisfaction, and clearly exerted an
influence on the town clerk, Mr. Samuel Keais, who ever after shows a
marked improvement in his own methods. In 1704 the town empowered the
selectmen "to call and settell a gramer scoll according to ye best of
yower judgement and for ye advantag [Keais is obviously dead now] of ye
youth of ower town to learn them to read from ye primer, to wright and
sypher and to learne ym the tongues and good-manners." On this occasion
it was Mr. William Allen, of Salisbury, who engaged "dilligently to
attend ye school for ye present yeare, and tech all childern yt can
read in thaire psallters and upward." From such humble beginnings were
evolved some of the best public high schools at present in New England.

Portsmouth did not escape the witchcraft delusion, though I believe that
no hangings took place within the boundaries of the township. Dwellers
by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is
something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the
imagination. The folk who live along the coast live on the edge of a
perpetual mystery; only a strip of yellow sand or gray rock separates
them from the unknown; they hear strange voices in the winds at
midnight, they are haunted by the spectres of the mirage. Their minds
quickly take the impress of uncanny things. The witches therefore
found a sympathetic atmosphere in Newscastle, at the mouth of the
Piscataqua--that slender paw of land which reaches out into the ocean
and terminates in a spread of sharp, flat rocks, lie the claws of an
amorous cat. What happened to the good folk of that picturesque little
fishing-hamlet is worth retelling in brief. In order properly to retell
it, a contemporary witness shall be called upon to testify in the case
of the Stone-Throwing Devils of Newcastle. It is the Rev. Cotton Mather
who addresses you--"On June 11, 1682, showers of stones were thrown
by an invisible hand upon the house of George Walton at Portsmouth
[Newcastle was then a part of the town]. Whereupon the people going out
found the gate wrung off the hinges, and stones flying and falling
thick about them, and striking of them seemingly with a great force, but
really affecting 'em no more than if a soft touch were given them. The
glass windows were broken by the stones that came not from without, but
from within; and other instruments were in a like manner hurled about.
Nine of the stones they took