achers.

The late lamented Mrs. Mary S. Peake was the first teacher employed.
She continued to teach as long as her health permitted, and near to
the time of her decease. Other teachers have been employed; chaplains
in the army and pious soldiers have proffered their occasional
services, and the religious meetings, Sabbath schools, and week-day
schools, have been well attended. Mr. Lockwood labored there thirteen
months, and then removed to another field. In his final report, he
states that he had ministered to a congregation at Hampton, where the
average attendance was four hundred; and to a congregation at Fortress
Monroe, where the average attendance was about the same.

A day school was kept in a house, near Hampton, formerly the residence
of Ex-President Tyler, which was wholly given up for the use of the
freedmen. This school was subsequently removed to the old Court House
at Hampton, which had been fitted up for the purpose, government
furnishing a portion of the lumber. This school became the largest
under the care of the freedmen's teachers, and numbered at one time
five hundred scholars. Among the ruins of Hampton, which had, at an
early period of the rebellion, been burned by the rebels, the colored
people erected rude cottages, the materials being gathered from the
vacated camps, the deserted dwellings of fugitive slaveholders, &c.

Such of the freedmen as were not employed by government have obtained
a living by fishing, oystering, huckstering, carting, washing, &c.

INTERESTING FACTS.

Many highly interesting facts have been communicated with regard to
the freedmen--their natural endowments, their facility in acquiring
knowledge in letters and arms, their industrial habits, their
shrewdness in business transactions, their gratitude, their courage,
their acquaintance with passing events, their confidence that the
result of the rebellion will be the liberation of their people, and
their piety. Some of these facts have been extensively published, and
have been read with high gratification. It is thought that a few of
these facts may add to the value of this little publication.

[Illustration: A "CONTRABAND" SCHOOL.]

SCHOOLS FOR THE CHILDREN.

A young teacher at Hampton, Virginia, writes as follows: "When I first
commenced the school here, I found the children such as slavery
makes--quarrelsome, thievish, uncleanly in their persons and attire,
and seemingly inclined to almost every species of wic