Graham was unable
to finish any business, and after ten or more years he died, leaving
the estate unsettled. Finally, the ladies of the village took
possession of the common, removed the rubbish, leveled the ground, and
made the spot an agreeable feature of the town.
Of the teachers of the village school there are several that I remember
with gratitude, and I cannot but think that some of them were very good
teachers. My first teacher was Martha Putnam, afterwards Mrs.
Nathaniel F. Cunningham. Of her as a teacher I can recall nothing.
Her father, Major Daniel Putnam, was the principal trader in the
village. For the time and place his accumulations were very large.
Nancy Stearns, afterwards Mrs. Benjamin Snow, was the teacher of the
summer school for many years. But beyond comparison Cyrus Kilburn was
the best teacher of the town, and a person who would have ranked high
among teachers at any period in the history of the State. He was not a
learned man in a large sense, but his habit was to investigate the
subjects within his scope, with great thoroughness. Grammar was his
favorite study, and he devised a system of analysis in parsing quite in
advance of the time. He had the faculty of putting questions and of
changing them to meet the capacities of the pupils. He compelled
thinking. I attended the winter school about ten terms, and of these
not less than six terms were taught by Mr.
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