APPENDIX. 149 



mackerel, bass, or herring, to be improved for and towards a free school in some town in this 

 jurisdiction, for the training up of youth in literature for the good and benefit of posterity.' That 

 school was established at Plymouth, the seat of government, and was supported six years by the 

 Cape Cod fisheries; when, in 1687, it 'was ordered,' by the general court, 'that in whatever 

 township in this government, consisting of fifty " families or upwards, a meet person may be 

 obtained to teach a grammar school ; and that such township shall allow at least £12 to be raised 

 by a rate on all the inhabitants of said town; and that those who have the more immediate benefit 

 thereof, with -what others shall voluntarily give, shall make up the residue necessary to maintain 

 the same ; and that the profits ar'sing from the Cape fisheries, heretofore ordered to maintain a 

 grammar school in the colony, shall be distributed to such towns as have such grammar schools, 

 not exceeding £5 per annum to any one town, unless the court treasurer or others appointed to 

 manage that affair shall see good cause to add thereunto; and further, that every such town as 

 consists of seventy families and upwards, and has not a grammar school therein, shall allow and 

 pay to the next town that has a grammar school the sum of £5, to be levied on the inhabitants 

 by rate, and gathered by constables of such towns by warrant from any magistrate of this juris- 

 diction.' This law was in force until the union with the Massachusetts colony, or until about 

 that time. The fisheries were then made free to all persons, and other provisions for schools were 

 made. 



" The attention of the community has ever thus been carefully directed to the cause of educa- 

 tion. The poor and the rich have enjoyed the means of good education. Hence there are few in 

 New England (and, as we have suggested, it would be difficult to find at the present day any adult 

 born on the Cape) who cannot at least read and write, with, in addition, a competent knowledge of 

 figures; whilst generally the opportunity has been afforded to secure that full amount of education 

 requisite to qualify for successful business. In later years, the Cape has kept pace with the educa- 

 tional improvements of the age, and may point to many of its distinguished sons and accomplished 

 daughters as proof that it has never been greatly derelict in this duty. 



" The inhabitants of the Cape are a religious people. The entire freedom of religious opinion 

 claimed by them has led to a diversity of denomination, in almost every village as well as town, 

 places of public worship being reared by differing sects. But it is here disreputable to have no 

 religious belief, and there are scarcely any to be found who do not give their support to some one 

 mode of religious worship and form of faith. 



"We may add that health, that greatest of all mere earthly blessings, here waves her wand 

 and crowns the votaries of frugality, industry, temperance, and virtue.* 



56. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CAPT. NATHANIEL E. ATWOOD, OF PROVINCETOWN, MASS. 



The following sketch of the life of the veteran fishermau of Cape Cod is given in his own words 

 as told to members of the United States Fish Commission in the summer of 1879. It reviews the 

 life of a man who began fishing in 1S16, at the age of nine years, and continued in active service, 

 in many branches of the fisheries until 1866, when he became a fish curer on shore. He said: 



My memory is pretty good, and I know in what way I have spent my life. I remember all 

 about my early voyages. I have looked over my notes, going back for several years, so that I know 

 their dates precisely. I know every vessel I have been in and all their voyages from the beginning 

 until the time I quit in 1806, thirteen years ago. 



I was born in Provincetown on the 13th of September, 1807. The first that I had anything 



* Freeman's Hist, of Cape Cod, Boston, 1662, Vol. I, pp. 741-749. 



