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Norton was born in Berlin, Conn., in 1716; was graduated at Yale College in 1737; was ordained in Fall Town, since Bernardston, Mass., in 1741; he was the first minister in that town, "but owing to the unsettled state of the times," and to the fact that his people lay right in the angle between the military line of the Connecticut and that of the Deerfield, and had consequently as much as they could do, to maintain their families exposed as they were, he labored there about four years, and was appointed chaplain to the line of forts almost as soon as the men were fairly in garrison.
And, gentlemen trustees and citizens of Bernardston, may I not personally and especially invite you to consider the importance of a fixed standard of admission and a careful examination of candidates? This course is essential to the improvement of your district and village schools.
A few private houses were fortified in what is now Bernardston, and two or three more further west in Coleraine, particularly Fort Lucas and Fort Morrison, the owners being assisted by grants of men and supplies from the General Court; and during this war and more especially the next and last French war, the Indians often lurked with hostile intent in the vicinity of these extemporized forts, and not infrequently surprised and killed and scalped men from the little garrisons, and carried women and children into captivity to Canada.
As the reasonably extended and eminently prosperous life of your wise benefactor approached its close, he, in the principles of Old England and of New England, ordered and directed the payment of all his just debts; and then, secondly, expressed the wish, "if practicable, to be buried by the side of his parents in the cemetery at Bernardston."
It is well understood that the beneficial founder of a school is he who makes the first gift or bequest to it, and the legal founder is the government which grants a charter, or in any way confers upon it a corporate existence. If a town establish a high school, as in Bernardston to-day, and accept a gift or bequest, the character of the school is not changed thereby. Mr.
I concur, then, unreservedly in the judgment which has placed this institution, in all its interests and in all its duties, under the control of the inhabitants of Bernardston.
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