The following is a calculation of the number of families of each generation of the lower neighborhood, to wit:
| 1st generation, | which was contemporary with the second of this upper neighborhood | 20 |
| 2d, | 91 | |
| 3rd, | at an increase of three families to one | 273 |
| 4th, | at the same rate of increase | 819 |
The two last 273 + 819 = 1,092 families. To this last number add the 3,000 of the upper neighborhood and the amount is 4,092.
There are two of these prior generations who, by deaths, may fall short of these numbers mentioned, but I contemplate that as great an addition of families exists of the succeeding generation of each neighborhood as will amount to such loss, and that there now are at least 4,000 families in existence of descendants in some degree of the ancients mentioned.
This man's services have been of greater benefit and advantage to the third generation of descendants of our neighborhood than those of any other individual, in consequence of which he ought to be held in remembrance by our descendants, and he, together with ourselves, become incorporated in our history as the first important originator of education in it. In justice to the merits of Mr. White in respect of myself, I will here state that by means of his services I have become enabled to write this history and exhibit to its readers the information it contains; and in addition thereto the enjoyment of other sources of knowledge for which and all other blessings we have reason to be thankful, not only to the individual from whom we derived the same but also to that Being who is the originator of all our enjoyments.
The benefits we (who were of the generation mentioned) have derived from him, consisted in the literature he taught us in our childhood and youth at short different periods of time in the schools he kept in our neighborhood, whereby we generally received such a portion of education as enabled each of us to transact his own ordinary business in relation to his dealings with others, which, in our time, had become more necessary than what it was in the days of our forefathers, most of whom kept no written memoranda of their dealings with each other, which in their time (during about ninety years) was unnecessary for the greatest part of them. In addition to these benefits we became more enlightened and enabled to acquire additional knowledge and information by reading, &c. Mr. White and his wife Elizabeth, came to this neighborhood in the autumn of 1776 (as near as I can ascertain) to serve its inhabitants as a schoolmaster and they became residents in my father's house together with his own family, and taught school in one of its rooms during the ensuing winter, and probably until some of their neighbors moved into it and the construction of a fort commenced, and notwithstanding the danger to which the inhabitants of our town became exposed by the invasion of the Indians, he continued to live in the house during a great part of the war, and was in it at the time when the fort was attacked.
When the enemy came in sight, he told Capt. Cuddeback that he was a King's man, but would stand by him to help defend the fort against those savages to the utmost of his power. (He was a warm friend of his native country and its laws). Mr. White was in the fort during the hard winter in the time of the war, and kept a diary from which he ascertained that no water had dropped from the roof of the house during a term of forty days in that winter.
I will here, before proceeding further with the history of Mr. White, narrate how the inmates of the fort managed to sustain themselves during the winter. When the Indians burnt the houses of the neighbors, many of the pots were damaged by these fires. These were used for keeping small fires in them in different parts of the fort house. Two large fires were generally kept up in the two front rooms, and a fire in a stove in another, and in the other room a pot with hot coals, supplied from the fire places, was kept up to warm the room for a dwelling of some of the oldest women. On the chamber, against the sides of the chimneys, pots with fire were kept, supplied with hot coals from the fire places, and also with chips and small pieces of wood.