Discourse delivered before the New Hampshire Historical Society by Nathaniel Bouton (1833):

[page 8-9] Let it be borne in mind, that Portsmouth, Dover, Hampton and Exeter, then the only towns in New-Hampshire, were under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. To these of course the above law extended, so far as they had the requisite number of families. The number of legal voters in Portsmouth, 1680, was 71; in Dover, 61; in Hampton 57, and in Exeter 20. We may therefore, presume that schools were kept in at least three of these towns, during this dark period of our history.

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