ater, when John Harrower, a
school-master of Fredericksburg, had in his school from 1773 to 1776 a
deaf boy named John Edge, reference to whose instruction is made in his
diary.[166]

The earliest effort for the establishment of a school for the deaf in
America of which we know was made almost contemporaneously with the
opening of the nineteenth century, and at the time that such schools
were being created over Europe. There lived at this time in Boston a man
named Francis Green, who had a deaf son. This boy he sent to the school
in Scotland which Braidwood had started; while he himself became much
interested in the subject of the education of the deaf. In 1783 he
published in England a work entitled "_Vox Oculis Subjecta_." In 1803 he
had, with the help of some of the ministers, a census made of the deaf
in Massachusetts, when 75 were found, and it was estimated that there
were 500 in the United States. Green felt the need of a school, and in
several of the publications of the time appeared his writings, in which
he urged the creation of one.[167]

It was in 1810, however, and in the city of New York that the real
beginning of deaf-mute education in the United States was marked. This
was when John Stanford, a minister, found several deaf children in the
city almshouse and attempted to teach them. Though his efforts continued
but a short time, it was these from which resulted the establishment a
few years later of a school in the city, the New York Institution.[168]

In Virginia shortly afterwards a second school was started, which in
itself is to be set down as an important stage in the course of the
early attempts to create schools for the deaf in America. In 1812 there
came to the United States John Braidwood, a member of the family which
was in control of the institution at Edinburgh, Scotland, in the hope of
establishing a school. He began plans for one at Baltimore, but before
it had gotten under headway, he was called to Virginia to undertake the
instruction of the deaf children of William Bolling, of Goochland
County. This private school continued, with seemingly satisfactory
results in the progress of the pupils, for two and a half years. In
1815 it was moved to Cobbs, Chesterfield County,[169] to be open to the
public. The school now promised well, and there were already several
pupils. However, Braidwood was looking about for other opportunities,
and had been in touch with several parties in regard to the e