The county courts supervised the vestries and held a yearly "orphans' court," which looked after the material and educational welfare of all orphans.[45] The benevolent design of a free school in the colony, frustrated by the massacre of 1622, was realized in 1635, when--three years before John Harvard bequeathed his estate to the college near Boston which bears his name--Benjamin Syms left "the first legacy by a resident of the American plantations of England for the promotion of education."[46] In 1659 Thomas Eaton established[47] a free school in Elizabeth City County, adjoining that of Benjamin Syms; and a fund amounting to $10,000, representing these two ancient charities, is still used to carry on the public high-school at Hampton, Virginia.

In 1655 Captain John Moon left a legacy for a free school in Isle of Wight County; and in 1659 Captain William Whittington left two thousand pounds of tobacco for a free school in Northampton County.
[Footnote 1: Hening, _Statutes_, I., 224.] [Footnote 2: _Cal.

of State Pap., Col._, 1574-1660, pp.

201, 231, 268.] [Footnote 3: _William and Mary Quarterly_, IV., 173-176, V., 40.] [Footnote 4: _Virginia's Cure_ (Force, _Tracts_, III., No.

xv.).] [Footnote 5: De Vries, _Voyages_ (N.Y.Hist.