C. J. Hamilton

“ And then there was the excitement of the school continually going on, the busy hum of voices sounded in little Mary's ears, and she took in everything with her grave observant eyes.
"As I could read when four years old," says our little Quakeress, "I was able to peruse 'Stephen Crisp's Short History of a Long Travel from Babylon to Bethel,' an allegory I by no means understood. Believing the whole to be literally true, I was wonderfully desirous to see that house which was to be the end and reward of so wearisome a journey. ”

“ The famous school, kept first by Abraham Shackleton, and then by Richard, his son (father of Mary Leadbeater) , was principally intended for Quakers, though some of the pupils did not belong to the society.
The three young Burkes—Edmund and his two brothers—had such an aversion to a cross old woman who had been teaching them, before they went to Ballitore, that one evening they set out for her cabin with the intention of killing her. Fortunately she happened to be out. ”

“ At the close of the eighteenth century the Society of Friends had become a power in Ireland, many of the richest merchants and traders—the Pims, the Bewleys, the Goodbodys, the Clibborns, and others—were Quakers. The village of Ballitore, in Kildare, was one of their strongholds, and was celebrated for a school of which Abraham Shackleton was the founder. ”

“ A broad walk reached from the garden gate to the old border of yew at the upper end of the kitchen garden, in which were planted several apple trees. "So far as the walk continued through the flower garden, it was gravelled, hence it became a grass walk, and had on each side thick yew hedges, on the ends of which, as they were intersected by cross walks, chairs were cut."
A great event in Mary Shackleton's quiet life was a visit to Edmund Burke at Beaconsfield, which she paid along with her father. Among the guests was the poet Crabbe, and years afterwards he wrote—"Mary Leadbeater! ”

“ Ballitore derives its name from its former marshy condition, Bally in Irish signifying a town, and togher, corrupted into tore—a bog. The first settlers were two Quakers, Abel Strettel and John Bar croft. They planted and builded until they made the valley into a garden of the Lord. ”