Bradbury Longfellow Cilley was born on 6 September 1838 at Nottingham, Rockingham, New Hampshire.¹ He was the son of Joseph Longfellow Cilley and Lavinia Bayley Kelley.¹ He married Amanda Currier Morris, daughter of John Morris and Harriet A. Currier, on 3 July 1864.¹ He died on 31 March 1899 at Exeter, Rockingham, New Hampshire, at age 60.²
     
     At the age of twelve he entered the academy to prepare for college (1851-1855). He entered Harvard as a sophomore, and was graduated with high rank in 1858. He was deeply interested in the university; attended commencement regularly, and was vice-president of the Harvard Alumni Association for several years. Upon graduation he was appointed an instructor in the Albany Academy, Albany, N.Y; but in a few months (December) he was elected professor of ancient languages in Phillips Exeter Academy, and in February, 1859, entered upon his new duties, which proved to be his life-work. His long and faithful service was invaluable to the institution. For many years Prof. Cilley taught both Greek and Latin, but after 1871 he taught Greek only. A powerful educator, he left his impress on two generations of pupils, an impress the more lasting because of his plain speech and rather brusque manners, but thorough sincerity. As a man and a citizen he was democratic, simple in his tastes, unaffected. In politics he was a Republican and a strong partisan. As a public speaker he was clear and convincing, and by his fair and strong arguments was frequently able to conciliate hostile factions. He had neither taste nor leisure for political office, but served for years on the town committee on appropriations and frequently as delegate to the more important party conventions. He was at different times trustee of the Exeter public library; the Kensington social library; the Union Five Cents Savings Bank; was on the building committee on the public library and the Phillips Church. He presided with grace and dignity at the laying of the corner stone of the Phillips Church and at the celebration in 1888 of the 250th anniversary of the town. A most loyal and affectionate son of New Hampshire, he derived more pleasure from his vacation journeyings through the rugged state than from his trip through Europe. He was a member on the New Hampshire Historical Society; president of the Piscataqua Congregational Club, and was identified with several revolution-ary and colonial orders. His home life, where he found his chief enjoyment, was most felicitous. Prof. Cilley's frequently expressed wish that he might die in the harness was almost literally fulfilled. He died at Exeter, March 31, 1899. Inasmuch as the academy was his chief interest outside his home, no doubt he would have chosen as his epitaph: "Forty years of my life have I labored among you and taught you".
     From February 14, 1859, Bradbury Longfellow Cilley taught the Classics - chiefly Greek - until a month before he died on March 31, 1899. One writer describes him, "a gruff, warm-hearted veteran with a dome-like head and piercing eyes, who hated affectation and sham, and dismayed the timid with his roaring. He encouraged what he described as 'the Exeter system', and his classroom at times was a bedlam with a dozen boys talking at once. In the big world, he had a way of saying, a man had to do his thinking while things were moving, and the sooner the learned how the better. Mr. Cilley was a man of gruff exterior; but he had a heart big and warm." Unambitious, simple in his tastes and pleasures, blunt of speech but generous to a fault, he was quite content with life in the town of Exeter and happiest of all in his classroom. It was characteristic of him to write to a friend on the occasion of visiting Athens that grand as was the Acropolis, he would rather be sitting on a nail keg in Kelly and Gardner's store at home.
     For the year following Dr. Perkin's resignation, Professor Cilley and Professor Wentworth again took charge of affairs of the academy. This interregnum was a period of comparative peace, Cilley and Wentworth had their way unopposed, the students largely had theirs, and rarely did the two ranks collide with one another. But the easy sort of understanding that existed between faculty and students resulted in equally easy manners and morals. Exeter had begun to slide.
     It might be mentioned that for many years Professor Cilley suffered badly from the gout - so aggravated by painful meeting of the faculty that he eventually requested to be excused from attending them.³