By the time Webster turned eleven, the reputation of the family’s little home school had spread. Two more magical boys from the Wampanoag tribe had been joined by a mother and two daughters from the Narragansett, all interested in learning the techniques of wandwork in exchange for sharing their own magical learning. All were provided with wands of Isolt’s and James’s making. Some protective instinct told Isolt to save the Horned Serpent cores only for her two adoptive sons and she and James learned to use a variety of other cores, including Wampus hair, Snallygaster heartstring and Jackalope antlers.
By 1634, the home school had grown beyond Isolt’s family’s wildest dreams. The house expanded with every passing year. More students had arrived and while the school was still small, there were enough children to fulfil Webster’s dream of inter-house competitions. However, as the school’s reputation had not yet expanded beyond the local Native American tribes and European settlers, there were no boarders. The only people to stay at Ilvermorny overnight were Isolt, James, Chadwick, Webster and the twin girls to whom Isolt had now given birth: Martha, named for James’s late mother, and Rionach, named for Isolt’s.
The Founding of Ilvermorny School