USA > Connecticut > New London County > Old Lyme > The educational history of Old Lyme, Connecticut, 1635-1935 > Part 20
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The two district schools conducted, between 1680 and I725, in private homes on either side of the Black Hall River in Lyme made little real contribution to the people of the town because of scattered homes and irregular attendance.
Between 1725 and 1766 eight schools were organized within the area of the first society in Lyme. The first two school buildings were voted in 1725. Both buildings were twenty feet by fifteen feet and served distinct districts. The
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Summary.
terms of these schools varied with the amount each district paid into the annual levy. The support was derived from four sources: from country money, from a small local school fund, from interest on sequestered money and from a school rate.
Between 1735 and 1740, with the population of the town listed at seven hundred persons, these two schools were still the only schools serving the first society. After 1740 and con- tinuing to 1766 the expansion of the district-school system was rapid. A third school was organized between Three Mile River and Four Mile River in 1740. There was a growing demand for money collected in a district to be spent in the district. There was a temporary discontinuance of school dames and a definite trend toward more regular schooling. By 1746 there were four four months' schools kept by school- masters in the first society: in Laysville, in the Center, at Black Hall and at Three Mile River. Extra money was raised by a society rate on the grand levy. Parents of children could no longer adequately meet the costs of education. At this time the town sought to discover their part of the per- manent school fund created in 1733 from the sale of the seven western townships in Connecticut. This money was to be di- vided between the then fifty towns and ninety-seven parishes according to the listed polls on ratable estates for 1732. No record of this money appears in Lyme but it may have been absorbed in local "sequestered funds."
In 1750 the four schools in Lyme were referred to as the two northern and the two southern schools. In that year the colony passed a law requiring a school committee for the ad- ministration of schools and a board of school visitors for the inspection and supervision of schools. The requirement of a six or eleven months' school, restated from the law of 1700, received broad interpretations in Lyme with a somewhat prevalent practice of a four months' school from December I to April I. There were intermittent provisions for dame schools in the summer.
In 1766 the assembly granted to towns and parishes the right to divide into districts. These districts were without corporate powers and in general included the area of one
224 Educational History of Old Lyme.
school. The law again required that schools be kept for six or eleven months according to the size of the town.
This law regarding school districts, like the law of 1750 re- quiring a school committee, reflected a practice long estab- lished in Lyme. By 1766 there were eight district schools in the first society and five of these were in school buildings. These eight schools constituted the culmination of district- school expansion in the first society of Lyme. They served the minimum requirements of eight isolated agrarian groups and stood as natural consequences of the existing system of land division.
These schools suffered no serious effects as a result of the French and Indian War but beginning with 1771 a marked curtailment is apparent. The five schools in school buildings continued in session but in some instances the school year was reduced temporarily to two months. During the period of the war, 1773-1783, there was no mention of schools except that they be kept as usual in each schoolhouse. This was another period in which the major learnings were gained through ac- tive participation in community affairs. The war had a dis- astrous effect upon the schools.
The post-Revolutionary period brought a renewed but somewhat changed interest in education. The people lived for the most part in rural areas. There was little time for school- ing and education was forced into a temporary decline. Lack- ing the religious impetus of earlier years, the schools lost general support. District schools declined as private acade- mies, offering religious education and practical arts, increased.
By 1783, however, Lyme turned her attention to her eight district schools. The boundaries were resurveyed and re- mained the permanent boundaries of the eight districts in the first society until their dissolution through consolidation after I894.
From 1783 forward for over a decade the only vote on schools included in the ecclesiastical-society records refers to the annual school levy. The last record appears under the date of December 7, 1795. With this the period of ecclesiasti-
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Summary.
cal control comes to a colorless close, leaving the schools of Lyme in a condition of general disintegration.
Ecclesiastical control was supplanted in 1794 by state con- trol which functioned through newly organized school so- cieties. These school societies conformed in area to the previ- ous ecclesiastical societies. All electors, dissenters and persons qualified to vote in town meeting now had an equal voice in school affairs. In 1798 they were given power to appoint school visitors with authority to examine teachers and to superintend and direct instruction. A tax of two dollars on each one thousand dollars was voted for school support. Further financial aid was provided by the interest on the new permanent school fund derived from the sale of Connecticut's share in the "Western Reserve." This fund amounted to $ 1,200,000 and after 1820 the income was divided according to the number of children in the several towns in the state be- tween four and sixteen years of age. Under this legislation the isolated school districts in the town became more firmly entrenched.
The period between 1795 and 1856 was conspicuous for an astonishing growth of dissent and irreligion which became ag- gressive in thought and radical in politics. Agriculture gave way to manufacture; banks and insurance companies were founded.
With a population of 25,000 in 1800, Connecticut was in the flood tide of prosperity. It was the richest state in the Union. By 1815 Lyme had a population of 4,321, five hun- dred of whom were freemen. With the state rapidly becom- ing the supply house of the new frontier, Lyme found herself on a busy crossroad of land and river trade. Mail facilities, turnpikes, stages and ferries were greatly extended to meet the growing demand for the transportation of persons, goods and ideas. For the growing maritime trade Lyme provided owners, builders, captains and crews.
Under the weight of the embargo all shipping suffered. New London turned to whaling and other towns to manu- facture. The new state constitution of 1818, accepted in the
226 Educational History of Old Lyme.
midst of bitter debate, provided absolute separation of church, school and state. Ecclesiastical affairs passed into an even more rapid decline.
In the quiet routine of life in Lyme between 1818 and I 857 weather appears as the great determinant. Agriculture, home industries and a growing sloop trade were the chief factors in a program of simple self-sufficiency. Newspapers arrived with greater frequency and as railroads progressed stagecoaches disappeared. Lyme settled more firmly into the land of its forefathers and agriculture became increasingly the chief concern of the people.
Educational affairs between 1795 and 1856 are divided very naturally into two periods: 1795-1838 and 1838-1856. These periods developed as the result of four important acts: the sale of western lands, the establishment of the state school fund, the creation of the school societies and provision for a state school tax.
Before 1 800 there were few private schools in Connecticut. After 1800 those who were defeated by the new educational program withdrew their interest and their support from the district schools. Private schools increased and public schools decreased.
By 1826 the condition of the public schools of the state was considered grave. A special state committee advised the im- provement of books and the training of teachers. The eight district schools in Lyme appear to have been in a similar serious state of decline. No single official record remains, how- ever, to show the activity of the school society in the first society of Lyme for the long period between 1798 and 1856.
The record of Lyme's share in the distribution of the town deposit fund is to be found in the town records. This indicates that between 1837 and 1855 one-half the interest arising from the fund was appropriated for the support of the com- mon schools in the town while after 1855 the entire income was so used. During the Civil War the fund was loaned to the town and soon lost its identity in the general financial report.
The latter part of this transition period, 1838-1856, wit- nessed the phenomenal improvement of public education in
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Summary.
the state under the effective leadership of Henry Barnard. His educational survey included fifteen items which in turn became the main objectives of his administrative plan. Im- proved attendance, preparation of competent teachers, classi- fication of pupils, elimination of the rate bill, elimination of school societies, improvement of school buildings and the establishment of school libraries were among the listed ob- jectives.
The curriculum of the district schools at this time included spelling, arithmetic, reading, writing, some geography, his- tory and grammar, with philosophy, science, mathematics and Latin in larger districts.
In 1856 school societies were abolished and the schools were returned to the towns under a paid board of school visi- tors. The darkest period in the history of public education in Connecticut was ended. The next immediate objectives were free schools and trained teachers.
The part which Lyme played in this educational drama be- tween 1838 and 1856 is all but hidden. One statistical record for 1846 indicates that the eight district schools were in op- eration under full-time teachers. Textbooks were prescribed by the school visitors and blackboards had been installed. At- tendance remained irregular. A school register for a winter school in the second society in 1859 gives a suggestive picture of one of these local district schools in operation. There were thirty-six boys and twenty-eight girls registered. These sixty- four pupils were distributed according to school subjects in the following manner: reading, sixty; grammar, ten; geogra- phy, twenty; writing, twenty-seven; arithmetic, thirty-six; history, four; and spelling, fifty.
In 1855 the First Ecclesiastical Society of Lyme was set off as a new town and the same eight district schools which were organized in this area between 1680 and 1766 became the in- herited public-school system of the new town of Old Lyme.
An appreciation of the influences affecting education and schooling in this new town requires not only a knowledge of the state legislation on education but also a familiarity with the social heritage of its people. This social heritage rests
228 Educational History of Old Lyme.
firmly upon the social stratification of its earliest settlers. These landed gentry, the freemen of other days, still create the atmosphere and control the affairs of the town. They treasure the social characteristics of their forefathers-land ownership, political position and power on the sea. This dominant group is still "Puritan" in religion and Federalist in politics.
The remainder of the population subscribe to the com- munity life that is provided. They take pride in sharing the unique reputation which has come to Old Lyme and have ad- justed themselves to the restrictive elements of its continuing highly stratified social life.
In Old Lyme education is to a large extent an appreciation of the unique cultural environment while schooling is the acquisition of tools by which this environment can be under- stood. A rich social heritage in old families, old homes and old places has played a major role in the endless functioning of educational experience.
Between 1856 and 1935 the population of Old Lyme dropped from 1,304 to 946. The permanent population since 1900 has been supplemented by a large transient summer colony which has contributed greatly to the increasing wealth of the town. From the beginning, under Henry Barnard's free compulsory-school system, the town has been faced with the problem of adjusting to at least the minimum requirements of the new school laws. With one exception, her eight district schools bore the same names and stood in the same places as when they were first established. Each of these fell short of the state standards for public education. Educational legisla- tion meanwhile became rapidly more abundant and more de- tailed.
There was a regulation for the closing of district schools with less than twelve in attendance; the number of pupils per teacher was restricted to fifty; tenure of teachers was urged; consolidation was strongly recommended and graded schools were favored for large centers. Increased training and in- creased salaries for teachers were constantly stressed. In 1868
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Summary.
the Free School Law was passed and the school year for all towns in the state was fixed at thirty weeks.
Responding to some of these laws Old Lyme elected six school visitors in 1856, showed one-fourth of her children of school age not attending any school in 1865, voted in favor of public examination of pupils in 1870 and at the same time found herself lowest among fifty-five towns according to the amount of money raised for each child enumerated. In 1872 she organized an unsuccessful graded school and in 1873 sup- ported a provision for nine months of free schooling in the town.
With the appearance of printed town and school reports in 1881 the sequences in educational procedure become more available. These reports indicate that parents were only mod- erately interested while attendance was poor and tardiness ex- cessive. In the same year only one-half of those enumerated attended school. Three district-school buildings were in very poor condition and consolidation was urged. Teachers were still untrained but salaries were increasing. The terms of the different schools varied greatly and the attendance showed ex- tremes of eight pupils in one school and seventy-two in an- other. Young children received little attention. Conditions in Old Lyme lagged far behind conditions in the state.
In 1894, after thirty years of opposition to consolidation, to trained teachers and to school libraries, Old Lyme voted to consolidate the four central school districts. The first normal- school teacher was hired. Temporary provision for higher grade education was already offered by a number of local private schools.
With the turn of the century there was a great improve- ment in schooling in Old Lyme. The town appropriation was increased to $2,700. Salaries were raised and attendance im- proved while state grants gave a general impetus to public education. In 1906 the high-school grant was used for the first time by pupils in the town. Then in 1908 the Center School was enlarged so as to house seven districts. Transpor- tation was provided and the general curriculum extended.
230 Educational History of Old Lyme.
The four years between 1908 and 1912 saw many ad- vances in public education in Old Lyme. A model schoolroom had been established with state aid. Increased efforts were be- ing made to improve attendance in connection with the distri- bution of state funds. All men teachers were replaced by women and a kindergarten was maintained. Thirty children were in attendance at the two years of high school provided in the town. Still in all matters of rank Old Lyme was very low.
In 1917 the town made another change in its provision for high-school work. The two years in the town were discon- tinued and children went to some one of the nearby high schools. Free school medical care was introduced and both trade education and home economics were made available.
In 1922 the town voted a considerable increase in the school budget and experimented with the idea of a local junior high school. The ninth grade was set up in 1922 and the tenth grade in 1924.
Still there was a strong current of dissatisfaction and in 1927 the school board voted to discontinue the ninth and tenth grades together with all courses in domestic science and manual training; to employ a new principal and to engage only normal-school teachers.
An extensive local school survey directed by the new prin- cipal led to a request for a new school building. The survey revealed the great inadequacy of the existing building and made specific recommendations for the new.
In 1930 Old Lyme celebrated her seventy-fifth anniver- sary. The area of the town was unchanged, the population had decreased. There was a great increase in the need and cost of education. The school board asked for public support in the establishment of a more adequate plan for school organiza- tion and control. This led to an arrangement through which the Department of Education at Yale University cooperated in the supervision of the schools of Old Lyme. Detailed plans were initiated in 1931 which made provision for administra- tion, supervision and instruction. These included a six-year elementary school and a standard junior high school. The housing problem was the next difficulty.
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Summary.
After many town meetings ground was finally broken in 1934 for a new school building to be erected at a cost of $ 100,000. Complete in its provisions for a modern educa- tional program this school stands on Lyme Street near the site of the first schoolhouse built in the first society in 1725. With the remaining district school at South Lyme it provides nine years of education for the 240 pupils registered in Old Lyme. Arrangements for secondary education, provided in the total school budget ($33,664), were made with the sev- eral high schools in New London.
The completion of this new school building is the begin- ning of a new day in the educational history of the town. With it the generations yet to come may lift Old Lyme from its former position, on the list of backward towns, to a position of leadership in the development of consolidated rural edu- cation in the state of Connecticut.
Bibliographical Note.
Primary Sources.
General. The Connecticut Archives include a vast amount of official manu- script material. This has been classified under twenty-eight different head- ings and indexed for availability. The volumes of special pertinency are: First Series, Towns and Lands, 1629-1789; Second Series, Towns and Lands, 1649-1820; Ecclesiastical Affairs, 1658-1789; Colleges and Schools, 1661-1789. The earliest government reports containing population records for Lyme are to be found in the Connecticut Census prepared by Fosdick for New London, Groton, Preston, Lyme, Colchester, Montville and Waterford, December 27, 1810 (manuscript, 2 vols.); the Connecticut Census of 1830, covering the towns of Lyme, Lebanon, Colchester, Mont- ville, Bozrah and Salem (manuscript); and the Connecticut Census of 1840 (also in manuscript), including New London, Waterford, East Lyme and Lyme. The records of public acts are also rich in related material. Two manuscript records of special interest are to be found in the Connecticut State Library at Hartford: An act appropriating the monies which shall arise from the sale of the western lands belonging to this state, passed May, 1795, and an act in addition to an alteration of an act entitled, an act for appointing, encouraging and supporting schools, passed May, 1799.
Local. The earliest records of lands on the "east side of the river," includ- ing a description of the method of land division, are to be found in the Saybrook Land Records, 1667, in the town clerk's vaults at Deep River. The organization of the town government of Lyme and its earliest pro- visions and practices are to be found in Lyme Records, Vol. I, 1672-1685, now in the state vaults at Hartford. These are supplemented by other valuable town records housed in the vaults in the home of the town clerk of Lyme, Judge William Marvin. These include Lyme Land Records, 1672- 1715 (used in tracing the location of schools referred to in connection with family names) ; Lyme Records, Town Meeting Book, Vol. I; Lyme Rec- ords, 1665-1720, Vol. II; Lyme Records, 1794-1801, Vol. III; Lyme Records, 1801-1855; Lyme Town Records, 1667-1852. Another book in continuous use from the incorporation of the town to the present time is the Lyme Record of Land Grants and Ear Marks. This reveals much of special interest in relation to agriculture.
Information regarding the valuation of schoolhouses, the number of schoolhouses and sources of school and other public funds is to be found, if at all, in Lyme records covering property and taxes. These include: Lyme Tax Lists, 5 volumes, 1781-1793; Moses Warren's Memoranda of Tax Lists of Lyme, 1796; Town Day Book, 1810-1827; Levy on the First
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Bibliographical Note.
Society in Lyme, 1825; Lyme Records of property exempted from taxa- tion in 1828, 1829, 1834 and 1835. Further records of the amount and value of property are to be found in the Lyme Assessment of the Property of the First Society Lists, 1840, 1848, 1849, 1850; Lyme Justice Court Records, June 20, 1794-December 10, 1821, Moses Warren Jr. Justice of Peace.
Ecclesiastical and school affairs are recorded in the extensive manuscript records of the Meetings of the First Ecclesiastical Society of Lyme, 1721- 1876. These are supplemented with some interesting detail in the Lyme Records of the First Congregational Church, 1787-1850, Church Meet- ings, 1787-1850, Members, 1787-1850, Baptism, 1801-1850, Marriages, 1787-1832.
Rural life between November 29, 1818, and November 16, 1857, is described in an intimate way in the two-volume Diary of Josiah Burnham of Lyme, to be found in the State Library at Hartford.
Some valuable material on district-school practices in Lyme and Old Lyme is available in manuscript records. Aside from the Old Lyme Town Records, 1855-1882, and "Survey of Old Lyme Schools," by Frost and Bole, 1927, these records are privately owned. They include: School Book, Third School Society in Lyme, 1799-1856; Records of the Second School District in Lyme, 1849-1850; Register, First District, Second School Society in Lyme, 1851-1859; Register, First District, Second Society, for the summer term of 1854; Register of the South School of Lyme, Winter Term, 1855-1856; Records of the First School District in Lyme, 1858- 1909; and Register of the Bill Hill School in Lyme, 1865-1866.
Printed. A considerable amount of pertinent material for the purposes of this study is to be found in the printed volumes of the Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut. These cover the period from 1636 to 1776: Vol. I, 1636-1665; Vol. II, 1665-1678; Vol. III, 1678-1687; Vol. IV, 1689-1706; Vol. V, 1706-1716; Vol. VI, 1717-1725; Vol. VII, 1726- 1735; Vol. VIII, 1735-1743; Vol. IX, 1743-1751; Vol. X, 1751-1757; Vol. XI, 1757-1762; Vol. XII, 1762-1767. The records after 1776, to 1781, are called the Public Records of the State of Connecticut. The public records since 1781 are not published but are available in the offices of the Secretary of State.
Vital statistics for Lyme covering the years 1667-1852 are to be found in the records of Births, Marriages and Deaths in the Barbour Collection, 1919, in the Connecticut State Library at Hartford. Two local maps are also valuable, not only for geographical data and boundaries but also for their illustrative data and statistical material. These are the Map of New London County, prepared from original surveys under H. F. Walling, William E. Baker, Publisher, 1854; and Moses Warren's Map of the First Society in Lyme, surveyed August 17, 1815, showing the west line of East Lyme and description of monuments on the boundary in 1839.
234 Educational History of Old Lyme.
Old Lyme Town Records were first printed in 1882 and are available for all the years since that date. Complete collections are to be found in the office of the town clerk at Old Lyme, in the Connecticut State Library at Hartford and the Charles Hine Library of the State Board of Education.
Secondary Sources.
General. Information on the history of Connecticut, necessary for an under- standing of town development, has been sought in the available histories of the state. Trumbull, Benjamin, History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesias- tical, Hudson and Goodwin, Hartford, 1797. Osborn, Norris G., History of Connecticut, in monographic form, States History Company, 1925. Dwight, Theodore, History of Connecticut, from the first settlement to the present time, New York, 1841. DeForest, J. W., History of the Indians of Con- necticut, W. J. Hamersley, Hartford, 1851. Hollister, G. W., The History of Connecticut, Case, Tiffany and Co., 1857, 2 volumes. Dexter, Franklin B., A History of Connecticut as illustrated by the name of her towns, 1885, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. Andrews, Charles M., The River Towns of Connecticut, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1889. Sanford, Elias B., A History of Connecticut, S. S. Scranton Co., 1889, Hartford, Connecticut. Andrews, Charles M., Colonial Self-Govern- ment, 1652-1689, The American Nation Series, Harper and Bros., 1904. Osgood, Herbert L., The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, Columbia University Press, 1904. Morgan, Forrest, Connecticut as a Col- ony and as a State, 4 volumes, Hartford, 1904. Roberts, George, Historic Towns of the Connecticut River Valley, Robson and Adee, Schenectady, New York, 1906. Clark, George L., A History of Connecticut, New York and New London, 1914. Purcell, Richard J., Connecticut in Transition, Washington, American Historical Association, 1918. This last reference is especially helpful in creating a historical background for the period of the school societies. Morse, J. M., A Neglected Period of Connecticut's History, 1818-1850, Yale University Press, 1933. McMaster, John Bach, History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War, Appleton and Company, New York, 1927. Contains data on mail service, postage rates, money and transportation. Harwood, Pliny L., History of Eastern Connecticut, Chicago and New Haven, The Pioneer Historical Pub- lishing Co., 1932. Written in journalistic style, without documentation, this suggests information that might be verified elsewhere.
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