USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > A History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, vol 1 > Part 20
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tion of the department. Joel A. Thayer was chosen superintendent of streets.
The first mayor under the charter under which the city is working at present was William S. Woods, elected in 1910. The police took pos- session of their new building November 7, Harrie L. Blood being chief of police. In 1911, Mr. Woods mayor, the city installed the system of book- keeping as adopted by the bureau of statistics. The appropriation for streets and bridges was $25,000. Mr. and Mrs. Allen A. Thayer succeeded Mr. and Mrs. Edwin C. Harvey in the management of the City Home. Na- thaniel J. W. Fish was again elected mayor in 1912, when the appropria- tion for the Hopewell school was made. The municipal lighting plant paid from its earnings the operating expenses, depreciation and the interest on bonds, and had a cash balance of $3,612.15. Norris O. Danforth was ap- pointed chief of police. In Mayor Fish's (1913) administration, the law was passed establishing the new system of municipal finance. George C. Morse was appointed on board of assessors. Lewis A. Hodges was appointed city treasurer. In 1914, N. J. W. Fish mayor, John E. Fitz- gerald was appointed city auditor. The department of the overseers of the poor cost $40,000. Mr. Fish was again mayor in 1915, when the Cham- ber of Commerce had a well organized program.
J. William Flood was elected mayor in 1916. The city spent $25,000 for highway improvement; the police pension act was adopted by the city and the office of inspector of milk was established. The business of the munici- pal lighting plant had increased 40 per cent. Fred P. Conefy was ap- pointed chief of police. While Mr. Flood was mayor again in 1917, the country entered the World War. April 6, the Public Safety Committee was organized, and preparations were made that the city might do its share in the conflict. The street department spent the sum of $58,000, and a special appropriation of $4000 was made for the police department, and a new patrol and ambulance and a touring and motor car were installed. Charles H. Macomber was appointed on the board of overseers of the poor. In 1918, Mr. Flood mayor, the World War was on, as recorded in another chapter. The epidemic, mostly of influenza, was the cause of 948 deaths in this city. A tuberculosis dispensary was established at City Hall. The mothers' aid of the poor department was now costing the city $11,387. With the close of the war, in 1919, Mr. Flood mayor, the rapidly increasing tax rate was one of the municipal problems; there was much popular dis- satisfaction with the municipal lighting plant. Streets had been constructed with light top and no foundation, and were unable to bear the strain of heavy traffic. There was increased necessity for a new bridge at Neck-o'- Land.
In 1920, the former lieutenant of the Ninth Company, Leo H. Coughlin being mayor, increase in wages caused the raising of almost $23,000 more than in 1919; for the fire department $36,000 additional, due to the adoption of the two-platoon system; for the school teaching force, $55,000. The police signal system was put in operation, and policemen on motorcycles began to patrol the streets. James P. Crowley was appointed chief of police. John F. Gottschalk was elected to the board of overseers of the poor. Mayor Coughlin, in his second year as mayor, 1922, made an avowed and successful effort to check the rise in the cost of doing munici-
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pal business, and among other matters, a policy was adopted of awarding contracts to low bidders. . The inaugural address was marked by practical foresight, and economy became the rule. John R. Scanlan, superintendent of buildings, reported that the total valuation of public buildings was $2,235,896.25. The World War soldiers' memorial tablet was erected in the city hall opposite that of the Civil War tablet. The population of the city (United States census of 1920) was 37,137. Albert Fuller was city solicitor. Edwin G. Hopkins was superintendent of streets. Francis P. Callahan, Richard Wastcoat and James P. Whitters were appointed electric light commissioners, and the equipment at the plant was greatly improved. In 1922, Leo H. Coughlin mayor, plans were drawn by Engineer Alonzo K. Crowell for the proposed cement bridge at Neck-o'-Land. The proposed Southeastern Massachusetts Water Supply District was the most important matter involving the city for consideration this year. Improvements were under way at the Central passenger station. Thirty-two mothers were now receiving aid through the poor department, at an annual cost of $22,000. In 1923, Leo H. Coughlin mayor, Joseph P. McKenna was elected a member of the board of assessors, and Joel A. Thayer was appointed superintendent of streets. The new Neck-o'-Land bridge was built in 1923.
The present Taunton has arisen from that old settlement of 1637, the town being recognized as such by the Plymouth Court in 1630. From the time of William Parker, town and city have had their keepers of records, their town and city clerks, and from the first days of the settlement Taun- ton has been represented at provincial and State courts. The first election of a town clerk here was that of Shadrach Wilbore, in 1664. Wilbore was prototype of the independent American-to-be, for, on account of his re- bellious spirit manifested when the odious Governor Sir Edmond Andros levied his unjust taxation, he spent five weeks in jail. In rotation the clerks of the town have been as follows: William Parker, keeper of records in 1645; Oliver Purchis, "Town Clarke," 1654-1665; Shadrach Wilbore, 1665-1695; Thomas Williams, 1695-1702; Thomas Leonard, 1702-1708; John Wilbore, 1708-1725; Benjamin Wilbore, 1725-1740; James Williams, Sr., 1740-1744; James Williams, Jr., 1774-1821; Alfred Williams, 1821-1835; Edmund Anthony, 1835-1845; Francis S. Monroe, 1845; James P. Ellis, 1846- 1855; William Brewster, 1855-1858; Henry C. Porter, 1858-1862; James M. Cushman, 1862-1865. Mr. Cushman was elected the first city clerk, and he so remained until his retirement from public office in 1886, when Edwin A. Tetlow was chosen for that office.
Before any law had been passed requiring the appointment of select- men, Taunton, in 1645, had chosen seven men to administer town affairs, namely, Henry Andrews, George Hall, Edward Case, William Parker, Otis Olney, John Strong, Richard Williams, Walter Deane; and since the year 1638, Taunton has been represented at the courts of the Province and State, the first of the long line of deputies having been William Poole, brother of Elizabeth Poole, John Gilbert and Henry Andrews.
The early town meetings were held in the church, or meeting house, as it was appropriately called, up to 1746, the date of the establishment here of the court house. For a time the meetings were convened there, later at Academy hall, at Mason's hall or at Taunton Hotel. A town hall of brick was built in 1816, where the Robert Treat Paine monument now stands.
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That structure having outgrown its uses, the building that is the rear of the present City Hall was erected in 1848. When the town became a city, in 1864, the lower story was arranged into apartments for the use of the city government.
The Neck-o'-Land and its neighborhood in former days was the busi- ness section of the town, long before the building of the steam railroads. Here, and up and down the Taunton river, were built landings and wharves, that of Jonah Austin, in 1661, being the first; later on, in that vicinity, those of John Richmond and Captain John Smith. In 1667 the first bridge was built at Neck-o'-Land, a drawbridge, the last drawbridge here being re- moved early in the eighteenth century. The Macomber or Ingell street bridge, nearby, was first built in 1772 by Stephen Macomber and Nehemiah Liscomb. The present cement bridge on Ingell street was constructed in. 1921. Shallops and vessels of small dimensions were built here, and a river fleet long gone by carried the freight from brick, lumber and pottery manufacturing places. And even since their day, too, the greater fleet of four and five masters, the deep-water fleet once the possession of Taunton men, have disappeared from the ocean. The new régime of industry and of population have entered and taken the place of the old.
CHAPTER XII. TAUNTON'S SCHOOL INTERESTS
Side by side with the building of its homes, and the founding of its industries, the provident town of Taunton established its schools, in the primitive days of the settlement of townships in this part of the new world-that the scholastic intelligence of the community as imparted through those competent to teach, might march well in the lead with every other factor of the progress of the place. That portion of the history of the town and city, whether for longevity or for excellent standards, holds a valued position in the educational annals of the country. Other cities, with one hundred and fifty years less of consecutive history, have superseded and outrun Taunton numerically and industrially; but here for nearly three hundred years there has been no halt in the steady, persevering care given and advanced methods used by the town and city governments, the school committee and the teacher, successfully to reckon with the requirements of the age in behalf of the education of Taunton's school children. The story has become voluminous since the last histories of the county were written decades ago, but the milestones and the essentials are thus pointed out, denotative of the advancing course of the schools of Taunton.
Town ownership and direction of its one district of schools within the bounds of Taunton, indicated today in our division of systems as the mu- nicipal system, had its start close to the first years of the settlement of the town, when John Bishop, who was also a student in theology, was named as the schoolmaster here. We do not know who immediately succeeded Schoolmaster Bishop after he left here to become the first minister at
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Stamford, Connecticut; yet soon afterwards there is mention of a Mr. Adams as a teacher, and then, in 1685, with "eighty scholars on the list of Taunton school, some of whom had entered Latin," James Green was the schoolmaster, his wages being twenty-one pounds, seven shillings, seven pence. Rev. George Shove, also being minister of the church, kept school in his house, where "children learned to read, write and cypher," and in 1697, "the town did make choice of Mr. Samuel Danforth to keep a gram- mar school here in Taunton."
It was in conformity with the colonial laws of 1642 and 1647, which made the support of public schools compulsory, that Taunton began to maintain her public schools, the town therefore being one of the first in the colony to adopt the system. In 1647 it was ordered that every town of one hundred families should establish and provide for a grammar school, and in 1683 all towns of five hundred families were required to maintain two grammar and two writing schools. In 1670 the profits arising from the cape fishing were offered to any town that would keep a free colonial school, classical as well as elementary; and thereupon, Taunton school, in 1682, received the sum of three pounds, Latin having been taught here at that time. This town's action in favor of a free public school was reported in 1674, and in February, 1701-2, the proprietors ordered one hundred acres laid out on both sides of the Rehoboth road, at the head of the Cross- man meadow, the benefits of which were to be used for the school.
The district system came into use in 1826, with the creating of pru- dential committees, when the town was divided into small districts for the convenience of the residents, each district owning its schoolhouse and school property, and electing its prudential committee, who selected the teacher and provided for the school supplies. The district system was dropped in 1864, when the town became a city, with the appointment of a general school committee. The ordinance of 1868 creating a superinten- dent of schools was carried into effect September 1, 1869, when William W. Waterman was selected for that office.
By vote of the town and the selectmen, the high school was estab- lished in 1838, and Frederick Crafts, former preceptor at Bristol Academy, was elected the first principal, the school commencing in September, 1838, at schoolhouse No. 11, near Oakland factory. Successively, the school was held at schoolhouse No. 14, Westminster street, at No. 21, "Squawbetty." and at No. 5, East Weir. Henry G. Steward succeeded Mr. Crafts in 1839, and Justin Field, Jr., succeeded him. The school was reorganized in 1849, and rooms were hired for the school sessions under the old Spring street church, and Ozias C. Pitkin was chosen principal, with a salary of $700. Miss Mary G. Reed, assistant, was the first teacher, Miss Amelia F. Sproat being chosen second assistant in 1850. The school was removed to the town hall building in the fall of 1854, and William L. Gage was chosen as superintendent, Mr. Pitkin receiving a call to the Chelsea high school. The present Cohannet street school was built in 1858 to relieve conditions at the School street school; it was a schoolhouse of the district system, and is still a public school.
John Ruggles was principal of the high school, 1855-1856; and William E. Fuller, of the New Bedford high school, came here the latter year, and remained until November, 1860. Silas D. Presbrey, later one of Taunton's
Bristol -- 10
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leading physicians, succeeded to the position that year, and he resigned in 1863, to renew the study of his profession, and Charles P. Gorely, sub- master, was advanced to the principalship. He resigned in 1867 for the study of law. Laban E. Warren finished his term, and that year John P. Swinerton entered upon his ten years' principalship. Charles S. Moore, a graduate of Harvard, succeeded him in 1877, and in 1878 Josiah C. Bartlett, preceptor of Bristol Academy, was elected. In June, 1885, the first build- ing was constructed for high school purposes, on the King and Richmond estate, North Pleasant and Washington streets, was accepted by the city, and was dedicated September 2, that year.
The Taunton High School Alumni Association was organized March 26, 1870, with forty-six members of classes of the high school, at the office of Hon. Edmund H. Bennett. The first officers were: President, H. F. Burt, '65; vice-president, J. C. Sproat, '66; secretary, Miss L. B. Bassett, '64; treas- urer, J. W. Sanford, '67. Dr. Waterman's painstaking review of the story of the high school in the annual school report of 1885, at the time of the dedication of the first high school building, is the one thorough and accu- rate paper upon which our story of that school is based; and with a résumé of that account, the important educational events since 1885 are interwoven in the abbreviated form of annals.
Dr. William W. Waterman resigned as superintendent of schools at the close of 1885, and Josiah C. Bartlett, principal of the high school, was elected to that position, while John P. Swinerton was reelected principal of the high school. In September, 1887, Rev. George C. Capron was elected successor to Mr. Bartlett. The expense for maintenance of the schools at this time was $61,457. According to the law of 1887, requiring all minors fourteen years of age or over to attend evening schools, ele- mentary schools for illiterate employes were being organized. William R. French, instructor in music, died in 1888, and George Bridgham was elected to that position, Fred W. Howes succeeding him in 1889. The West Britan- nia and Shores street schools were opened in 1889, and the old Cotley school was discontinued.
Clarence F. Boyden, one of the most erudite of Taunton school superin- tendents, was elected in 1890. The flag-raising law was passed this year, also a law to the effect that patriotic exercises be held in all schools the last regular session prior to Memorial Day. Evening high school was opened in 1891, with more than forty young men and women present. In 1892, W. D. Parkinson resigned as master of the Cohannet school, and George Sherman, of Ludlow, Vermont, was elected to that position. Henry F. Burt retired from the principalship of the Bay street school, and Louis E. Philbrick, of Attleboro Falls, was elected. The County street, the Richmond and the Scaddings schoolhouses were completed in 1895. The School street schoolhouse was built in 1896, and the Washington primary school was occupied for the first time in 1898. Manual training was first considered the latter year. In 1898, too, the qualifications for Taunton teachers were first adopted that all high school teachers be graduates from some higher institution of learning; that all teachers in grades below the high school be graduates of some high school, or an equivalent secondary school.
During 1900, John P. Swinerton, for nearly thirty years connected
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with the high school, was obliged to give up his principalship on account of poor health. After a continuous service of forty-one years as a teacher, Miss Ellen F. Luscomb resigned. Manual training was intro- duced into the schools here in 1900, and art instruction was introduced into the high school. The cost of maintaining the public schools was now more than $112,000. The old Rocky Woods school was closed in 1901. Celia A. Williams, thirty-nine years a teacher in the schools,, died September 7, 1905.
Henry W. Harrub was elected superintendent of schools in 1906, in which year the whole number of schools was thirty, the number of teachers 148, and the number of pupils between the ages of five and fifteen years 5445. The North Pleasant street school was opened on January 11 this year, and the Tremont street school was completed. In the year 1907, the measure was adopted for an increase of the maximum salary of grade teachers from $550 to $600, and for raising the salaries paid teachers of ungraded schools to nearly the same standard. The city now ranked 160th in the amount appropriated for public schools for each $1000 of valuation, paying $5.32 per 1000. The total amount now spent for the maintenance of public schools was $134,000. There was a great influx of children of foreign birth and parentage.
The opening of St. Mary's parochial school in 1908 reduced the public school enrolment nearly five hundred. D. G. Miller was elected principal of the high school, and classes in sewing and dressmaking were opened by Miss Mary E. Tetlow and Miss Gertrude Chadwick. Fire drills were started in the schools, and the children's room in the public library was opened this year. The East Weir school was named in honor of William E. Walker. Former principal of the high school John P. Swinerton died December 6, 1909. A special class for backward children was opened at the School street school. Mary Hamer, a teacher in Taunton high school for thirty-five years, died August 7, 1910. Fred U. Ward was elected principal of the high school this year. For teaching thrift, a school sav- ings bank was opened at the Weir Grammar school by Principal P. Byron Reid.
The total school enrolment in 1911 was 4666, with 161 teachers, the appropriation for the schools being $120,000. The lot for the Bay street schoolhouse was purchased. School savings bank was introduced into the Walker and the Winthrop schools. The commercial course was estab- lished at the high school. The teachers' retirement system was begun in 1913. Clarence Fuller Boyden, superintendent of schools, died November 23. The Hopewell school building was completed in 1914, and an addition to the Cohannet school building was made. The enrolment at the high school was 518, and one hundred graduated in June. The Standish prop- erty, adjacent to the Weir Grammar school, was purchased for that school. Departmental teaching was introduced into the Cohannet school, and classes for backward pupils were opened at Fuller and Weir Grammar schools. P. Byron Reid was transferred to the Cohannet school from Weir Grammar school, and Albert H. Cochrane was appointed principal of the latter school.
The dental clinic was started in the schools in October, 1915, in charge of Dr. Thomas E. Dunn and Dr. Fred L. Nickerson, the city appropriating
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$1000 for the clinic establishment. The District Nurse Association ten- dered to the school board, through its chairman, Mrs. Charles T. Hubbard, the service of a school nurse for 1915-1916. School gardening was success- ful, over 600 gardens being planted, and an exhibition held at the high school in October. The Pine street school was enlarged and improved. The schools had an enrolment of 5016, the attendance being ninety-six per cent. Fred A. Boardman was attendance officer. The total expenses for school maintenance in 1916 amounted to $181,855, an increase of six and one-half per cent. over the preceding year. The Summer street school building was completed. Miss Jessie M. Moulton was appointed school nurse, and J. Francis Dee, supervisor of school gardening. The next year, 1917, Miss Helen B. Dunn was appointed school nurse.
During the World War, and throughout the various campaigns, the schools performed their share, in food conservation and allied work, in the war and thrift savings, and the like. Franklin P. Hawkes conducted the school gardening. In 1918 the new high school building was completed, the enrolment at high school having increased nearly one hundred per cent. in ten years. Winthrop school was reconstructed and enlarged. School maintenance was now costing $224,179.95. Frank P. Smerdon was elected attendance officer. The Mary Hamer Library at high school, for whose beginnings the alumni association had contributed $100, numbered 2000 volumes in 1923.
Henry W. Harrub died December 11, 1919. Mr. Harrub was elected superintendent of schools June 24, 1905, and had served continuously until his resignation, September 1, 1919. Continuation schools were started in 1920, with Clinton E. Carpenter as director. C. G. Persons was elected superintendent of schools this year. In ten years the school membership had increased fourteen per cent. and the school expenditures eighty-eight per cent. Miss Amy L. White was chosen school dietitian. The second year of the continuation school, 1921, had an attendance of 893 pupils. The high school had an enrolment of 931, and there were forty teachers, includ- ing the principal.
Wendell A. Mowry was elected superintendent of schools in 1922. The total registration of the schools was 5459, school maintenance now costing $399,188.30. An appropriation of $200,000 was made for a new school- house at East Taunton, and an addition to the Walker school was under way. College week was an outstanding event at the high school, under the direction of Principal Ward. Frank L. Caton was elected director of the continuation school, the total enrolment of that school being 452 pupils. Day and night schools had an enrolment of 6898 pupils.
The schools to April, 1923, had an enrolment of 5609; there were 4774 pupils in the elementary school and 845 in the high school. Americaniza- tion work was brought to a close for the year, with exercises in high school hall, certificates being given fifty-six pupils, the total Americanization en- rolment having been one hundred and fifty-nine. During the year a total of 6898 pupils had received instruction at the expense of the city. The estimated budget for 1923 was $411,135.
Bristol Academy .- Bristol Academy, a scholastic institution of the past, still exists in its beneficent academic effluences through the genera- tions. It actually had its inception with the organization known as the
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Taunton School Society, composed of such men as Judge William Baylies, Brigadier-General James Williams, County Treasurer Apollos Leonard, Hon. Seth Padelford, General David Cobb, Senator Elisha May, Senator Samuel Fales, Samuel Leonard, Simeon, James and Josiah Tisdale, Jona- than Cobb and Captain James Crocker. These men, petitioning the Gen- eral Court for an act of incorporation of the academy, obtained their desire January 30, 1792, together with a grant of land six miles square in an un- claimed part of the district of Maine, then under the jurisdiction of Massa- chusetts. In Taunton, a lot of land between Summer and Dean streets was purchased of Mrs. Hannah Crocker and Miss Ruth Cushman, and with the result of the disposal of the Maine lands, the academy building was erected at a cost of $5000. This was the first academy in Bristol county, and the second to be established in the Old Colony, that at Hingham being the first. Rev. Charles H. Brigham, Rev. Samuel Hopkins Emery and William E. Fuller, Esq., have written the story of the academy in times past, in historical sketch and for anniversary address, and it is from these sources that we recall the essentials of that educational milestone in the journey of the town. Faith in God, it was set forth by the founders, was the cornerstone of the school "whose lines have gone out into all the earth" in the shaping of the careers of a number of remarkable men.
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