USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Chelmsford > History of Chelmsford, Massachusetts > Part 59
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The only roads shown in the same section were one from Middlesex Village to the Concord river, marked Road to Salem. This followed the present line of portions of Baldwin, West Pine, Parker, Chelmsford, Hale, Thorndike and Gorham to Moore street, and on that to the river. A Country Road ran from Pawtucket falls over the present line of School, Powell and Plain streets. Another, beginning near the mouth of Concord river and terminating at Middlesex, corresponds with Merrimack, Pawtucket, and the west end of Middlesex streets. Still another, marked Town Road, ran to the centre of Chelmsford.
THE ADAMS LIBRARY
No. 33
561
PAPERS BY MR. H. S. PERHAM
The little red schoolhouse was now outgrown, and three new ones took its place: One at the corner of Parker and Powell streets, another where the Hospital now stands on Pawtucket street, and the third at Middlesex.
By the adoption of the school district system, every family in Town was provided with a school within easy reach of their home. Men teachers were employed for these schools in winter, and women for the summer terms. Another result not, perhaps, at first contemplated, was the loss of the grammar school. The Town was too poor to support a high grade school in addition to their twelve district schools.
The grammar school teachers had been men of character and scholarly attainments, and, coming from the college to the school- room, with the best mental training which the time afforded, must have exerted an important influence in moulding the character, and stimulating the ambition and mental activity of the young men and women under their charge.
[The school in District No. 11 was "near Capt. Phineas Whiting's," at the upper end of Merrimack street.
In 1821, the Town voted "to petition the Legislature to alter the school law in such a way as not to oblige the Town of Chelms- ford to keep any latten grammer school"
In 1825, the Town appointed as a committee to examine the schools in Chelmsford: Rev. Wilkes Allen, Joel Adams, John C. Dalton, M. D., John O. Green, M. D., Rev. Theodore Edson and Rev. John Parkhurst.
The money to be drawn by School District No. 11 was to be equally divided, the Merrimack Manufacturing Company to draw one half, and the district the other half; the whole to be expended in the district for the support of schools.]
TO THE SELECTMEN OF THE TOWN OF CHELMSFORD Gentn
The increase of Population in the Eleventh School District has been so great for a year or two past, that the Children cannot possibly be accommo- dated in the School House belonging to said district. The Merrimack Manu- factg Company have in consequence erected a School House for the conven- ience of all children residing on their premises. Therefore we the undersigned request that an article may be inserted in the warrent for the Town meeting to be holden on the first Monday of April next to ascertain if the Inhabitants will appropriate the money paid by the Merk Mang Company & persons in their employ for supporting the School established by them, and to have the district so divided as to effect the above purpose
Chelmsford 23d March 1825 .-
KIRK BOOTT Agent PAUL MOODY WARREN COLBURN N GOODWIN ALLAN POLLOCK GEORGE B. POLLOCK HIRAM THOMPSON HENRY SMITH D. J. MOODY CHARLES NICHOLAS
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HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
The paper containing the following was endorsed upon the back "Report of the Selectmen respecting School District No. 11- 1825"
The subscribers to whom was referred the article in the the warrant for the last town meeting, respecting a a division of school district No. 11 having attend to the servic. respectfully submit the following Report.
That said district be divided as follows, viz. beginning at Merrimack River at the northeasterly corner of the Kittridge farm, so called, thence running southerly to the bride over George's brook so called on the road from Patucket Bridge to Concord River bridge, thence westerly on said road to the land of Luther Richardson, thence southerly on said Richardsons land and in the same course to the Patucket land four rods west of the house of Thomas Bagden and that the part of the town east of said line, and north of said canal be made a school district, and called district No. 13.
CALEB ABBOTT NATH WRIGHT ALPHEUS SPAULDING
The teaching of those days was confined to a very few lines of study. But in the fundamental branches the training was thorough, and the pupils left the school with clear minds and a solid foundation upon which to build in after life.
[Additional from page 262, Hurd's Hist. Middlesex County, 1890.]
In 1801 a new schoolhouse was built in the "Mill Row" District (No. 4), costing $310, and the following year a new brick schoolhouse took the place of the original structure at District No. 1, at a cost of $500. This building is now used by the Town for a hearse-house in Forefathers' Cemetery.
The district schools had some famous teachers, among whom was Willard Parker, afterwards the eminent physician of New York. He taught in the old brick schoolhouse in the winters of 1821, '22 and '23 *. Dr. Parker was a descendant of one of the five brothers who came from Woburn and settled in Chelmsford in 1653. He graduated from Harvard College in 1826, studied medicine under the direction of Dr. John C. Warren, Professor of Surgery in Harvard University, and took his degree of M. D. in 1830. He was at once appointed Professor of Anatomy at the Medical School at Woodstock, Vt., and the same year, the same position at the Berkshire Medical Institution. His appointment to the chair of surgery at the same college soon followed. In 1836 he filled the chair of surgery at the Cincinnati Medical College. He soon after visited Europe and spent considerable time in the hospitals of London and Paris. Upon his return he was appointed to the chair of surgery in the College of Physicians in New York City, a position which he held for thirty years. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Medicine and at one time its president.
In 1870 the degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by a college in New Jersey. Dr. Parker was a son of Jonathan Parker, who removed to New Hampshire when a young man. He returned *Letter of Dr. Parker written in 1877 to H. S. Perham.
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PAPERS BY MR. H. S. PERHAM
to Chelmsford when Willard was five years old and settled upon the hill where Riley Davis now lives on South Street. Jonathan was "Jock" in those days, and he was called "Hill Jock" to dis- tinguish him from another Jonathan Parker, his next neighbor, who was called "Trooper Jock." (There was also "Black Jock.")
Dr. Parker always retained his interest in Chelmsford. He kept the old homestead until near the close of his life, when the care of it became too perplexing. The feelings with which he regarded it are shown in a letter written in 1879: "I love it as my old home, and where my parents lived, worked hard and died." His death occurred in New York City in April, 1884.
CHELMSFORD CLASSICAL SCHOOL.
The desire of the people for better educational advantages, for those wishing to pursue the more advanced studies, led to the establishment of the Chelmsford Classical School in 1825. The building, which has since been converted into a parsonage for the Central Baptist Society, was erected for that purpose. The funds for the support of the school were furnished by individual enterprise.
The management was entrusted to the following Board of Trustees :
Abel Hunt, Rev. Wilkes Allen, Rev. Abiel Abbott, Samuel Bachelder, Esq., Oliver M. Whipple, Jonathan Perham, Esq., J. S. C. Knowlton, Esq., Capt. Josiah Fletcher, Sen., Dr. J. C. Dalton, Owen Emerson, Jr., Cranmore Wallace, Captain William Fletcher, Dr. J. O. Green, Dr. Rufus Wyman, Otis Adams, Joel Adams, Esq., Joseph Warren, Captain John (?) Butterfield.
The trustees with rare good fortune secured the services of Ralph Waldo Emerson, of Concord, as teacher.
Although the Chelmsford Classical School had a brief existence the town has occasion to feel proud of its results. Probably at no other period have so many young men gone out from the schools of Chelmsford to gain distinction abroad and confer honor upon their native town.
The following distinguished men were among the pupils of Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the teachers who immediately followed him: Judge Josiah G. Abbott, of Boston; Hon. Fletcher Abbott, Esq., who died at Toledo, Ohio; Morrill Wyman, A. M., M. D., LL. D., who is still in the practice of his profession at Cambridge, Massachusetts; Professor Jeffries Wyman, M. D .; the late Benjamin P. Hunt, of Philadelphia, and the late Professor John Dalton, M. D., of New York, who gained a national reputation in his profession.
J. G. Abbott entered Harvard College at the age of thirteen. After completing his studies there he chose the profession of the law, in which he rapidly rose to distinction. He has also occupied many high positions of political honor, among them that of member of the United States Congress.
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HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
Benjamin P. Hunt, born May 18, 1808, entered Harvard College in 1828. From there he went to Philadelphia and engaged in teaching a classical and scientific school. He sailed for Kingston, Jamaica, March 6, 1840, in the capacity of supercargo. He wrote an account of his voyage which was published in The Dial in 1843. Emerson said of it: "It seems to me the best of all sea voyages. Besides its rhetorical value, it has another quite additional, inasmuch as it realizes so fully for me the promise of the large, wise boy who made my school-days in Chelmsford so glad by his lively interest in books and his native delight in ethical thought, and life looks more solid and rich to me when I see these many years keep their faith." Hawthorne pays the following high tribute to the literary excellence of the article-"a solid example of facts which had not lost their vigor by passing through the mind of a thinker."
In 1842 Mr. Hunt went to Hayti and became the head of a wealthy mercantile house.
Although actively engaged in business his scholarly mind was at work in other directions. He made a study of the West Indian negro character, and he got together a unique collection of books relating to those islands. It is said that his collection of works relating to the Antilles is the most complete in the country, if not in the world.
In 1858 he retired from business and settled in Philadelphia. Here he became actively engaged in charitable and philanthropical movements, especially those for the benefit of the freedmen.
Through his efforts the orphans of the negro soldiers were collected and provided for in a home upon the banks of the Dela- ware. In June, 1869, Mr. Hunt was requested by President Grant, through Secretary Fish, to "join a party of gentlemen going to the West Indies for the purpose of obtaining information concerning several interesting localities in those islands, but more especially Saint Domingo." He was deeply interested in the project of annexation, but sickness prevented his taking part with the commission.
Jeffries Wyman was Professor of Anatomy at Harvard College at the time of the famous murder of Dr. Parkman by Professor Webster, and the trial largely turned upon the scientific investiga- tions of Professor Wyman. His death occurred September 4, 1874.
The need of better educational advantages than were offered by the public schools led to a movement in 1859 for the establish- ment of a school of a higher grade. The use of the building erected for the Chelmsford Classical School, thirty-four years before, was obtained, and on Aug. 29, 1859, the "Chelmsford Academy" was opened. Albert Stickney, A. B., a graduate of Harvard University, was the principal. The trustees were: Levi Howard, M. D., William Fletcher, Dea. David Perham, Charles H. Dalton, Edward F. Richardson, Solomon E. Byam and Edwin H. Warren.
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PAPERS BY MR. H. S. PERHAM
Mr. Stickney was succeeded by Edward E. Spalding, now of Passadena, Cal. Mr. Spalding was a native of the town, and had had a long and successful experience as an instructor.
But in the mean time the War of the Rebellion came on. Some of the pupils joined the ranks of the army. The trustees were unable to secure the support necessary for its maintenance, and in 1862 the school was closed.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. BY BENJ. E. MARTIN, SUPT. OF SCHOOLS, 1915.
Changed conditions in the American home, the extreme subdivision of labor, and the discontinuance of the apprenticeship system in the trades, have necessitated radical changes in the public school system.
In earlier times the home contributed a large part toward the education of the child, especially along manual lines. This is no longer true, except in a small minority of homes. With the great changes in the nature of the population, and in the industries, with the consequent failure of the home to perform the educational work it had formerly done, and the failure of the shop to contribute toward the industrial education of its employees, the burden upon the public school system has proportionately increased. Many changes in the system have resulted.
The following are some of the more notable changes in the elementary school system-already completed, or in process: (1) the change from the highly graded system, with large groups as units, to the various systems that recognize the needs of the small group or of the individual child; (2) the introduction of prevocational courses into the work of the grades; (3) the shortening of the elementary school course to six years, with the work of the two or three upper grades incorporated as a part of a junior high school course. This work, with the work of the high school, constitutes a six year secondary school course. This is the so-called "six and six" plan, six years of elementary school work and six years of secondary school work. This change has come about through the recognized need of differentiations in the course of study to suit the varying needs of the pupils when they reach the age of about twelve years-the age when the individuality of the child begins to assert itself.
In the education of pupils of secondary school age, the changes have been even greater. From the old style high school with one or two courses, there has been developed the modern high school with its multiplicity of courses. The development of very complete commercial courses, domestic science courses, agricul- tural courses, and other vocational courses in our regular high schools, in addition to the courses that formerly constituted the work of these schools, is notable. Besides these specialized forms of education in our high schools, there have been established the so-called industrial schools, vocational schools, trade schools,
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HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
and agricultural high schools, in which our youth from fourteen years up receive industrial and vocational training. These schools are today well established parts of our public school system. The continuation school, in which the industrial worker is given opportunity, and in some cases required, to supplement his education while at work, are rapidly becoming a recognized part of the public school system.
The highly diversified evening school system in cities and large towns, and vacation schools, are recent additions to our school system that are worthy of note.
The kindergarten and supervised playgrounds are also well- established parts of the public school system.
The extension of the compulsory school age, the great atten- tion to the physical welfare of the child, the great care with which dependent, defective, and delinquent children are dealt with, are all features of the present day school system.
To the foregoing account by Mr. Perham, the following is added by the present writer, although it involves some repetition :
A few years ago, upon request, Mr. Emerson's son, Edward Waldo Emerson, kindly supplied the writer with the following: "I think it was in the Autumn of 1825 that Mr. Emerson, then a divinity student, went to Chelmsford to teach in the Academy. His younger brother, Robert Bulkeley Emerson, a good youth, but mentally deficient, was at work there on a farm at that time. Among Mr. Emerson's pupils were young Josiah Gardner Abbott and Benjamin Peter Hunt, a youth especially interesting to him, and with whom, though they seldom met, (for Mr. Hunt lived in Philadelphia), he always kept friendly relations. Hunt wrote to my father in 1860 :- 'It is now thirty- five years since you began your teachings to me, and, with the exception of those of the great, rough, impartial world, I think they have been the best I ever received from any man whom I have personally known. I hope I shall continue to receive similar teachings, thankfully as at present for many years to come.'"
[The present writer had, some years since, in his possession several letters of a most friendly character written by Emerson to Hunt. In one of them was a pleasing reference to Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, then just published.]
"In Mr. Emerson's Journal for 1860 he writes :- 'When I remember how easily and happily I think in certain company,- as, for instance, in former years with Alcott, Charles Newcomb, earlier with Peter Hunt, though I must look far and wide for the persons and conditions, which yet were real,-and how unfavorable my daily habits of solitude are for this success, and consider also how essential this Commerce is to fruitfulness in writing,-I see that I cannot exaggerate its importance among the resources of inspir- ation.' I think he was writing 'Inspiration' at this time, and among the sources he notes Conversation." (See "Letters and Social Aims.")
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PAPERS BY MR. H. S. PERHAM
Frederick F. Ayer, Esq. (Old Residents' Contributions, Vol. 5, p. 47), says: [Judge J. G. Abbott's] description of Emerson as a schoolmaster interested me most because I saw that Emerson had left his character on him in marks that would never wear away. He said Emerson never corrected, nor criticised, nor found fault with a boy, no matter what the boy had done; that only behind his wondrous smile, which almost concealed a faint expression of regret, could one read pages of what he would say, but never articulated. He said the worst boy in school was devoted to him. When some of the boys would be engaged in rough quarrels, he had seen Emerson appear at the door of the schoolhouse with his heart in his face, and the boys would forget their quarrel in an instant.
The following account of Mr. Hunt was prepared by his nephew, Samuel Chamberlain Hunt.
Benjamin Peter Hunt was born in Chelmsford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, on the 18th day of May, 1808. His ancestors were of the early Puritan stock, and in 1641 we find one of them, "William Hunt, admitted freeman of Concord," and in 1655 another, Edmund Chamberlain, the same, of Chelmsford. From his mother (Olive Chamberlain) Hunt, he inherited a wonderfully retentive memory, a calm and impartial judgment, and the absolute loathing of all deception, shams, and falsehood, which made him such a terror to evil-doers. His valuable library was left to his heirs-nieces and nephews.
He attended the common school until he was seventeen, when a year spent under the instruction of Ralph Waldo Emerson, at the Chelmsford Academy, gave him an impulse to a higher education. In 1828 he entered Harvard College, the classmate, among others, of the Rev. Doctors Bellows and Osgood, the Honorable Geo. T. Curtis, John S. Dwight, Esq., and the Rev. Charles T. Brooks. Not remaining to finish the course, he came to Philadelphia, literally to seek his fortune. He taught a classical and scientific school for a number of years, reading everything that came in his way, and always seeking for his associates the cultivated and refined of both sexes. At last, disgusted with the school- master's drudgery, he determined to adopt a new calling, and sailed for Kingston, Ja., on the 6th of March, 1840, as supercargo of the brig "Olive Chamberlain." An account of this voyage was published in two numbers of "The Dial," in 1843. Emerson speaks of it as follows: "It seems to me the best of all sea voyages. Besides its rhetorical value, it has another quite additional, inasmuch as it realizes so fully for me the promise of the large, wise boy who made my school-days in Chelmsford so glad by his lively interest in books and his native delight in ethical thought, and life looks more solid and rich to me when I see these many years keep their faith." Hawthorne cites this piece from "The Dial" as "a solitary example of facts which had not lost their vigor by passing through the mind of a thinker."
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HISTORY OF CHELMSFORD
In 1842 Mr. Hunt went to Hayti to engage in mercantile business, landing at Cape Haytien in May, 1842, just after the earthquake had nearly buried the town. Here, at the scene of the defeat of Le Clerc's expedition, he visited the birthplace of Toussaint, and the old haunts of Dessalines and Christophe, and here began his study of the West Indian negro character and his almost unique collection of books relating to these islands. Success attended his efforts, and he became the head of a wealthy com- mercial house in Port-au-Prince. The natural integrity of his character, his close attention to business, and his pleasure in literature, kept him from the dissipation and immorality into which foreigners in the West Indies so often fall. In 1851 he married a lady of Philadelphia, and in 1858, after making several visits to the United States, his health began to fail, and he retired from business, making Philadelphia his home, and he was only too happy to spend his life in his quiet library among his beloved books.
A sincere abolitionist, Mr. Hunt early took part in the work for the freedmen, and earnestly labored as the Corresponding Secretary of the Port Royal Relief Committee, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association- which latter position he relinquished when it became a salaried office,-and as one of the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Soldiers in Pennsylvania. When the war was ended, he set himself to right the wrongs of the colored people in his adopted city.
In June, 1869, Mr. Hunt was requested by President Grant, through Secretary Fish, to "join a party of gentlemen, going to the West Indies for the purpose of obtaining information con- cerning several interesting localities in those islands, but more especially Saint Domingo." This project of annexation was very dear to him, but from motives entirely different from such as governed many of those interested in the subject. To some it was either the advantages of a coaling station, or so much more gold, sugar, coffee, and rum added, free of duty, to their commerce; but to him it was the door which opened the way for our laws, civilization, and Christianity, to permeate a half-barbarous community of blacks, who are keeping up to this day many of the superstitious practices which they brought from Africa. On the eve of the commission's departure from New York he was obliged reluctantly to give up his share in it, on account of sickness; but he kept, to the day of his death, the unshaken faith, that, sooner or later, the islands of the West Indies will form a part of the great Republic of America; and he left, unpublished, a most interesting and valuable account of the condition of society as he found it in Hayti, which his long intercourse with its people, his sympathy with them, and his insight into character, rendered him peculiarly fitted to describe. Mr. Hunt died at the Harrison Mansion, Frankford, Philadelphia, February 2, 1877.
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His physician said, "When I look at Mr. Hunt in his sufferings, I can think of no other word than 'majestic,' to describe his appearance." When some one said to him a few days before his death, "I think you will be a judge in the spirit world,-for if ever any one could decide between right and wrong, justice and injustice, you are that one," he replied, "I cannot tell what I shall be there, nor even if I shall go to heaven; but wherever the Lord appoints me, and gives me a work to do, there is my place, and there I shall be satisfied."
The Hon. Josiah Gardner Abbott, LL. D., was born in Chelmsford, November 1, 1814, the son of Caleb and Mercy Abbott. She was the daughter of Josiah Fletcher. Caleb was the son of Caleb, son of Nathan, son of Timothy, son of Timothy, son of George, born in 1615, who came from Yorkshire, England, and was one of the first settlers of Andover.
In 1838, Josiah Gardner Abbott married Caroline Livermore, daughter of the Hon. Edward St. Loe Livermore. They had eleven children. Three of his sons served in the army during the Civil War, and two of them fell in battle.
He was born in what is known as the Wynn house opposite the Common, where, later, Deacon Otis Adams lived. His father kept a store in the village-Chelmsford Centre. He graduated at Harvard in 1832, and taught in the Fitchburg Academy. He studied law with Joel Adams, who had his office in Chelmsford; and with Nathaniel Wright of Lowell.
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