USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > History of Newton, Massachusetts : town and city, from its earliest settlement to the present time, 1630-1880 > Part 23
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Benjamin Guild, H. U. 1769, tutor at Cambridge, d. 1792. Jacob Coggin, H. U. 1763, d. 1803, never ordained.
Dr. Samuel Langdon, H. U. 1740, President H. U., d. 1797.
Eliphalet Porter, H. U. 1777, Unitarian pastor, Roxbury, d. 1833. William Greenough, Yale Coll. 1774, Pasto at West Newton, d. 1831.
1. David Daniels,
13
16. Mr. Waters,
18. Mr. Parsons,
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
Four of these gentlemen were classmates of Dr. Homer, and four others must have been at the University with him.
This period was one of the crises in the history of the town and of the First Parish, marking the beginning of the transition from the methods of the fathers to the methods of modern times. From this period the parish was distinct from the town, and the church from the parish,- the church being a kind of upper house, whose jurisdiction was superior, while that of the parish was inferior ; but involving the peculiarity that many of the members of the upper house were also members of the lower house, and might be able to control its measures. But a spirit of harmony has generally prevailed. Neither house has taken advantage of the other. The same method of church polity, substantially, has prevailed among the Congregational churches, including the Bap- tists, from that day to this.
CHAPTER XX.
EDUCATION IN NEWTON BEFORE 1800 .- GRAMMAR SCHOOL IN CAMBRIDGE .- EARLY MOVEMENTS IN NEWTON .- FIRST SCHOOL- MASTER .- DISSENSIONS .- FIRST SCHOOL COMMITTEE .- GRAM- MAR SCHOOL.
Ir was sixty years after the first settlement of Cambridge Village when the town voted, March 7, 1698, "to build a school-house as soon as they can," and the next year, " to build a school-house six- teen feet by fourteen, before the last of November." Many of the fathers of the town, however, had received a respectable education in England. The mothers too were doubtless not lacking in intellect or attainments. But the school system of Newton was built up little by little. In a rural town, mainly occupied with the bare support of life, or the gradual improvement of their estates, the majority of the inhabitants felt little need of intellectual culture. For nearly a century they had no higher aim than the district school ; and, in their early days, even this modicum of literary opportunity was afforded very sparingly. For many years, in the Records of the "March meeting," for the election of the town officers, it is a marked fact that the school committee were the last, or nearly the last of the office-holders chosen. The hog-reeves, the deer-reeves, the sealer of weights and measures, and of leather, the hay-wards, the fence-viewers and the "tything-men" were sure to be men- tioned as elected and "sworn;" but in half the years between 1706, when the first school committee was chosen, and the year 1733, the fact of the election of these officers is omitted. A sur- vey of the names of the school committees for the first fifty years, not to say twice that number, shows also that the people had no idea of a plan for the gradual elevation of the schools ; no con- ception of a continuous progress ; no sense of the worth of expe- rience in the guardians of public education. The names are
225
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
changed so often, and, apparently, so arbitrarily, as to indicate that the citizens, in the construction of the school committee, thought only of rotation in office,- the policy of giving every man in the town a chance to hold office for once in his life, and that this com- mittee was, in their estimation, the waste and useless territory, where this system of policy could be experimented on with the least public detriment. Those families which lived nearest the Cam- bridge grammar school, and had some literary enterprise, might have sent their sons thither for higher training ; but for most of the citizens, this opportunity must have been beyond the reach alike of their means and their ambition.
A grammar school was early established in Cambridge. Several of the first settlers were men of learning who appreciated the advantages of education, and determined that the rising generation should enjoy them. If the church was the first object of their care, the school was the second
In 1636, when Boston was scarcely six years old, the General. Court voted four hundred pounds, equal to a year's rate of the whole colony, towards the erection of a " public school or college ; " of which two hundred pounds was to be paid the next year, and two hundred pounds when the work was finished. An order was passed, soon afterwards, that the college should be at Newton, " a place very pleasant and accommodate." Part of the land on which the college and the President's house were built, containing two acres and two-thirds, was granted for the purpose by the town of Cambridge. In November, 1644, an order was passed by the General Court, desiring each family to give a peck of corn or a shilling in cash to the treasury of the College. In 1647 the State of Massachusetts made the support of schools compulsory.
The grammar school near the College was nearly coëval with the existence of the town, and an object of much care and attention. A writer in 1643 remarks, "By the side of the College is a fair grammar school, for the training up of young scholars, and fitting them for academical learning, and as they are judged ripe, they may be received into the College." The first law, establishing public schools in America, was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, on the 27th of October, 1647.
In 1665 every town had a free school, and, if it contained over one hundred families, a grammar school ; that is, according to the meaning of the authorities, a school where boys could be fitted for the University.
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CAMBRIDGE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
The " faire Grammar school by the side of the Colledge," of which Mr. Corlet was master, and in which Mr. Eliot, the first pastor at Cambridge Village, received the rudiments of his classi- cal education, was founded in 1643, or earlier. Some years later, the school received a liberal donation from Edward Hopkins, Gov- ernor of Connecticut, who died in 1657. Mr. Hopkins directed in his will that after the death of his wife a legacy of £500 should be paid out of his estate in England, " for the upholding and promot- ing the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ in these parts of the earth." The lady survived him forty-one years. After her decease, the payment of the legacy was refused, and a suit to re- cover it was instituted in the Court of Chancery. After a number of years the Lord Keeper Harcourt, with the consent of the " Soci- ety for Propagating Christianity "and others, decreed that the legacy, with interest from the time it was due, amounting in all to about £800, should be laid out in the purchase of lands for the benefit of Harvard College and the Grammar school at Cambridge. The money was received and laid out in purchasing a tract of land of the Natick Indians in 1715, to which the General Court after- wards added a considerable grant of lands adjacent, the whole forming the township in Middlesex county, which was named Hopkinton, in honor of the donor.
The town of Cambridge was taxed for this school, in which their sons were to be fitted for college, and the inhabitants of Cam- bridge Village bore their share. In the proposal made by Cam- bridge, to quiet the inhabitants of the Village, in 1672, and which the General Court sanctioned in 1673, the Village was required to continue to aid in supporting the grammar school, and had an equal right to its advantages. But it was many miles away from Cambridge Village, and very likely few of the sons of the settlers attended the school, and were there fitted for college. Many of the families, undoubtedly, taught their children in their own homes. Others, probably, neglected it, deeming the subduing of the wil- derness more important than literary culture. "The erection of the school-house was nearly half a century behind that of the meeting-house." But the fact that men were always found capable of transacting business in a discreet and orderly manner proves that they had both a good share of common sense, and as much lit- erary culture as their circumstances rendered necessary.
Before the enactment of the law establishing public schools, the Government seems to have taken the initiative in requiring that
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
the children should not be allowed to grow up in ignorance. Allu- sion is made in the Cambridge Records of 1642 to an order of the General Court passed in 1641, " that the townsmen see to the edu- cating of children, and that the town be divided into six parts, and a person appointed for each division, to take care of all the families it contained." But the matter of public education seems to have given the early settlers no little anxiety. They were sen- sible of its importance, but they saw obstacles difficult to be over- come. It seemed to some of them, doubtless, a costly experiment, and there were those who hesitated to lay out money for that which had made no demands upon them hitherto for nearly two generations, except in the comparatively small tax for the grammar school. They foresaw, in free schools, no immediate return in the necessary staples of living. The vexed question -" Where shall the school-house be placed?" which has so often agitated later times, might well be a difficult one for them to solve, in their pov- erty, with their sparse population and scattered homes, and the broad geographical area included in their estates. It is interest- ing to watch their tentative efforts and resolves, as they felt their way tremblingly through the difficulties by which they were encom- passed.
May, 1699. - VOTED to build a school-house, sixteen feet by fourteen, be- fore the last of November .*
January 1, 1700 .- The Selectmen and inhabitants did hire and agree with John Staples to continue the keeping of the school four days in a week until March, and he to have two shillings per day.
VOTED, that the school-house be set in the highway, near to Joseph Bart- lett's, and that it be finished by the first of October, and agreed with John Staples to keep the school one month, four days in a week, for £1 4s.
But notwithstanding this vote, the school-house seems not to have been finished at the appointed date. For on the twenty-fifth of November following, the citizens voted "that the Selectmen shall hire a room, or place to keep school in, and shall agree with John Staples, or some other, to keep and continue the school until the town meeting of election in March."
* A record of a still earlier date, 1696, implies that a movement for a school in the town had been previously made, and that the name of John Staples had been used in connection with it. "In this year, 1696," says the record, "the town agreed to build a school-house, and chose a committee to treat with and persuade John Staples (afterwards a worthy deacon of the church) to teach the school. To him they gave, agreeably to their day of small things, one shilling and sixpence per day."
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JOHN STAPLES.
The various interests which were so difficult to be harmonized a few years later in regard to the location of the meeting-house,- requiring even the help of the General Court,- seem to have delayed the erection of the first school-house. It was easy to secure a vote to build ; but not so easy to decide where the building should stand. It was undoubtedly with a view to aid in settling this ques- tion, that Abraham Jackson gave the town his acre of land, for the setting of the school-house upon and other purposes. This gift, dated May 14, 1701, perhaps contributed to the decision of the in- habitants. For at that same date, they agreed without dissent to the following votes :
VOTED, unanimously, to build two school-houses, one to be set at the meeting-house* seventeen feet square, besides chimney room; and the other near Oak Hill, sixteen feet square, besides chimney room; twenty-five pounds appropriated for both, and the residue to be made up by subscription ; one master to be hired to teach, two-thirds of the time at the meeting-house school, and one-third of the time at Oak Hill; and those that send children to school shall pay three pence per week for those who learn to read, and four pence for those that learn to write and cipher; and all may send to either school as they choose. Capt. Prentice, Licut. Spring and John Hyde were joined with the Selectmen to build the school-houses.
VOTED, that the Selectmen and Ephraim Wheeler, John Hyde, Nathaniel Healy and Edward Jackson treat with and persuade John Staples to keep the school, and if they cannot, then to use their best discretion to agree with and hire some other person.
John Staples, whose name appears in these votes, was the first schoolmaster of Newton. He was a weaver by trade, and came to Newton in 1688. His farm was afterwards owned and occupied by William Wiswall; now by W. C. Strong, Esq. Nothing is known of his parentage. He married Mary Craft in Newton, July 24, 1690. They had no children. He was deacon of the church many years, Selectman eight years, from 1701 to 1709, and Town Clerk twenty-one years, from 1714 to 1734, being the third in that office ; a man much respected and esteemed, and his name often appears in connection with positions of responsibility. He died Nov. 4, 1740, aged 82. He gave by his will seventeen acres of woodland "for and towards the support of the ministerial fire, from year to year," and £25 to the poor of Newton. He brought up two young men, to whom he showed kindness and in his will
* The meeting-house at that time stood in the burying place on Centre Street. Oak Hill was, next to this section, the most important and thriving portion of the town.
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
gave to one of them, James Pike, £20, and to the other, Joseph Lovering, all that was due on a bond from him, both principal and interest. He manifested an interest in the training up of a godly and learned ministry ; for he made a provision in his will as follows :
John Staples Craft, son of Moses Craft, shall be brought up to learning, so far as to fit and prepare him for the ministry of the gospel, if he be capable of learning, and is willing to it; but if he cannot learn, or is not willing and free to learn, he shall have £400 in money, when he shall come to the age of twenty-one years.
Inspired, perhaps, by the example of Abraham Jackson, Jonathan Hyde, senior, in 1702 gave to John Kenrick and others, Selectmen of Newton, "half an acre of land near Oak Hill, abut- ting ten rods on the Dedham road, and eight rods wide, northwest by his own land, for the use and benefit of the school at the south part of the town." Mr. F. Jackson says, "This half acre of land was sold many years ago, and a small fund accumulated from the proceeds, which was divided among the inhabitants of the south school district, a few years since, by vote of the town, pro rata, according to the taxes each one paid." A school-house, however, has been maintained, ever since that time within a few yards of that locality. It was here that the Rev. Caleb Blood, the first pastor of the First Baptist church, taught school for two winters, piecing out an inadequate salary as a minister, by instructing the children.
March 4, 1706, Captain Isaac Williams, Lieutenant John Mason and Abraham Jackson were appointed "a Commity to take care to provide a schoolmaster for the town this year." These names constituted the first school committee. After this a school com- mittee was probably elected annually.
These are the earliest records of the town in relation to common school education, subsequent to its separation from Cambridge,- the beginning of a series of measures which have set the town of Newton, in the progress of years, in the front rank of the towns of the Commonwealth, and gained for it a meed. of praise in the grand Industrial Expositions of the world. Similar votes were passed in 1707 and 1709. In process of time, John Staples, the first schoolmaster, no longer kept school; but he has left specimens both of his chirography and orthography, in the discharge of his · office as Town Clerk, in the Records of Newton. John Brown
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DISSENSIONS.
was probably his successor ; for we find two receipts signed by him for his service as schoolmaster, the first dated April 13, 1715, and the second, June 26, 1717.
From this date the citizens of Newton took regular action on the question of public schools. Their standards seem to us not very elevated ; but they had not the culture and experience of two hundred years behind them, nor the wealth and willingness and public opinion of the second half of the nineteenth century to stimulate and sustain them.
There were evidently men among the people, who had progres- sive ideas of the importance of education, and who were in advance of their age, as the subsequent legislation of the town indicates. As early as March 10, 1717-18, the citizens passed these votes :
VOTED, to give ten pounds this present year to the northwesterly, west, and southwesterly inhabitants " for the promoting of Larning among them, in such placies as a Commity hearafter chosen shall appoint; and to be paid to [such] schoolemaster or schoolemasters, as shall teach."
VOTED, that the Selectmen for the time being shall be the said committee, as aforesaid.
In a town whose territory was so extensive and the population so scattered, the location of the schools was necessarily an em- barrassing question, and the people found no little difficulty in coming to an amicable decision ; and they seem to have been not only dilatory, but also ungracious, in their attempts to settle it, as if they dreaded lest their private interests might be compro- mised by the decision. March 13, 1720, the proposal was made to grant the remote parts of the town twelve pounds annually, to promote schooling among themselves, and the proposal was voted down ; then, that the grammar school should be kept at the school- house near the meeting-house, the present year,- which was also voted down; and, finally, to have the school kept in the school- house at the south part (Oak Hill) of the town; and this was voted down likewise.
At this juncture, Mr. Samuel Miller, "promising to find a room in his own house to keep the school in, and not charge the town anything for the use of it," a vote was passed that "the school should be kept in the house of the said Mr. Samuel Miller for the present year or ensuing year."
Samuel Miller was the son of Joseph Miller, supposed to have come into Newton from Charlestown, and who lived on the
16
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
Stimpson Place, West Parish. Samuel Miller was born Septem- ber 24, 1678, and had three sons and three daughters. Besides this offer of a room in his house for the school, he gave the town, in 1726, four rods of land near his house for a school-house. He was Selectman in 1743, and died at Worcester, 1759, aged eighty-one.
The next step was a provision that the people of Oak Hill shall enjoy their proportion of schooling at their school-house, accord- ing to their proportion of taxes paid ; the northerly and easterly parts of the town at the school-house near the meeting-house, on the same conditions ; and that the people of the west part shall receive twelve pounds ten shillings out of the town treasury towards the building of a school-house within forty rods of the house of Samuel Miller, and the inhabitants to enjoy their propor- tion of schooling according to their proportion of taxes.
The following record is interesting. The spelling shows that a school was very much needed. It is difficult to conceive how a schoolmaster could have allowed such a specimen to go from his hand. His teaching must have been better than his practice.
May 11, 1720 .- Ata towne meeting appointed by ye Selectmen for to hear the petitision of sundrey ye inhabitanc on the westerly side ofye towne, for to have three scoolehousies in ye towne, and to have theire proportion of scool- ing, as also to hear ye request of sundrey of ye inhabitanc to have but one schoolhouse to keep ye gramer schoole in; as also, to hear the propesision ; of sundrey persons, yt. if the gramer schoole be kept but in one place, yt. there should be a consideration granted to ye remoat parts of the towne for schooling among themselves. The inhabitanc being lawfully warned by Mr. Ephraim Williams, constabll, to meet att the meeting house on said eleventlı day of May, and being assembled on said day, did first trye a voat for three schoolehousies ; and was negatived.
2. Did trye a voate for to have the gramer schoole to be kept but in one place, and it was voated to have but one schoolehouse to keep grammer schoole in for the towne.
3. VOATED, to grant the remoat parts of ye Towne a consideration for schooling among themselves.
4. VOATED, to choose a Commity to consider whear said one schoolehouse should be erected for to keep the gramer schoole in; as also to consider who ye remoat parts of the towne are yt. cannot have ye benifit of but one schoole and what alowanc they shall have for schooling among themselves; and to make theire repoart of what they do agree upon at ye next publick tow? meeting for confirmation or non-confirmation. And then did choose Lieut. Jeramiah Fuller, Mr. Joseph Ward, Mr. Nathaniell Longley, Mr. Richard Ward and Insine Samuel Ilides to be the said Commitey.
Recorded per me, JOHN STAPLES, Towne Clarke.
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DISSENSIONS.
Newton, May 11, 1720 .- Whe whose names are underwritten do enter oure decents aginst this voate of having but one schoolehouse in this towne.
WILLIAM WARD,
EPHRAIM WILLIAMS,
EDWARD WARD,
HENRY SEGER,
PHILIP WHITE,
JOHN PARKER,
JONATHAN DICKE,
ISAAC WILLIAMS,
JOHN WARD,
WILLIAM WILLIAMS,
JONATHAN WILLARD,
ANDREW HALL,
WILLIAM ROBESON,
JOHN HIDES,
EBENEZER LITTLEFIELD,
ROBERT GODDARD,
JOB SEGER,
JACOB CHAMBERLIN,
JOHN CHILD.
JOHN PARKER,
ELIEZER HIDES,
JOSEPH MORS,
SAMUEL MILLER,
EBENEZER WILSON.
The committee appointed at the town meeting May 11, 1720, made report at a town meeting held December 7, 1720, as follows :
The said Comity did then bring in theire return as followeth, viz. : that ye most conveniant places to erect a schoolehouse upon to keep ye gramer schoole in is that place of land which ye towne purchased to sett the meeting- house upon, or, at ye opening of ye way between the land of John Cheaney and ye widdow Hannah Hides ; and secondly, to allow ye remote parts of ye towne twelve poundes a yeare for schooling among themselves, and yt. it be laid out for yt. use ; and thirdly, did suppose yt. there is about sixty fammlyes yt. are two miles and a halfe from the meeting-house, and about forty. fammlyes yt. are about three miles from ye meeting-house.
The said Comitye's returne was then publickly read more than onst. The inhabitanc did then proceed to act and did
First, voate an axceptanc of ye returne of the Commity.
Secondly, did debate which of the said two placies to erect a schoolehouse upon.
And then did voate yt. ye said schoolehouse shall be erected at ye opening of the way between the land of John Cheaney and Hannah Hides.
Per me JOHN STAPLES, Recorder.
It is evident that the excitement on this school question ran high, and brought out very decided action. At the town meeting, held March 13, 1721, after the election of a school committee, the town "did trye a voat for ye granting ye remoat parts of ye towne twelve pounds annualy for schooling amoung themselves so long as ye schoole should be kept in one place ; and it was negatived."
Did trye a voat yt. ye gramer schoole should be kept att the schoolehouse by the meeting-house for ye present year ; negatived.
Did trye to have it kept at ye schoolehouse in ye southerly part of ye towne; and it was negatived.
March 12, 1722 .- VOATED, that the schoole shall be kept this yeare two- thirdes of ye time at ye meeting-house, and one-third at ye south end of ye . towne.
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
VOATED, yt. Mr. Edward Ward, Mr. Thomas Hammond and Mr. Joseph Ward are a Commity to provide a schoolemaster for ye yeare ensewing.
The following year progress was made in the spirit of accom- modation. At the March meeting the inhabitants provided by vote for three schools,- on the west side of the town one-half the year, and at the north and south parts, one-quarter each. In the next October, a town meeting was held, to debate upon the proper location of one or more school-houses. Not finding a public dis- cussion of the subject beneficial, the inhabitants appointed a committee of six freeholders, " to go alone and debate or consider of what they thought best, and to make report to the town." The meeting was adjourned for one hour; and then the committee reported that they thought best that the school-house should be con- tinued at Oak Hill, where it is.
That the school should be kept there one-quarter of the year, and half the year at the school-house by the meeting-house, and that a school-house should be erected in the westerly part of the town, where it shall be the most con- venient to the inhabitants, and that a school shall be kept there one-quarter of the year,-the inhabitants of the whole town to have liberty to send scholars to any one or all these school-houses, as they shall see reason.
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