USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Newton > History of Newton, Massachusetts : town and city, from its earliest settlement to the present time, 1630-1880 > Part 24
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The inhabitants did not agree to this proposal ; but a petition was immediately presented, signed by sixty-three persons, praying that two school-houses might be appointed for the whole town,- one being the school at Oak Hill already in use, and the other to be erected in the centre of the remaining part of the town, for all the rest of the town ; each of the schools to be continued in pro- portion to the rates or taxes paid by the inhabitants of the two districts respectively.
Some of the citizens dissented from the plan. But the majority voted to grant the request of the petitioners, and to " build a new school-house in the centre of the remaining part of the town, Oak Hill being excepted." A committee was appointed to determine the centre of the remaining part of the town. The school-house was to be "24 foots in length, 18 foots in width, and six foots between joints, and to be finished by the first of May following."
But in less than two months the inhabitants were dissatisfied with this arrangement, and at a town meeting held December 17, 1723, passed the following votes :
1. That the south part of the town, from Stake meadow to the South Meadow Brook, and thereby to the river, shall enjoy their proportion of the schooling at the school-house at Oak Hill, according to the proportion they bear in the taxes or town rates.
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SCHOOLMASTERS PROVIDED.
2. That the northerly and easterly parts of the town shall enjoy their pro- portion of schooling at the school-house by the meeting-house, according to the taxes or town rates of such as shall subscribe to that place.
S. That the towne do grant the westerly inhabitants twelve pounds and ten shillings to be drawn out of the town treasury for and towards the build- ing of a school-house within forty rods of the house of Samuel Miller, and that they shall enjoy their proportion of schooling there, according to the proportion they bear in taxes or town rates of those that shall subscribe to that place. And that the inhabitants of the town shall have free liberty of sending scholars to any one or to all three of the aforesaid places as they shall have occasion,-any former votes or agreements relating to schooling notwithstanding.
September 5, 1731, a committee was appointed to petition the General Court for a grant of land, to enable the town to support a grammar school.
In 1733 the Selectmen were authorized to use one of the school- houses for a work-house during the recess of the school, thus making these humble edifices of double utility. In 1742 a vote was passed to remove the Centre school-house, by the meeting- house, to the Dedham road, and to place it " between the lane that comes from Edward Prentice's and Mill Lane, where the commit- tee shall order."
The vexed question of the schools seems now to have rested for a season. No further action pertaining to them appears till March, 1750, when a committee was appointed to repair the meeting-house and the school-houses.
In the meantime the ideas of the inhabitants in regard to educa- tion seem to have been somewhat enlarged. At a town meeting held December 4, 1751, we find this action :
After some debate the question was put whether there should be two more schoolmasters provided to keep English schools in town, that there may be a school kept at each school-house until the anniversary meeting in March next; and it passed in the affirmative.
VOTED, that there should be two men chosen at the southerly part of the town and two at the westerly part of the town to provide masters. And then the town made choice of Thomas Greenwood, Esq., Captain Jonathan Fuller, Lieutenant Robert Murdock and Mr. John Wilson.
Similar action took place November 30, 1752, when the town voted to choose a committee to provide two more schoolmasters, that schools may be kept in each school-house in the town, until the anniversary town meeting in March next.
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
The expression,-" two more schoolmasters,"- probably does not imply an absolute addition of that number to the teaching force in the town, but only that two schoolmasters were to be pro- vided again this year, as there were two the last year. Many ancient town documents are not distinguished by exactness in the forms of expression, but they are sufficiently plain not to be misunderstood.
It is interesting to observe the cautious manner in which the early inhabitants proceeded in their public business, keeping every- thing under careful control, and suffering no important interest to be left unprovided for.
Action similar to that of 1752 was repeated at the town meet- ing of October 29, 1753.
VOTED, that there shall be two more schoolmasters provided to keep Eng- lish schools in the town,-one to be kept at the school-house in the westerly part of the town; the other to be kept at the school-house in the southerly part of the town, and said schools to be opened on Monday, the 12th day of November next, and to continue until the first Monday of March next fol- lowing.
The next year, October 7, 1754, the question was again proposed in town meeting whether there should be " two more schoolmasters provided, that so a school may be kept in each school-house from the first day of December next to the anniversary town meeting in March next. And it passed in the affirmative."
For several years beginning with 1744, at the March meeting, the town appointed a committee "to provide a Grammar School master to keep the Grammar school the ensuing year." It is not probable, however, that the town employed the phrase " Grammar school " in the sense designed by the Great and General Court, namely, a school where the Latin and Greek languages were taught, and where young men were fitted for college. And this committee seems rather to be the ordinary school committee, having charge of visiting the common district schools. Possibly the terms used were employed unconsciously in such a general sense. At any rate, the wisdom of the Legislature may well be questioned, in requiring every town in the Commonwealth number- ing a hundred families to maintain a school where boys could be fitted for college. There was need of men to fill the learned pro- fessions ; but there was greater need of stalwart arms to subdue the soil, and to meet the exigencies of this young and rugged
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ANCIENT SCHOOL-HOUSE.
country. And we sympathize with the early inhabitants, if they endeavored by forms of language to evade the law, or, on account of a sense of its lack of timely wisdom, put off compliance with its terms. They were wiser than their law-givers.
The desire for improved facilities in the department of educa- tion was evidently on the increase. In 1751 and again in 1753, the town had voted to have two more schoolmasters, and at the former date, to repair the school-houses. Still, the opportunities of instruction were very slender, and unless they enjoyed private tuition, the young people must have grown up with little literary culture. In 1754, the vote of the town was "to have three schools in the town, kept from December first to March meeting." But for such as were able to avail themselves of higher opportunities and inclined to do so, there was Judge Fuller's private school, where the higher branches of learning were taught, previous to 1760. In this school, the germ of the subsequent Fuller Academy, Joseph Ward became an assistant in 1757, when he was only twenty years of age,- at the same time teaching, and adding to his attainments in advanced studies. In 1762 the town was pre- sented for not setting up a grammar school, as the Laws of Mas- sachusetts required, and the Selectmen were chosen to defend the town before the Court. About this time there was a vote, repeated from year to year, that the grammar school should be kept at the house of Edward Durant, and after a few years, at "such school- house as the committee may determine." In 1763, it was voted by the town "to have four districts and four schools, and all to be provided with wood." These schools were unequal in duration ; that at the "Centre was to continue twenty weeks and two days ; Northwest, fourteen weeks and two days; Oak Hill, ten weeks and six days; Southwest, six weeks and five days." This filled out the fifty-two weeks of the year.
In 1763 a school was located in the southwest district, and a brick building 14 by 16 feet square and chimney room, was built on what is now the triangular lot east of the railroad, between Boylston Street and the old road, a little southwesterly from the late Mancy Thornton's residence (once the Mitchell tavern). The house was covered with a hip roof, coming together at a point in the centre ; a fireplace about six feet wide and four feet deep, with a large chimney, in which they burned wood four feet long, occupied one side of the room. An appropriation of £6 10s.
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
defrayed all the expense of teachers, etc., for six weeks and five days. This house became very much dilapidated, and the roof so leaky, in its later years, that it was not uncommon for the teacher to huddle the scholars together under an umbrella or two, to pre- vent their getting wet during the summer showers. By a tradi- tionary blindness, as has been charitably assumed, our early fathers did not see that females required and deserved instruction, equally with males ; hence the first provisions for primary schools were confined chiefly to boys, and it was not until the year 1789 that the law was modified so as to allow girls to attend. Before the end of the eighteenth century, in nearly every town in the Commonwealth, arrangements were made for the education of girls, especially in summer. As late as the year 1820, however, the public schools in Boston admitted girls only from April to October.
The appropriations for schools in 1763 were, for the school near the meeting-house £19 9s .; Northwest, £13 11s .; Oak Hill, £10 10s .; Southwest, £6 10s. Total, £49.
In 1766 the town voted £16 to employ a schoolmistress. This was the first "woman's school." The same year the town voted to have five school districts, west, north, east, south and south- west, five school-houses, and one committee man to watch over the interests of each school. Butit was an evil, that the members of the school committee were changed so often. Almost the en- tire Board at some periods, was, annually, a new one. Hence the system of education must have been conducted without plan, the results of the instruction generally meagre, and if high scholarship came out of such hap-hazard training, it must have been less purposed than accidental.
The appropriation for schools out of the town treasury for many years was £50. In 1774 it was raised to £60; by slow degrees, it reached in 1800, £500.
Besides the public schools, there were places of private instruc- tion in Newton. Mr. Ward's school (p. 247) was not the only one. In April, 1765, Mr. Charles Pelham, from Boston, bought the homestead of the late Rev. John Cotton, and opened a private academy in his house. He is said to have been a person of good education, an'd well adapted to his occupation as a teacher. Most of his scholars probably came from Boston and other towns.
In 1791 there were six school districts, the Lower Falls then enjoying school privileges.
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EDUCATION.
The school-houses had hitherto been the property of the several districts, having been built wholly or partly by funds provided by the people who expected to enjoy benefit from them. But in 1794, the town voted to purchase as many of them, with the land appurtenant, as could be obtained on reasonable terms. The proprietors of the east school-house estimated their house at £40 ; south school-house £90; southwest, £100; north, £20; the pro- prietors of the west school-house referred the estimate of theirs to the committee appointed by the town.
In 1796 the town voted that "five stoves be provided to warm the school-houses."
From year to year, extending from 1795 to 1806, committees were appointed by the town to mature a plan for the regulation and government of the schools of the town. In 1802, the ministers of the town formed a part of this committee ; but no report of any of these committees ever found a place on the Town Records.
The efforts of the school committee to please their constituents and of the townsmen to please themselves seem to have been unwearied. For more than a century the school committee did not venture to act on their official responsibility in directing the work of education, and the town did not venture to put the work out of their own hands. The latter appointed a committee to manage the work, and yet they preferred to manage it themselves. Hence there was a constant lack of efficiency. The citizens, in town meeting assembled, could not properly provide for the inter- ests of education without awakening the jealousy of one part of the town against another, and for many years the work moved feebly. The period of vigor and efficiency came only with the introduction of the system of graded schools.
CHAPTER XXI.
WEST NEWTON .- THE SECOND PARISH FORMED .- ORDINATION OF
REV. MR. GREENOUGH .- OPPOSITON .- BIOGRAPHY OF MR.
GREENOUGH. - THE MEETING-HOUSE DESCRIBED. - CURIOUS DOCUMENT.
THERE was nothing, originally, to give prominence to West Newton above the other villages of the town, except its geographi- cal position and the enterprise of its inhabitants. It was no more than a fertile portion of a good New England town. But in the days of stage-coaching, it became a central point of importance early in the present century. As many as thirty stages made it, at one period, a regular stopping-place daily. The academy of Master Davis and his enterprise and taste did much to bring the village, later, into prominence. The railroad station planted here at the outset in the history of the Boston and Albany Railroad, and the persistent influence which persuaded the people of the town, after years of resistance, that this was the proper home of the town meetings and of all municipal authority, have at last secured for West Newton the position to which it aspired. But the first movement towards the development of this part of the town was an ecclesiastical one.
About 1661 Thomas Park, John Fuller and Isaac Williams were probably the only settlers in what is now known as West Newton. Isaac Williams' house was about thirty rods northeast of the place where the West Parish meeting-house now stands, near the brook (Cheese-cake). He was a weaver by trade, and represented the town in the General Court six years, and was a Selectman three years. About one hundred years later the inhabitants began to take measures to have occasional preaching in their neighborhood, especially in winter. As early as the year 1760, meetings were held, and a Building Committee was appointed, consisting of
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CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, WEST NEWTON.
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THE SECOND CHURCH.
Thomas Miller, innholder, Jonathan Williams, yeoman, and Samuel Hastings, tanner,- who were instructed to solicit contri- butions and commence the building of a meeting-house, as soon as there should be sufficient encouragement. A minister was hired to keep the public school during the winter months, and to preach on the Sabbath.
In July, 1764, Phineas Bond, of Newton, innholder, in consid- eration of £2 8s., conveyed to the Building Committee, their heirs and assigns, forever, about eight rods of land, on which to erect a meeting-house or houses,- bounding upon the county road, and land of Isaac Williams, and his own land. This deed was acknowledged in March, 1780; but the meeting-house was erected in the summer of 1764. Its dimensions were forty-three feet by thirty.
In 1767, the edifice being finished, Jonathan Williams and others in the westerly part of the town requested of the town that a reasonable sum of money should be granted for the support of preaching in the new meeting-house ; but the town refused their request. They renewed their petition in 1770, 1772, 1773 and 1774. As often as the petition was rejected, so often they pressed their suit afresh ; judging that, according to the parable in the New Testament, their importunity might obtain for them what the justice of their cause failed to secure. They also in 1773 petitioned the General Court for a grant of money from the town treasury for the support of preaching for a period of four months. This action shows how thoroughly in earnest the people were ; though it is difficult to see how the State government could reason- ably assume control over the treasury of a town. At length, in 1778, they petitioned the General Court to be set off as an inde- pendent parish, which was granted. The Act of Incorporation, passed in October, 1778, describes the dividing line, the inhabi- tants on either side of said line being at liberty to belong to whichever parish they chose, provided that they made their elec- tion within six months after the passage of the act.
The first meeting was held in November, 1778, to organize under the Act, and the following officers were chosen :
JONATHAN BROWN, Moderator, ALEXANDER SHEPARD, JR., Clerk. JOSEPH JACKSON, Treasurer, PHINEAS BOND, JONATHAN WILLIAMS, DR. BENJAMIN PARKER, NATHANIEL GREENOUGH, ALEXANDER SHEPARD, JR., COL. NATHAN FULLER, Collector, JOSHUA JACKSON, JR., Sexton.
Standing Committee,
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
The next year the proprietors of the meeting-house appointed Alexander Shepard, jr., Joseph Hyde and Phineas Bond to give a title to the pews in the meeting-house. William Hoogs gave a Book for the Records.
Everything was now arranged, as to the externals, for the worship of God. It remained to lay the corner-stone of the spiritual edifice, which was to be reared. This was done October 21, 1781, when twenty-six persons, all but one dismissed from the First church in Newton, were organized into the West Parish church. At the public service, Rev. Joseph Jackson, of Brook- line, preached, the Covenant was read and the members expressed their approval, and voted themselves a Congregational church according to the Cambridge Platform, and declared their assent to the great or leading doctrines of the General Assembly's Shorter Catechism.
The first members of the West Parish church were as follows :
Joseph Ward, Deacon,
Samuel Crafts,
Joseph Jackson, Deacon,
Josiah Fuller,
Samuel Jackson,
Jonathan Fuller,
Joshua Jackson,
Jonathan Williams,
Alexander Shepard,
Samuel Woodward,
Josiah Fuller, jr.,
Abigail Fuller,
Joseph Adams, jr.
Mary Fuller,
Joseph Adams, sen., Deacon, from Brookline church,
Elizabeth Fuller,
Deborah Woodward,
Lydia Knapp,
Lydia Upham,
Mary Adams,
Lois Jackson,
Elizabeth Shepard,
Ruth Durell,
Tabitha Miller.
Abigail Jackson,
The following votes describe the principles of the organization :
VOTED, In order to entitle any person to either of the ordinances of the Christian Scriptures, namely, baptism and the Lord's Supper, he shall make a public confession of religion and dedication of himself to God; and that every person so doing shall be entitled to both ordinances, and may come to them without making any other profession of his faith and belief.
VOTED, that all church members be admitted by the major part of the votes. Before any person is admitted, his design shall be made known in pub- lic by the pastor, two weeks before admission.
Soon after the new church was organized, a request was pre- sented to the First Parish for a part of the communion furniture, which is thus reported in the records of that body :
November 25, 1731 .- A request from the Second church in Newton that they might have a part of the church vessels appropriated to them, was laid
Experience Ward,
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MEETING-HOUSE ENLARGED.
before this church; and after some conversation, the church voted that the deacons deliver up four pewter tankards and one pewter dish, as a present from this church to the Second church in Newton.
This vote indicates the frugality of the churches of that period, and implies the day of small things among them.
The Second church in Boston, of which Mr. Greenough, the first pastor in West Newton, was a member, gave the church in West Newton a pulpit Bible. Dea. Thomas Greenough, of Bos- ton, his father, "presented a christening bason, two flagons and two dishes for the communion service." The church in West Newton also petitioned the First church for a portion of the minis- terial wood-lot in the West Parish.
Mr. William Greenough was unanimously elected the first pas- tor, and ordained November 8, 1781. His own pastor, the Rev. Dr. John Lothrop, of the Second church in Boston,* preached on the occasion ; Rev. Jacob Cushing, of Waltham, gave the charge, and Rev. Joseph Jackson, of Brookline, the right hand of fellow- ship. "A small house, and a little handful of people, " said one who was present.
VOTED, that brothers Ward, Shepard and the pastor be a committee to form a church covenant. Also, that a portion of the Scriptures be read in public each Lord's day.
In the month following, Joseph Ward and Joseph Jackson were elected Deacons.
In 1812 the church edifice being found insufficient to accommo- date the increasing congregation, it was enlarged by an addition of twelve feet to the main structure. A large portion of the audience room was newly seated, also provided with galleries, and other-
* The church edifice of the Second church in Boston was on Middle Street, now Hanover Street, between Richmond and Prince, just north of Richmond Street. The tall, slender steeple was surmounted by a rooster (the emblem of watchfulness), whence the church was called by the common people " the cockerel church." At an earlier period, this church had enjoyed a golden age under the Mathers. After the decease of Dr. Lothrop, its ministers were the Rev. Henry Ware, jr., Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the Rev. Chandler Robbins. During the pastorate of the latter, the old church edifice was demolished, and a more sumptuous structure, with a brown stone front, took its place,-the old rooster resuming his position on the apex of the steeple. On account of financial embarrassments, the church building was sold, and purchased by the First Methodist Society. In a heavy gale, September 15, 1869, the steeple toppled over into the street. Sometime later, a less imposing building of brick appeared on the same site, having on the front wall a tablet with this inscription:
" The First Meeting House built on this spot A. D. 1721. Rebuilt, 1844. This House erected, A. D. 1870."
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HISTORY OF NEWTON.
wise improved. And on Thanksgiving day, November 26, of the same year, the house was reopened for public worship.
Mr. Seth Davis writes (1847),-
The building of a meeting-house and forming a new society in the West Parish was met with violent opposition. Years of contest were spent before the Society was incorporated, in 1778. The line of division commenced at the southeast corner of the farm of Samuel Woodward at Charles River, and from thence in a straight line to the southeast corner of the farm improved by Daniel Fuller, and continuing the same course to Watertown line. But such were the conflicting views of many citizens, that the act of incorporation was accompanied by a proviso, that any person living on either side of the line, by leaving his name with the Secretary of the Commonwealth within six months, might belong to either parish he should choose. This proviso was re- pealed in 1788, and the line between the parishes became unconditional. This line, however, was not wholly defined for many years. An attempt was made to run the same, commencing at the southwesterly corner; but the same spirit which for many years had existed, broke out afresh upon some disputed point, in the midst of a winter-squash yard ;* and, the line pass- ing over a large squash,-the large end being east,-the parties separated with no kind feelings, after giving to the east and west sections the nickname of "Squash end "and " Bellhack." The latter has become obsolete; but the former is sometimes still applied, in the way of ridicule, to the west portion of the town.
REV. WILLIAM GREENOUGH was born in Boston, June 29, 1756, entered Yale College at the age of fourteen, and graduated with the highest honors of his class in 1774. Both as Bachelor and Master of Arts he was admitted to an ad eundem degree in Har- vard University. His pastorate at Newton, which covered his whole public life, was of fifty years and two days. During his ministry, one hundred and two members were added to the church, an excellent proof of the gradual effects of the gospel, faithfully preached. The meeting-house was forty feet long by thirty feet wide. It stood a few feet west of the present edifice, and "looked like a barn." The building was enlarged and a spire added in 1812,; altered and improved in 1831, and again in 1838.
* The squash yard was at or very near the junction of Pearl Street with Watertown Street, and was then owned by Daniel Fuller. His house was standing, but unfit to be occupied, until about 1805.
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