USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Topsfield > History of Topsfield Massachusetts > Part 29
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During the winter term at the South school, two of the larger boys headed a rebellion against the teacher, of which the report gives an extended account saying that glass was broken and some loss of hair suffered. The boys were suspended but the infection spread through the neighborhood and after several conferences between the parents and the school committee, the matter was taken before the town at the annual meeting where, in the language of the report, it was very justly frowned upon and the article passed over. The report also notes that various citizens have considered that the affair of School Committee was a money making business. Whereupon a summary of work performed is appended, which included examination of the qualifications of teachers, supervision of schools and studies, the making of an annual report in detail with a return to the Commonwealth, a census of children between the ages of four and sixteen, and monthly visitations of each school. The chairman performed the greater part of this work and also supplied stationery and for the previous seven years had received from the town a total of $39.50, an unanswerable statement.
According to the report of 1843-4, the schools were in a high-
3 The regulations for the public schools in Topsfield adopted in 1843 were printed in the Topsfield Hist. Coll. Vol. XXIV.
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ly flourishing condition. The establishment of a high school to be opened only in the winter was advocated. The following year Charles Herrick was chairman. That year the expendi- ture for teachers was $570. Nothing other than ordinary was noted in the report save the fact that the town had voted to build a new and suitable schoolhouse in each of the four dis- tricts :- The North schoolhouse was sold (1846) to William Peabody for $33.62 and removed. It was first used as a dwelling, then for many years as a shoemaker's shop and after- wards enlarged for a barn. The new schoolhouse was built on a new location near junction of Ipswich and East Streets. The East schoolhouse was sold (1847) for $22.75 to Daniel Willey who moved it to High Street near entrance of the Pace- Tronerud house, used as a carpenter's shop by Daniel Willey and Thomas Perkins until 1860, then sold to Benjamin Glazier and moved to Boston Street and was made a portion of the stable of the place now owned by Thomas E. Proctor. In 1847 the last East schoolhouse was built. It stood near the elm tree a little back from the road and northerly of the Dr. Henry F. Sears now the Proctor residence. The town sold the old school- house (1845) near the meeting house for $42.75 to William G. Lake and he to E. Sumner Bixby who had it moved to what is now Haverhill Street near Hood's pond and remodeled it into a dwelling house. The new Centre school was built on the present Town Hall site and was spoken of as well adapted to the wants of the district. The old South schoolhouse, on the south side of the river, in schoolhouse pasture, so called was sold for $57. and removed to Peabody, then South Danvers and located north from the square on what is now Central Street. The new schoolhouse stood nearer the turnpike on a small lot of land between the land of the late Thomas W. Pierce and the late David Pingree.
John G. Hood, who had recently taught in the public schools, wrote the report for the year ending March, 1846. His general remarks at its close were highly practical. He censured the custom followed by some parents who took their children from the Centre school when they had reached an age at which they could be employed at a mechanical trade. He condemned the policy that turned out these imperfectly educated boys to be- come townsmen, parts of society, on whom the public duties of the community would soon devolve. But while the chairman of the school board severely criticised the money making parent he did not spare the thoughtless and superficial mind, for he says: "There is in the community, a very strong in- clination on the part of pupils, and in some instances of
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parents and teachers, to attend to some of the higher branches and thereby become superficial or merely whitewashed. This needs counteracting; no scholar should be allowed or even encouraged to omit the common useful branches in order to study the ornamental and less useful. Common arithmetic should not be made second to algebra, nor English grammar to logic and rhetoric. After a knowledge of reading, spelling, defining, writing, grammar and geography is obtained, which is a firm basis for an English education, then and not till then should scholars aspire to higher branches." At the North district, the scholars, taught during the winter term by college students, had revelled in the glories of Latin, Greek, algebra, geometry, and kindred studies. It is noticeable that the fol- lowing year found but one scholar in the town, and he in the North district, applying himself to Latin, and but three who studied algebra, while geometry was a thing unknown.
Little of note is recorded for the following year. Both teachers and scholars seem to have quietly moved along the even tenor of their way. The new North schoolhouse was occupied for the first time during the winter term of 1846-7, and the report remarks on the height of the room and the means afforded for ventilation.
For the school year ending March 13, 1848 there was no printed report made to the town. The manuscript was later put into type and a small edition was struck off. The name of Rev. Anson McLoud appears for the first time as committee- man and at frequent intervals in the following years, his interest in the public schools never flagging. As his name heads the list he probably was chairman of the committee as well might become his influential position in town.
Mr. McLoud, politic man that he was, gave the town great praise for their recent efforts in building new schoolhouses, and then proceeded to suggest that there were other things needed. Singing has been employed in the Centre school with admirable effect says the report for the next year, which also says we regard Mr. Berry as a first rate teacher, but think it would tend to the improvement of his school if he would pro- hibit the communications of the scholars with each other, and also rely less upon concert recitations. Excellent advice.
The winter term of the North school at times must have been rather exciting for the report in mild language regrets that any of the scholars should have been deficient in respectful deportment due to a teacher, at the same time deploring the fact that the teacher should have been injudicious in his man- agement and hasty and harsh of speech. The larger scholars
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were the flies in this pedagog's ointment. The report an- nounces a discovery which it were well that parents, even at the present day, would ever bear in mind. We believe that instances have been found in the history of our race, of chil- dren who had no very scrupulous regard for the truth. An important fact; and the report goes still further and says, parents may prevent much disturbance in the neighborhood, much trouble to the teacher, and much shame and chagrin on their own part if they will search a little after the unvarnished truth, before they give way to passion and resentment. Mr. McLoud then lays down this axiom,-children who have a decent bringing up at home, never have quarrels and distur- bances at school, either with the teacher, or with other scholars.
The Scotch blood of the worthy pastor came to the surface in his summary this year, and his pen was forged into a Damascene blade with which to bring confusion to the non- progressive element in town. It all grew out of an attempt by the committee to introduce into the schools, at their own ex- pense, a system of weekly report cards now considered so essential. Mr. McLoud most picturesquely describes the furor raised among the parents of the scholars. Some of the parents regarded the cards as an innovation, and therefore mischievous. Some looked upon them as anti-scriptural, and therefore wicked. Some thought they were tyrannical and arbitrary, and therefore in conflict with the immortal Declaration of Independence and the glorious Constitution. Some believed them a crafty device by which they should be certified when their children had played truant, or had behaved badly in school, or had neglected their lessons, and therefore an abomination. At first it was proposed to issue the cards regularly, but learning that they were deemed such mighty engines of evil, fraught with ruin to all our political, social, and religious interests, we directed the teachers not to insist upon a parent signing them, but to keep the weekly record on the cards, notwithstanding.
Mr. McLoud prepared the reports for the next two years, and had little to offer of an unusual nature. A young man from Lynn tried to teach the East school for the winter term of 1850-1 and proved to be a weak member, so that the chair- man gave him his discharge papers in three days.
Richard Phillips, jr., took charge of the educational re- sponsibilities of the town at the next annual town meeting, and at the close of the year presented a superlative report. Mr. Phillips' command of adjectives, added to a happy faculty for euphonious phrases, gave to the report a most glittering effect.
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Dr. Merriam succeeded to Mr. Phillips' editorial shoes and reported to the town that the committee had discovered things that called loudly for improvement. He severely criticised the lack of thoroughness and the veneer of various ornamental studies which had been pursued to the neglect of the three R's. An epidemic of scarlet fever prevailed about the town and interfered with the attendance, although nothing is said re- garding the closing of the schools owing to its contagious character.
The report for 1857 was kept by Squire Holmes. The aver- age attendance at the East school was eight. Mr. Holmes grew reminiscent while discussing the South school and remarked that it will be recollected that this school was, the previous winter, under the tyrannic rule of the gentleman of the rueful countenance, who, it seems, was Daniel Wilkins, of Littleton, N. H. Nearly ten years passed before the Squire was given an opportunity to write another school report. In 1865 he again came to the front and opened his report with a description of his visit to the Centre primary school kept by Miss Mary E. Gould. This school was in charge of Miss Gould for about thirty years and during all this time she gave entire satisfac- tion to the successive committees and endeared herself to her pupils.
Comments may be found, on entertaining and curious mat- ters, in other reports of the school committee, but space will not permit their inclusion.
In 1868, the town bought the Topsfield Academy building and remodelled it. The Centre primary and grammar school was moved into it. The old building was sold for $300. to Mr. Bailey who moved it to the rear of his block, on Main Street and used it as a second story for an addition to his block. It has since been razed. The Town hall was built on the site of this school building five years later. In 1889 an addition was made.
In 1890, with only four pupils attending the East school, the committee decided to close the school and transport them to the Centre school. Six years later the other two schools in the North and South districts were discontinued and all pupils in town attended the Centre school. This marked the end of the district schools of Topsfield. Transportation for pupils in the outlying districts was furnished by horse-drawn barges which have been replaced by the school bus. In 1899 after the last two district schools were closed, the South schoolhouse was sold to David Pingree who took down the building but the wall mark of the school lot is still standing. The land and building
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of the North school was sold in 1899 to Miss Mary T. Robinson and later became the property of John S. Lawrence. In 1902 the East schoolhouse was moved to the Dudley Quinn Perkins place on Perkins Street and used as a poultry house.
The High school was established in 1896. Previous to that time students desiring a higher education were obliged to attend neighboring High schools. In 1899 a second addition was made to the school building, and still later a portable building was used to accommodate the overflow of pupils. In a few years this was inadequate and by 1930 the need of a new school building was urgent. It was estimated that the cost of necessary alterations and additions to the present building would be $25,000. and it would be wiser to construct a new one. At a special town meeting on March 31, 1928 the town accepted from Thomas E. Proctor a gift of the Hutchings field as a site for a new schoolhouse and playground, and the land has been renamed Proctor's field. On Oct. 6, 1932 construc- tion of a brick building was begun on this land and it was occupied in September, 1933. The old Academy building was sold and torn down in 1935.
But few records remain of the private schools in town. Miss Floyd's Academy was located here as early as 1819. Preceding this or succeeding it or both and the while, was Mrs. A. P. Curtis and Lydia R. Ward's Academy. Mrs. Curtis' school is mentioned as late as 1827. The sessions of Miss Floyd's Academy were held at Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland's house, and it may be that a knowledge of her success placed the Doctor among the foremost advocates of a public academy. Miss Dennis kept a dame school in Benjamin Kimball's house in 1840-5. Martin V. B. Perley had a private High school, or, academic institute in the Bailey block for some years before the town High school was started.
During the winter months singing schools, which were so popular during the seventeenth century, were held evenings in the various school buildings. Jacob Kimball, a noted teacher and composer, is mentioned as conducting such schools in the North and Centre schools. Humphrey Kneeland taught such a school in the North district in the 1840's. S. S. Mckenzie, who was a clarinet player, had singing schools up to 1880 in the South, East and Centre schools. William R. Hubbard had one in the latter school. Miss Hodgkiss opened a juvenile singing school in the Centre schoolhouse in 1873 on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. E. P. Wildes of Georgetown was another singing teacher and his school was held in Union hall in the winter of 1874-5.
TOPSFIELD COMMON. LOOKING SOUTH
CHAPTER XVIII THE TOPSFIELD ACADEMY
The impulse to furnish youth an education higher than the rudiments began with the founding of the Dummer Free School in Newbury in 1763. A similar school was founded in Andover in 1778 by the Phillips brothers. There were also academies established between 1822 and 1835 in Groveland, Haverhill, Ipswich, Boxford, Beverly and Lynn. Topsfield was located in the center of Essex County. Three stages passed daily between Boston, Salem and Newburyport, and one between Salem and Haverhill, and three mails were re- ceived daily. It seemed an ideal location for an academy to attract pupils from all parts of the county and in May 1827 a paper was circulated in Topsfield having in view the estab- lishment of so desirable an educational institution.
The Academy building1 was begun in the fall of that year, but a severe cold coming on in October the lumber was piled till the next year. The structure was 45 by 36 feet on the ground, two stories high, was covered by a hip-roof and sur- mounted by a belfry. Each story contained a large school- room with anteroom and stairway.
The land was purchased of Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland, 3 acres and 59 rods, for $637.50, and was conveyed by deed, Oct. 23, 1828. An entrance upon the land was near the blacksmith shop, in low ground, and unfitted for the purposes of a school. The present entrance on Main Street was purchased of John Rea, Jr., guardian of Harriet J. Emerson, minor daughter of Joseph Emerson, 12.7 square rods, for $17. and was conveyed by deed, June 10, 1829.
"The Proprietors of Topsfield Academy" were incorporated June 12, 1828, to hold real and personal estate not exceeding $30,000. in value. The list of owners shows that thirty per- sons owned the one hundred shares.
1 This account has been condensed from the History of the Tops- field Academy by M. V. B. Perley, printed in Topsfield Hist. Coll. Vol. IV.
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Jacob Towne, Jr., called the first meeting of the proprietors and was treasurer till 1832, when Dr. Royal A. Merriam was chosen. Dr. Jeremiah Stone was the first secretary and Rev. James F. McEwen succeeded him. Nehemiah Cleveland, Royal Augustus Merriam, Jeremiah Stone, Samuel Gould, and Solo- mon Wildes, John Lamson, John Rea, William Munday and William N. Cleaveland were the first standing committee.
The Academy was dedicated May 7, 1828, Rev. Rodney G. Dennis, pastor of the Congregational church, delivering the address, which was printed. That was also the first day of the term. The occasion was a red-letter day in the town's history. Mr. Dennis had spoken the right word; the school opened prosperously ; the teachers were professionals; and the proprietors were in earnest and sanguine of success.
The first instructors were Francis Vose, A. M., principal, and Miss Matilda Leavitt, preceptress. Miss Ann Cofran was Miss Leavitt's successor, and left when Mr. Vose resigned.
The course of study, as in all academies, was arranged for mental discipline, moral culture, and practical life. The ex- ercises of the commencement, Aug. 10, 1830, consisting of music, declamations, compositions and discussions, show that the Academy enjoyed a high degree of prosperity. There were twenty-one compositions, thirty-one declamations and an orig- inal hymn. Here are some of the subjects treated : "Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die"; "Is public opinion a just criterion of moral character"; "The only amaranthine flower on earth is virtue"; "The world is infectious, few bring back at eve, immaculate, the manners of the morn."
There were Latin and Greek declamations, and an original hymn by Miss Harriet Josephine Emerson, which Rev. M. K. Cross says was very fine, far beyond her years. D. Peabody also gave a short, pertinent and eloquent address.
The Academy at once became a literary center, and Prof. Vose stood among the best educators in the county. It was at this Academy, and during Mr. Vose's principalship, Dec. 4 and 5, 1830, that the Essex County Teachers' Association had its birth. The last record of the Association meeting at Topsfield is dated Dec. 1 and 2, 1835. At the same time the Academy was made a publishers' repository of new books. In this it acquired a merited distinction.
Prof. Vose was taxed in Topsfield, 1829-30-31 and a record places him in Topsfield as late as the first of December, 1831.
Edwin David Sanborn was Mr. Vose's successor and taught during the winter of 1831-2, and possibly nearly all that school year. The spring and fall terms of 1832 opened May 2, and
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September 5, with Mr. Sanborn as principal. In 1835, he was elected to the professorship of the Latin and Greek languages in Dartmouth College.
Asa Fowler, who succeeded Mr. Sanborn, opened the fall term of 1833 on September 4th. He had just taken his diploma at Dartmouth. He was principal here a single term.
Alfred W. Pike succeeded to the principalship Dec. 3, 1834. The public announcements of this school had hitherto been made over the signature of the proprietors' secretary, but now over the signature of Mr. Pike, as if he had hired the property of the proprietors, and proposed to make the school completely his own. He removed his family into town in November, 1834, from Boston, where he had been keeping a private school. Prof. Pike was a farmer's son, born in Rowley, March 21, 1791. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1815, and had taught classical schools and fitted young men for college in Newburyport, Framingham, Woburn, Rowley, Boston, and brought to this school a ripe experience of more than twenty years. Under his tuition the school might have flourished long, but for a libel suit versus Beals and Green of the Boston Post.2 The standing committee of the proprietors-N. Cleaveland, Jacob Towne, Moses Wildes, R. A. Merriam, James F. McEwen, Nathaniel Perley, Jeremiah Stone-did all in their power to save the man and sustain the good name of the Academy, but merely nominal damages were not enough to disabuse the pub- lic mind, and Mr. Pike left shortly after the fall term of 1835.
Miss Anna Searle taught sometime between the principal- ships of Professors Pike and Greenleaf. She had taught a private school in Georgetown, D. C., for eighteen or twenty years, and taught here only one full term. She had about fifteen pupils.
By a pamphlet catalogue, 1839-40, Mr. Greenleaf taught the fall term and Mr. Farwell the spring and summer terms. It may be inferred from these records that the Academy may have been discontinued two or three years from the time when Mr. Pike left.
However, that may be, the proprietors chose an attractive name to open the second summer term of 1839. Richard Phillips, as the proprietors' secretary, advertised it for July 24, under the care of Benjamin Greenleaf, Esq. No teacher was better known in the county or enjoyed a better reputation as a thorough, practical, and successful instructor. Mr. Green- leaf was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1813, and had
2 See Topsfield Hist. Coll. Vol. XXVII.
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been twenty-two years principal of the Bradford Academy, taking it with ten students and leaving it with one hundred and fifty, and an enviable national reputation. While prin- cipal here, Mr. Greenleaf accomplished considerable upon that series of arithmetics which made his name familiar throughout the land, especially the Common School Arithmetic. His first term in Topsfield had sixty scholars, of all grades and ages, from ten years to twenty-five; his nephew Moses P. Greenleaf, of Haverhill, assisted in the lower grades. Mr. Greenleaf was a rather nervous man; at times very active; and his clear, ringing voice would make the old Academy ring when a boy forgot to behave.
The wisdom of the proprietors of the Academy to employ Mr. Greenleaf became apparent. He established its old-time repu- tation, the grounds re-echoed with the voices of many students, and the rooms were devoted to patient study. He was succeed- ed by Asa Farwell. The term of the school to begin April 15, 1840, was announced as under the care of "the present Princi- pal, Mr. Asa Farwell, A. B." He probably began the preced- ing winter term. William Fayette Kent followed Prof. Far- well. He was taxed here, as was Mr. Farwell, in 1841, and taught nearly two terms. He was a very pleasant man and teacher, but was reading law at the time and paid more atten- tion to Blackstone than to his school. The inevitable result followed. He left the school before the timely ending of the term. He delivered an oration at a Fourth of July celebration in Topsfield, that produced much favorable comment.
Edmund Farwell Slafter was principal of the Academy one year, beginning in the autumn of 1841, and ending with the summer term of 1842. Joseph Edward Bomer, who had been a student at the Academy when Mr. Greenleaf taught, was an assistant to Mr. Slafter. He walked to the Academy from Wenham daily. He was afterwards graduated from Harvard Medical School, and in 1849, settled in Ipswich where he con- tinued in the practice of his profession until his death, on Sept. 11, 1864. Burton Onesiphorus Marble was taxed in Topsfield in 1844, and had taught the Academy during the spring term of that year.
Daniel Osgood Quinby taught the spring or summer terms in 1845. His service ended with the summer term in June, 1846.
Joseph Hale Noyes taught three terms in the year 1846, beginning in March or April. He was educated at Dummer Academy, and probably admitted there at an earlier age than any other pupil. He was reading Greek when only ten years old. He never entered college, but was under private tutors,
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at Dummer, an equivalent of two years in college. Leaving Topsfield, he was elected principal of the High school in Brattleboro, Vt.
Rev. Kinsman Atkinson taught one term of eleven weeks in the fall of 1849. His tuition bills, written on paper 3 7/8 by 2 inches, are dated Nov. 12th, which was the end of the term, and show that tuition in common branches was three dollars. Mr. Atkinson at the time was pastor of the Methodist Episco- pal Church in Topsfield, and continued here two years. Jesse Allison Wilkins taught the Academy the spring and summer terms of 1850 teaching the Topsfield Center Grammar school the preceding winter and the one following.
Israel Rea and Benjamin P. Adams were chiefly instrumen- tal for the reopening of the Academy under the tuition of Mr. George Conant, in 1852. Miss Lovering was preceptress in 1852, and Miss S. F. Nichols and Miss Mary Ann Friend of Georgetown in 1853. The school prospered greatly under Mr. Conant. Its oldtime reputation and activity returned. There were the Debating Club, the Young Men's League, and dram- atic exhibitions, which excited great local interest and much favorable comment. The debates were participated in by the citizens as if they were students again.
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