USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > Proceedings of the Brookline Historical Society at the annual meeting > Part 26
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Edward Devotion's last resting place is in the Walnut Street Burying Ground, where the spot is marked by the old slate gravestone in that part of the grounds included in the half-acre originally purchased by the town in 1717.
His will was signed and dated "this fourteenth day of June in the seventeenth year of his majesty's (George III) reign and in the year of our Lord Christ one thousand seven hundred and forty-three." By this will he names several legacies, providing particularly for his well-beloved wife Mary and for his beloved friend James Shed of Roxbury, both of whom were appointed executors.
Edward Devotion was not particularly well educated, so far as any records show, but that he was interested in the welfare of the community in which he had been born and lived, that he desired to advance and assist the town in pro- viding educational facilities, is amply proved by a provision of his will, as follows :---
"Item. In case my estate prove to be sufficient to pay my just debts, funeral charges and the aforementioned lega- cies and there should be any overplus left, then my will is and I hereby give the said overplus to the town of Brookline towards building or maintaining a School as near the centre of the said town as shall be agreed upon by the town. But if the said Town cannot agree upon a place to set the said School upon, then my Will is that the said overplus be laid out in purchasing a Wood Lot for the use of the School and the ministry of said town forever."
The question naturally arises, "Why did Edward Devo- tion make this provision in his will and why should he stipu- late that his legacy should be for 'a school as near the centre of said town as shall be agreed upon by the town'?"
The answer to the question may be found by a study of the town records from the beginning of the town to the year
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preceding the death of Edward Devotion. No more impor- tant subject engrossed the attention of the inhabitants than the education of their children and the providing of the neces- sary facilities in the way of schoolhouses. As early as 1728 the town voted to have one schoolhouse as near the centre of the town as a spot could be obtained. A committee was appointed to measure the town for that purpose, a survey was made and a plan drawn, of which a reproduction has been published.
A piece of land was purchased for £20 from Peter Boylston, and a building "twenty-four feet in length, one and twenty foot in breadth and seven foot between joynts" was author- · ized. This building was not erected. The town voted to have a north school and a south school, and the Selectmen were instructed to dispose of the timber already prepared for the 24 ft. x 21 ft. building.
The school question would not stay settled for any con- siderable length of time, and in 1742 the town passed this vote :-
"Voted, to choose a committee to find the most convenient spot to erect a school-house for the benefit of the whole town."
During the period when this school question was discussed, Edward Devotion was serving the town in various public capacities, particularly as tythingman,-a position which means little or nothing to us in 1908, but a position which possessed important functions a century and a half ago. It seems fair to assume that the agitation of the school question, the knowledge of the needs of the community, the fact that he had no children to follow him, and a desire to benefit the town where he was born and where he had lived, caused him to make that provision in his will which has been quoted.
When the provisions of his will became known, after Edward Devotion's death, the Selectmen of 1745-1746 took steps to protect the town's interest.
In 1740 Edward Devotion had sold to Solomon Hill-a young man in whom he showed great interest-the seventy- six acres of land in Brookline which he had inherited from his father,-"it being the homestead of the said Devotion." He took from Solomon Hill and his wife Hannah (Sheldon) a mortgage on the property, and it was a condition affecting
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the legacy to the town that Hill should pay this mortgage before the legacy could be of benefit to the town, unless the executors should sell the estate by reason of the refusal of Hill to redeem the mortgage.
Without going into legal technicalities or the details of real estate transactions, it is sufficient in this connection to say that Hill did not pay the mortgage, and under the authority of the will a committee, acting as the attorneys of the executrix, Mary Gatcomb, sold the property and dis- tributed the proceeds as contemplated by the testator.
The committee who acted in the town's behalf consisted .of Mr. Isaac Gardner, Capt. Robt. Sharp, Mr. Thomas Aspinwall, Hon. Jeremy Gridley and Henry Sewall, Esq. These attorneys discharged themselves of their obligations by payments to Robert Sharp and the estate of Samuel White in the nature of reimbursements for sums which had been ad- vanced to protect the town's interests; they also paid to Robert Sharp the sum of £15 4d lawful money for "purchasing a silver tankard for the Church of the town of Brookline accord- ing to the will of Edward Devotion." They also paid to the trustees named by the town to receive the same, the legacy, which amounted to three hundred and eight half Johannes, of full weight (equal to $3,696), "for ye use of a school in said town."
This money was received by the trustees in May, 1762, and they acted under the authority conveyed in several votes passed at the town meeting held in the same month :-
"Voted, whether the town will appropriate the use of the Legacy left said town by Mr. Edward Devotion, dec'd To a school, and it passed to appropriate sd Legacy to the use of Keeping a School. Voted, That the Middle School House where it now Stands be the place to keep a School with the Interest of the Legacy left said town by Mr. Edward Devo- tion."
Nehemiah Davis, Nathaniel Sever, Deacon Joseph White, Deacon Ebenezer Davis and Isaac Gardner were chosen a committee to take care of and let out the legacy, and they signed the receipt given to the attorneys for the executrix. These trustees organized by choosing Isaac Gardner, Jr., as treasurer of the fund, and from that date (1762) until
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the fund disappeared as a separate trust in 1846 the com- plete records of the original and succeeding trustees are con- tained in two volumes preserved in the Town Clerk's office. The first items of the expenses by the trustees are these entries :-
To cash paid for this book. £. S.
d.
0
6 0
To cash for an Iron Mantle-tree for ye school 0 16 0
To six shillings for a great chear for ye school. 0
6 0
On the credit side of the account appears thereceipt of £1 from Deacon Davis, the remainder after purchasing the tankard for the church.
The two volumes of accounts give the expenses of main- taining the schools, so far as paid from the income of the school fund, the principal items covering the salaries of the teachers, and the cost of wood for the winter heating.
There are given the names of some forty schoolmasters who served during the life of the fund, about many of whom today there is no other record, but of those who were Brook- line residents some have left a lasting impression on the town's history. Among such are Hull Sewall, 1762-65; Dr. Wm. Aspinwall, 1769; Stephen Sharp, 1775-77; John God- dard, Jr., 1777; Isaac S. Gardner, 1808-09; and some others. In 1768 the master at the grammar school was Jonathan Searle, who must have been deep in learning and heavy in person if one may judge from the entry that Is 4d was paid for bottoming the great chair.
The principal of the fund was loaned on real estate mort- gage security except in two instances. Loans were made to the Town of Brookline on several occasions, and to the "State of Massachusetts Bay" in 1777. The fund suffered nothing from the loans to the town, but the loan to the State depre- ciated seriously.
In 1779, on account of the failure of paper money, the principal of the fund was reduced to the equivalent of $2,280.65, which was kept good until 1837; in which year the govern- ment of the United States made a distribution of the surplus revenue, and Brookline's portion, $2,209.34, was added to the school fund, the. interest to be applied to the support of the public schools.
Two interesting entries are found in the earlier volume. The first treasurer, Isaac Gardner, who served from 1762,
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lost his life April 19, 1775, when the British were retreating from Concord and Lexington. At the meeting of the School Committee "held at the house of Deacon Joseph White, Sep- tember, 1775, John Goddard was chosen the School Treasurer in room of Isaac Gardner, Deceased."
The committee held some of its meetings at the Old Punch Bowl tavern, as indicated by entries in 1772 and 1774 of small amounts paid Landlord Eleazer Baker for enter- tainment.
From time to time the committee in charge of the school fund made reports to the town. The most interesting of such reports was the one presented in the year 1838, signed by Joseph Goddard, Ebenezer Heath, John Robinson, Benja- min Goddard and William Ackers, who had served together continuously for twenty years or more. The original manu- script of this report of 1838 is preserved in the Town Clerk's office and is a very interesting document. The committee reported as follows :-
"The Trustees of the School Fund avail themselves of this opportunity to Tender to the Town their resignations of said office,-this they do in consideration of their advanced ages, all of them having arrived over three score years and ten and some of them nearer fourscore.
"They also embrace this as a suitable opportunity to report to the Town the present state of the School Funds, the amount of which ever since they have sustained the office of Trustees till within the last year has been $2,281.08, on which no diminution has occurred.
"During the past year there has been added by vote of the town two instalments of this Town's proportion of the sur- plus revenue of the United States, . . . making the total amount of said fund $4,501.74, all of which is now on loan secured on mortgages of real estate. . .
"We have strictly attended to the Votes of the town from time to time, by confirming the loans on Notes accompanied with mortgages on Real Estates and we have no doubt of the ample sufficiency of the above securities."
The report of the committee was accepted with thanks for long and faithful service; but, alas! the school funds, as such, remained on the town records only a few years longer.
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In the summer of the year 1843, two events occurred which had considerable effect on the later disposition of the school fund. The town appropriated a part of the old town hall building (now Pierce Hall) for a High School, and the engine house was burned. These two events precipitated the ques- tion of a new town hall building, which was referred to a committee of five. On this committee were appointed Abijah W. Goddard, Charles Stearns, Jr., and Daniel Sanderson, who were also trustees of the school funds.
This committee made a lengthy report at the town meet- ing of January 30th, 1844. They suggested three different available lots, but, in regard to the one which was selected, and on which the present town hall stands, the report says :-
""Tho' not so central as the other lot suggested [it] is con- sidered by your committee an eligible and beautiful situa- tion-combining the advantages of an eligible place for a fire engine house and two spacious school rooms which may be made in the basement at small additional expense, suffi- cient accommodations for 144 scholars; allowing two ample rooms for the fire engine and allowing the sale of the old school house and lot on School street."
The committee further recommended that the surplus revenue received from the federal government be taken from the school fund and used towards the expense of build- ing the proposed combination town hall, engine house and schoolhouse, and that the town borrow the balance.
When today we see the crowds of school children attending the primary and grammar schools on the enlarged lot on School street we must conclude that the town meeting of that day did not look far into the future when the committee's report was accepted and adopted, with an appropriation of the surplus revenue and $4,000 additional ..
Having taken the step of appropriating part of the school fund for other purposes it became easy to use it all, losing sight of the terms of the bequest by Edward Devotion.
At the town meeting in April, 1844, the trustees of the school fund reported that, upon further consideration of the action by the town in appropriating for the Town Hall building the surplus revenue portion of the school fund, which amounted to about half of the whole fund, they had concluded that it would be for the interest of the town to
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use the remainder of the fund for the same purpose; that in order to avoid any danger of reversion the town might be- come the borrowers and be responsible to the trustees, as individuals would be, by which course the security of the fund would be beyond question, and the trustees would be relieved of a great share of the perplexing duty incumbent upon them, etc. This report was accepted and adopted.
The town reconsidered the matter of the plans for the town hall, as a result of which the engine house was erected as a separate building and the School street lot was not sold, but did make use of the whole of the school fund, amount- ing to $4,789.26, towards the cost of the building.
The last chapter of the story of the original Devotion School Fund may be said to be the report of the trustees in March, 1846, which ends with this paragraph :--
"The Trustees, agreeably to their instructions, having col- lected the funds, by transfers of the securities or otherwise, and the same having been invested for the promotion of edu- cation, in the erection of a Town Hall in which some excel- lent school rooms have been provided, believing that the objects for which a part of the fund was originally given are as fully attained as they would have been under any other circumstances, would now most respectfully ask to be dis- charged.
"Charles Stearns, Jun., Daniel Sanderson, James Robinson, Abijah W. Goddard."
The report was accepted and the committee discharged.
The rooms in the town hall became badly overcrowded in a few years, as well as the schoolhouse on the School street lot, and the solution of the problem was the building of the Pierce Grammar School on Prospect street in 1855. The rooms formerly used for schoolrooms were taken for town offices, and in 1857 the hall on the first floor was taken for the accommodation of the Public Library.
After 1846 the school fund disappeared; the accounts in succeeding years do not refer to it in any way as in the nature of a loan to the town, and both donor and fund appeared to be forgotten.
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In 1857, when the Public Library was established, an attempt was made to "call in" the school fund for the pur- pose of a library and evening school, but without success.
For another score of years nothing was heard of the Devo- tion School Fund, until 1877, when a committee, to whom was referred the matter of trust funds, made a report and recommended that the legacy should be made good by the town. This committee suggested that a note for $2,280.65, the amount of the principal of the fund from 1818 to 1838, should be authorized by the treasurer, on which note the town should pay five per cent annually, to be raised by taxa- tion, the amount to be part of the sum appropriated for school expenses. This suggestion was referred to a com- mittee on school accommodations, which committee never reported.
From 1877 to 1883 nothing was said or done in regard to the fund, but in 1883 the School Committee took up the matter with a great deal of earnestness. After reciting the history of the fund and its complete disappearance, the report states :-
"The gift of Edward Devotion was a trust which the town, . having accepted, ought to carry out in accordance with the wishes of the donor. At the time this was bestowed, it met a very considerable portion of the expenses of our public schools, and was comparatively of far greater value than a gift of the same amount would now possess. For nearly a century the trust was executed, and we are now in a better position to place ourselves right in the matter than we have been for many years. Some action in the direction recom- mended by the special committee on trust funds in 1877 should be taken.
"The donor contemplated associating his gift with a school at the centre of the town as general in its benefits as prac- ticable. The High School has this characteristic more fully than any other, and is much in need of a new building. If the interest on the Devotion Fund from the time of its diver- sion were added to the principal, and the fund then suffered to accumulate until it should be sufficient to erect a suitable High School building, designated in some way to perpetuate the memory of this gift, and the town's recognition of the
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purpose to which it was applied, it would seem to be as fitting action as is now practicable."
In accordance with the suggestions in this report the town voted, in 1884, that the Town Treasurer give a note for five thousand dollars, payable to the School Committee, declared to be the trustees of the Edward Devotion School Fund. The appropriation of five thousand dollars to pay the note was then passed with the condition that the amount should be expended in the enlargement of the High School building, and then to cap the climax the town sanctimoniously declared-
"That the bequest of Edward Devotion 'towards building and maintaining a school as near the centre of the town as shall be agreed upon by the town' having been invested in the High School building, the large hall in the same shall hereafter be called the 'Edward Devotion Hall' in his honor."
In the next report of the School Committee this statement appears: "A handsome but not expensive tablet, commemo- rating the gift of Edward Devotion to the town, has been placed on the wall in the main hall" [of the High School].
When the old High School was succeeded not many years later by the present building, and the present magnificent Pierce Grammar School was erected on the old High School site, can anybody tell what became of that "handsome but not expensive tablet" to the memory of Edward Devotion? The writer has asked every one who ought to know, but as yet has not succeeded in ascertaining what disposition was made of it.
The rapid increase in population in the north part of the town after Beacon street boulevard was built, beginning in 1887, made imperative the necessity for school accommoda- tions in that district. In 1891, at a cost of over sixty thou- sand dollars, the town purchased what was called "the Nahum Smith estate." This was a part of what older residents knew as the Babcock Farm, and was a part of the seventy-six acres originally belonging to the Edward Devotion homestead. which he inherited from his father and sold, in 1740, to Solomon Hill, as has been told. On the property purchased ·stood the old house, built in 1680, and which had been occupied continuously, or practically so, from the time it was built until purchased by the town.
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The next year (1892) the present primary school building was erected, followed a few years later by the companion grammar school building, with the old house standing between the two. The School Committee named the buildings the "Edward Devotion Schools," and in their report for 1892 outlined a plan for a comprehensive and elaborate develop- ment of the area by a group of buildings which when com- pleted will be a fitting memorial for any benefactor of the town's educational needs.
The saying is old but true that "we cannot have our cake and eat it, too." The Devotion legacy was honestly and intel- ligently invested, and the income used for maintaining the schools as intended by the giver of the fund from 1762 to 1837. It was not the fault of the trustees that the war which our country fought for its independence brought a deprecia- tion in values, and reduced the income from investments. No one can blame them for loans to the state in the times of need and stress. There was no "graft," and, as the com- mittee of 1837 reported, there was "ample sufficiency of the security." It would seem, however, that when the town, in 1846, took the school funds to build the town hall it was- false to the trust. To be sure, in 1883, the attempt was made to clear the record by calling the High School enlarge- ment an investment of the Edward Devotion fund. But that improvement was imperative, and the money used was Devotion Fund money only by the flimsiest of apologies, and even then the apology was soon lost sight of, and the memo- rial tablet disappeared from view.
When the School Committee named the Harvard street buildings the "Edward Devotion Schools," there was at last some fitting memorial to the name of that one of the twenty- eight signers of the Muddy River petition for independence who thought so much of the home of his parents, who felt so great an interest in the place of his own birth and residence for seventy-six years, that he bequeathed for the educational and religious welfare of the community a goodly share of his earthly possessions. Let us hope that never again will the town forget Edward Devotion and what he did for the town's benefit.
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THE WOODWARD-GOLDSMITH HOUSE, CLYDE STREET, BROOKLINE.
Written by Miss Ellen Chase and Charles F. White. Read before the Society by Charles F. White, February 27, 1907.
The old house which is the subject of this paper stood fac- ing the southwest on a little knoll about fifty feet east of Clyde street and seven hundred feet south of the junction with Warren street. It has been called the Woodward House, although it is not known just when it was built, nor by whom.
Woodwards were in Brookline very early in its history. In 1637 a grant of twenty-eight acres, bordering the "cedar swamp" on the southwest, was made to Nathaniel Wood- ward the elder, who is shown by the Book of Possessions to have owned a lot occupying the present northeast corner of Washington and Summer streets in Boston, where his resi- dence probably was. At the same time Nathaniel Woodward had a house and garden on the northerly side of Fort Hill near the cove, and he was no doubt a son of Nathaniel the elder, so called to distinguish them. In 1637, also, a vote was passed in Boston agreeing that John and Robert Wood- ward, sons of our brother Nathaniel, should have house lots allotted to them. Further, the book of possessions shows by an entry in 1639 that "also a great lot be granted to our brother Nathaniel Woodward at Muddy River for three heads." (It is interesting to note in passing that Mr. Theron Royal Woodward of Chicago, who at the time of his death last year was engaged upon a genealogy of the Woodwards, was a descendant of Nathaniel the elder and his son Nathaniel just referred to.) This particular line of Woodwards is not the one, however, that is associated with the old Clyde street homestead. How they were connected, if at all, we do not now know, though it is natural to think that they were.
A dozen years after the grant of the great lot to Nathaniel, that is, in 1651, Thomas Woodward of Boston grants to Alexander Beck of Boston four and a quarter acres of land at Muddy River, bounded in part by land of Nathaniel Wood -.
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ward, the deed being sealed and delivered in presence of John Angier and William Aspinwall; showing that Nathaniel and Thomas had been adjoining land owners in Muddy River.
In 1652 Thomas Woodward bought of Zaccheus Bosworth a lot of land occupying the southerly corner of Milk and Washington streets in Boston. It seems probable that the Woodwards of our present interest are descendants of this Thomas.
In examining the records of the first century of settlement we must bear in mind that up to 1705 Muddy River was part of Boston, consequently births, marriages and deaths were of record there. During the same period, and indeed until 1717, Muddy River inhabitants were parishioners of the Roxbury church, and baptisms and other church records will be found there. So intimate were the associations of Brookline and Roxbury, however, that entries properly belonging in Boston were made in the Roxbury town books; such an instance is the entry,-"14 January, 1659-60; born, Thomas Wood- ward, son of Thomas."
Boston birth records next show, 1663, Esther, daughter of Thomas and Esther Woodward of Muddy River. Next Rox- bury church records show that Thomas Woodward joined the church there April 24, 1664. The next Sunday, i. e., May first, Thomas and Esther, children of Thomas Woodward, were baptised. It is one of the pictures of life-this joining by the father and his bringing his two children the next week. It clothes with flesh and blood the dry entries two and a half centuries old. We get a further touch of life con- cerning the mother of these children when weread,-"S June, 1673, Esther, wife of Thomas Woodward, entered full com- munion." The next Boston entry is the birth on June 24, 1667, of Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas and Judith. (I think the entry of Judith as the mother's name is due to confusing the names of two Hebrew heroines.) Then, from Roxbury, -- "30 July, 1667, baptised Elizabeth Woodward, daughter of Thomas"; on the 13th of January, 1668, the birth of Mary, daughter of Thomas and Esther, and her baptism, at Rox- bury, on the 17th of January of the same year; in 1670, the birth of Rachel, daughter of Thomas and Esther, and the baptism at Roxbury, November 27, 1670, of Rachel, daugh-
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