USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Shirley > Shirley uplands and intervales; annals of a border town of Middlesex, with some genealogical sketches > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
Our pound is an interesting relic of a bygone custom, and our late town treasurer, Mr. Hazen, has seen to its preservation for many years to come, by very judicious repairs. The old gate was copied exactly, with the old nails and hinges replaced; the brush and small trees inside were cut. While it is perhaps less picturesque than it was, all filled with brush, yet now it has the air of a cherished treasure, well kept.
I like to picture the Common as it was during the Revolution: a treeless plain looking off in all directions over its surrounding valleys, for all the trees on the Common have been planted since 1850. In the centre, facing west, stood the new church, without a tower,
115
THE POUND
flanked on the south by the horse sheds, on the west by the "new ball pump" in the town well. On the east stood the pound, and toward the southeast the burial ground with its new rail fence. For a time the Horse Pond Road ran south of the "buring place," but later it was changed to its present course. The other roads were all as they are now, except the new road past the town house door. But no dwelling house was near by, for all the houses around the Common were built after 1800. Perhaps the shanty in which "Dame Nutting" taught her school was still there back of the "new ball pump," but otherwise the church was isolated. James Dickinson's house, standing behind its two great elms, was nearest, down the Horse Pond Road, and "Priest Whitney's," down Whitney Road. On Brown Road one had to go as far as the head of the hill to the house that Mr. Norman R. Graves lives in now. It was small in those days, with only one story, containing two rooms, one either side of the front door. Here lived Deacon Jo- seph Brown, who bought his house in 1772, with forty acres, from Hezekiah Patterson. Brown gave his name to the road one hundred and forty years later! On Centre Road the neighbors were somewhat nearer. George Chase lived in what is now the Adams house, with Seth Walker a short way beyond. Up Parker Road, who shall say? The old church building still stood in its place opposite the present Centre School, and a little way down Green Lane lived Amos Dole. The Centre then was so called only because it was the common land, and not because the small village had gathered around the Common's edge.
-
IX OUR SCHOOLS
MR. CHANDLER says that our first settlers went with- out any schooling at all. Groton schools were too far away, of course, and it was not until 1757 that Shirley bestirred herself to have one of her own. She had by this time a church and burying ground, but no school. The first vote on the subject was passed May 30, 1757, when it was decided "to hire three months schooling in the district, and to begin about the last of August or the beginning of September next, & Mr. Jonas Longley Mr. William Simonds & Mr. John Kelcy was chosen a committee and empowered to agree with some person or persons to keep said school and to assign places for the same." This first school, according to our historian, was held at Jonas Longley's, on the farm now owned by Mr. Herbert Holden. At that same meeting the town voted to buy a pair of stocks, and we can only hope that there was no connection in their minds between the two enterprises. The year following there is no mention of a school at all, but the third year they had two months of a "reading or woman School," which was held during the summer months, and one month in the winter of a "writing or man School."
The cause of education was growing, and from this time on there was no doubt at all in the minds of the parents that there must be schools. In 1761, a vote of the town to "allow Mr. Amos Holden Sixteen Shillings
I18
SHIRLEY
for boarding Mr. Isaac Farnsworth whilst he was keep- ing School in this District" gives us the name of our first known school-teacher. Mr. Farnsworth taught for two or three years as appropriations for his board testify, and during his régime the town inaugurated the custom of having the schools in different places. The middle of town usually had two months, the north and south each one. This method was kept up until the town was laid out in regular districts, each with its own school, and probably even then the schoolmaster or mistress moved around to each district in turn. James Parker tells us in 1770, that on February 13 they met in the evening "to agree about the school house & did nothing." Two nights later they again met and "Drawed wrightings in order to finish the school house." This house, the one which stood near where the new Meeting-house was to stand, did not progress very fast toward completion, but the town did not go without schooling, for James Parker kept school for a month. He began March 12, at John Davis's. On April 7 he says that he had finished a week of teaching at Deacon Longley's.
The next year, in January, Parker taught for two weeks at Lieutenant Haskell's in the south, and Thomas Little at Ebenezer Gowing's at the north. At the end of January they moved, Parker to Mr. Livermore's and someone else to Hezekiah Pattersons. School kept up until February 13th.
The only mention of schools for the next three years is what Parker tells us in December, 1774: "Campbell Brown Came to my house in order to get in School man."
With the coming of the Revolution, the people settled
119
OUR SCHOOLS
down to a more consistent system of schooling. They divided the town into four districts, and gave each district its proportionate share of the appropriated sum, to use as was thought best. In 1775, £6 were used for schooling for the entire year and James Parker must have received a large proportion of the same. He kept school at Henry Haskell's in the village all through January. He says, "I had in a general way about 30 scho' some very large men & women grown." The same year Mrs. Newell held the reading school in August. The Revolution put somewhat of a check on their activities, for the next year they had no winter school and only a short summer school, the £6 to be used as they had been used the year before-and no one knows how that was. In 1777, we first catch sight of that very picturesque figure whom Mr. Chandler has so vividly portrayed-"Dame Nutting." The orders for that year contain the entry, "Dec. 1, 1777, Gave Phile- man Holden an order for £4:5 for Mrs. Nutting keep- ing school," and James Parker tells us that he settled with Dame Nutting on October 31 "for her spinning & keeping school & Paid her the money." Dame Nutting's school was at the Centre, near the house long occu- pied by Mr. Chandler. It was "about twenty feet square, singly covered with rough boards, without inside ceiling, but was furnished with a cellar, to which access was gained by a trap-door in the centre of the room." In one corner was a huge field-stone fireplace, with an uncovered chimney of the same material. Mr. Chandler says that it was customary "to rent the building to some pedagogue or schoolmarm as a part payment for services in teaching the young idea how to shoot."
120
SHIRLEY
Just here the puzzle begins. This schoolhouse, accord- ing to tradition, was on Mr. Chandler's land and was rented. Mr. Chandler also says that Dame Nutting taught many years. So far as I can find out from the records, 1777 was the only year in which the town paid for her services. The next year Rebekah Little was the "school marm," and in 1779, Elizabeth Wason taught. The same year Thomas Warren and Wallis Little were the teachers of the "reading school." The schoolhouse seems to have been in a somewhat anoma- lous position. In 1778, the church records show that it was a public building, for the church members met there on Friday, October 30, to transact business. The following year Parker writes in his diary under November 3, "I sold Mr Whitney my part in the School House."
In 1779 the town warrant contained as "Article 5: To see if the Town will buy or hire the School house that is near the Meeting House." The article was passed over in town meeting, and of course was in · reference to Dame Nutting's schoolhouse. I think that Mr. Chandler is entirely right in saying that Dame Nutting kept school in Shirley many years, for the Parker children "begun School to Mrs Nutting" June 27, 1785, but I believe that it was a private school after that first year during which she was the town school- teacher. It was a habit for many, many years, and even as late as to come within the memory of those now living, to have a private school for those who wished to go longer than the town appropriation warranted. In 1837, there was one such school in town with twenty- five scholars. The next year there were three, and in 1839-40 there were four private schools.
I21
OUR SCHOOLS
All through the Revolution the schooling was some- what intermittent, but perhaps not so much so as Mr. Chandler suggests. In 1778, our first settled school- master took charge of the schools. He was a Scotch- man, David McLeod by name, whose father of the same name came to Boston in 1740, with his wife, Mary. Seven children were born in Boston to the elder David. He or his son was evidently a sea captain, for in 1768, the item, "David McLeod, Sloop Ann from Hispaniola," appears in the sea news, collected in the Report of the Record Commissioners of Boston. David, Jr., was the eldest of the seven, born May 16, 1740. Our
1783 David M. Leod
David McLeod may have come to Shirley as a young man, for he married Sarah, daughter of Robert and Eleanor Henry. She was born in Groton, that is Shirley, in 1744 on her father's farm, which was the one the town bought for Priest Whitney in 1763. So Mrs. McLeod was coming back to the town of her birth, when she and her husband settled in the little house which stood on the triangle of land back of the engine house in the village. They bought this triangle with a house on it and a small piece south of Haskell Street in 1778 of John Patterson .* They had had two children, Thomas and William Scott, born in Boston and Marlboro; the two daughters, Brucey and Mary Gillespie, were both born in Shirley. Captain Samuel Walker paid McLeod on
*Middlesex Deeds, Vol. 176, p. 451.
DAVID MCLEOD'S HOUSE, HASKELL STREET
----
pang ya y
123
OUR SCHOOLS
March I, 1784, thirty-three shillings as "part of his wages for keepin school in the north part of this town," six shillings more on the same day for the same thing, and thirty-four shillings for "eight days and half, Making Rates, at four shillings a day." The same day the town disbursed one pound fourteen shil- lings to Captain Asa Holden, "being his Due for Board- ing Capt. McLeode and other services Done the Town." McLeod was paid two pounds six shillings more in May for keeping school and "making Rates." It must have been a precarious livelihood for poor McLeod, for the next year the committee's "descression" was not to have a school at all. Perhaps that was why he bought seven acres more of land; it was a forcible return to the soil. McLeod took up his teaching in town immediately upon his arrival it would seem for, on February 6, 1778, "Sally and Jam" [Parker] went "to school to MCCloud the first of their going." Schooling must have been very strange and desultory for on February 13 these same children went to school to Wallis Little. Mr. McLeod was a favorite schoolmaster, however, and though the Parker children often went elsewhere, when their own school kept, they also went to private school to McLeod. In 1781, Parker paid ten bushels of potatoes for his scholarly ministrations. On January 7, 1782, Parker records, "3 of my children begun to go to pri- vate School to M' MªCloud." The next year "Jam," who was old enough to work on the farm, went to the schoolmaster at night for his schooling.
The next year, 1785, John Long kept school at the Meeting house, and McLeod, in his own house, and Sally Parker, from her short and meager schooling, as-
124
SHIRLEY
spired to and did keep school. But good money was go- ing to waste which the Parkers were not earning. Sally did not absorb it all. So our good James went to James Dickinson and Jonas Parker to see if he could not teach school. As one school-man was his brother and the other his brother-in-law they could not have been hard to persuade, and so the next day he began his school, January 26; and he kept it going until March 27, the longest consecutive period in the annals of the town up to that time. The school was quite large too, for he says he had forty or fifty scholars.
When the town passes a vote, like the following, the need of more adequate schooling becomes apparent, unless, as may be the case, this is a chef-d'œuvre of our old friend Obadiah Sawtell. He never could spell in any but a most original manner. To return, the town was asked to vote, "To See if this Town Will pass a vote to be Devided Into Propper Destrets Convenient for Schooling and Build a School House in Each of said Destreets." They accepted a division into three "Classes," as had been customary for several years.
The South School is said to have stood nearly where William Cram's house stands today, but a deed in 1808 from Stephen Stimpson, who lived in the old red house at the corner of Centre and Davis Roads, to Samuel Sprague forces us to another conclusion. The land* was two acres in extent, and was bounded south by Thomas T. Huntt and the County Road, east by
*Middlesex Deeds, Vol. 198, p. 31.
tLand on which the house occupied by C. R. White and Mrs. Love now stands.
#Main Street.
125
OUR SCHOOLS
Phinehas Ames,* north by the Town Road, t and west by the road # from the clay-pits to the mills, "reserving the school and land." In other words, the school must have stood just north of the railroad tracks and west of the Davis Block. The building was later moved to Main Street and turned into a small dwelling house. It is now the only one of the original school buildings stand- ing, and, of course, looks little as it did in its pro- fessional days. James Parker was much concerned in the building of this first South School and, as his words are the only ones extant to tell us what was done, I shall take the liberty to quote them all:
1786. Nov. 6. I worked at the fraim of the New School House by Simpson & others.
Nov. 7. I worked at sd School House & others.
Nov. 8. We raised sd Fraim & had a Dispute.
Nov. 14. I hilped Board the school house.
Nov. 15. I carried 4 Bunches of shingles to the School house.
Dec. 22. I worked at the School house Shirley.
Dec. 26. I worked 33 days at the School house.
Dec. 27. I worked } day at the school house.
1787. Jan. 2. I at work at the School House.
Feb. 17. I drawed a Great to the School.
Feb. 26. The school Begun in the New School House my children went.
Dec. 3. Was Town Meeting to see about the new Consti- tution & School House a Great Difficulty about sd School.
The North School stood where the present brick one does, and, after it had been moved up the old Townsend Road, served as a blacksmith shop well into the twen- tieth century. The Centre School has not moved very
*He lived where the Davis brick block now stands.
+Davis Road.
#Centre Road.
all will
THE FIRST SOUTH SCHOOL, NOW ON MAIN STREET
127
OUR SCHOOLS
far. In 1805 the old building was abandoned and on February 7th of that year the second was raised.
The good people at the east, headed by John Kelsey, Ebenezer Pratt, and Samuel Walker, were far from satisfied, and they forced a vote through town meeting that a fourth "Class" at the east be added. The next year it was voted to raise "Ninety Pounds for to build said school houses." These were three in number, but it does not designate which three.
The east part of the town did not propose to let its children go uneducated, and so in 1788 the town "voted that the East part be set off as a Deestrict by themselves as many as choses to be set of and build a school house for themselves and draw their proportionable part of the Sch'g as school money and they are to pay thair part tords the school house in the midle of Town."
The same year the Parker papers contain a document of some interest:
To Deacon Joseph Brown Treshurer for Shirley pay James Parker one pound one shilling & one penney it being his due for bilding the South School house and his Recpt shall be your Discharge for the same.
February ye 4, 1788 JOHN EGERTON / Committee / for bilding sd house
It is impossible to tell when the other schoolhouses were actually built, as there is no record of the town which throws any light on the subject, and James Parker did not build them. The question of "Sum Meathod" to provide wood seems to be the most agitating thing for the next six or seven years. The length of schooling varied somewhat, from the differences in the appropria-
I28
SHIRLEY
tions, as this record shows:
I789. James Parker from Jan 30 to March 31 Molly Harkness August 13-
1791. John Longley Jan 13-
Doctor Longley Feb 7-
I792. Mch. 26. "I went to Exebition to John Longley's school a number of people there." J. P.
I795. James Parker Jr., North end, March 14
1796. James Parker Jr., South end, Dec 26-
The private school, as I have said, was a common thing in those days, and every young man of education tried his hand at either the public or private form. The next in our record to try private school-teaching was Nicholas Bowes Whitney, the son of Phinehas. Parker calls him "Booz Whitney" nearly always, which seems hard on a minister's son. At any rate Bowes Whitney opened a private school to which James Parker sent his younger children with strange results, for Parker says, "he refused teaching them; I wrote him about it." That was on the thirteenth of February, and on the sixteenth the children went to private school. The trouble with Whitney did not end there, for in the next year Parker writes, "February 25, I went to ye store, I had a discourse with Nicholas Whitney in About his Abusing David in his School."
In 1798, two hundred dollars, about the usual sum, was divided between the four districts. The obstreper- ous east district tried to get an appropriation of twenty dollars through town meeting, to finish their school- house, but failed in the attempt.
Mr. Chandler says that "Master McLeod" was so long engaged in this employment (school-teaching) that
129
OUR SCHOOLS
"an entire generation could refer to him as their guide in obtaining a knowledge of letters." He gives the im- pression that Master McLeod was severe and did not hesitate to use the rod. He was much looked up to by his contemporaries, for he was one of very few Americans of the time who had travelled in Europe. I don't know whether he had ceased to teach in 1795, or whether an increase in the number of districts called another school- master that year. Anyhow, Chapman Whitcomb gave his receipt to James Parker for school-teaching that year for "three shilling L. M."
The schools jogged on in their accustomed fashion for another decade, until 1808, when our first school com- mittee was appointed to examine the schools. The committee was headed by the Rev. Phinehas Whitney, with Wallis Little, Abel Moore, Daniel Livermore, Samuel Hazen, Jr., John Egerton and Asa Holden as the members. The second innovation was the appro- priation of $30 "to hire a Singing Master one month." This sounds as if the instruction in singing was meagre, but if it was managed as the singing school in Pepperell was about this time they really got something out of it. The diary of Elizabeth Bancroft tells how she went day after day all the afternoon and sometimes all the evening. It was short but strenuous. The large committee in Shirley was evidently lazy or unwieldy, for the next year's was composed of three, Mr. Whitney, Deacon Joseph Brown and Mr. Joel Willard.
The year following, the town allowed the "people Called Shakers" to draw their proportion of the town's money for their school. Between 1812 and 1814 the
ΙΟ
THE OLD NORTH SCHOOL, GARRISON ROAD
11
3& 3
ZaGy
0
I31
OUR SCHOOLS
town was redivided into districts which, with one excep- tion, remained as long as the district school held sway. The committee which had it under consideration re- ported "that it is our opinion that it is necessary that one school house be built near the Widow McLeod's barn,* another near the guide board near Capt. Staples Bridge, t another near the Bridge by the Widow Pratts,# another near the old Pound place, so called, another near where the Turnpike crosses the road that leads from the Meet- ing House to Stephen Barretts."§ The Middle, South and East schools were to be sold or removed. This was too drastic a change to be immediately acceptable to the conservative voter, so that two years passed before a committee was chosen "to class the Town and to ap- point places where the school houses may be set."
The citizens, it will be seen, were divided into six groups of almost equal size, the largest or "Middle North" reaching from Mulpus Brook south to the Long- ley Homestead. Among its leading men were the min- ister, Squire Parker, Squire Whitney and "Ensign" McIntosh. The lists serve to record the inhabitants of the year 1812, and the center of each group may roughly be called the present brick school house. Those at the North and East North are closed; the Middle South is now the home of Mrs. Cynthia E. Lynch; and the East South which included Nonacoicus Farm is gone. It stood near the point where the railroad crosses the road at Mitchelville.
*Near the present High School.
At Mitchelville crossing.
On the Great Road near Lawton Road. §Centre School.
I32
SHIRLEY
NORTH DISTRICT*
John Dwight (No. 28)
Mary Smith (No. 14)
Francis Dwight (No. 28)
James Carter (No. 10)
Amos Day (No. 29)
John Williams (No. 16)
Jonathan Nutting (No. 6) Aaron Woodbury (No. 5) Samuel Woodbury (No. 5)
David Atherton (No. 18)
Eleazer C. Andrews (No. 20)
Reuben Hartwell (No. 22)
Peter Tarbell (No. 26)
Jesse Farnsworth (No. 4)
William Alexander (No. 15)
Nathaniel Holden (No. II)
Thomas Hassard (No. 9)
EAST NORTH DISTRICT
Oliver La[w]ton (No. 37)
William Williams (No. 60)
Simon Page, Jr. (No. 36)
Jonas Baker (No: 35)
Amasa Hartwell (No. 38)
Nathaniel Day (No. 33?)
Isaac Hall (No. 39)
Simon Holden (No. 30)
Jeremiah Stewart (No. 115) Widow Hartwell (No. 115)
Oliver Page (No. 65)
Joel Page (No. 65)
Phinehas Fairbank (No. 32?) t
John Fairbank (No. 34?)
Widow Pratt (No. 61)
SOUTH DISTRICT
Seth Davis (No. 168)
David Parker (No. 167)
Widow Hazen (No. 166)
Thomas Hazen (No. 165) Benj. Hastings (No. 164)
Benjamin Regg Widow Longley (No. 163)
Thomas T. Hunt (No. 160)
Israel Longley (No. 137)
Phinehas Ames (No. 162) Samuel Serjant (No. 139) Aaron Lyon
Luther Longley (No. 124)
Joseph Egerton (No. 154)
Lemuel Willard (No. 149)
Peter Washburn (No. 138)
Abijah Learnard Rece's Family [Merrick Rice, No. 148]
John Henry (No. 146)
Nathaniel Farnsworth
Widow Vinting [Vinton] (No. 156)
John Egerton (No. 134)
Matthew Clarke (No. 140) Thomas Orr
*The numbers refer to the houses occupied by the inhabitants of each district, which may be found in the lists of the occupants of Shirley houses. ¡There are three houses, owned by Joshua Longley, which he rented. There is no way to tell which man lived in Nos, 32, 33, and 34.
Nathaniel Bachelor (No. 13)
Hezekiah Spaulding (No. 3) John Heald (No. 2)
I33
OUR SCHOOLS
MIDDLE NORTH DISTRICT
Moses Tucker (No. 42)
Capt. Harrad (No. 79)
Joseph Tucker (No. 42)
David Livermore (No. 80)
Ezra Clapp (No. 44)
Thomas Whitney (No. 90)
Stephen Barrett (No. 51)
James Parker (No. 81)
Nathan Smith (No. 54)
Elisha Dodge (No. 91)
David Sawtell (No. 52)
Esq" Longley (No. 92)
Jonas Page (No. 55)
William McIntosh (No. 96)
David Jenkins (No. 57)
Roderick McKenzey (No. 82)
Moses Kezar (No. 45?)
Deacon Brown (No. 98)
Moses Jinnerson (No. 71)
Mr. Johnson
Daniel Dodge (No. 70)
Stephen Longley (No. 92)
Wallis Little (No. 67)
Moses Chaplin (No. 76)
Thomas Jinnerson (No. 74)
Jesse Chaplin (No. 76)
Rev. Phinehas Whitney (No. 77)
Jonas Livermore (No. 80)
EAST SOUTH DISTRICT
Moody Chase (Ayer)
March Chase (Ayer)
Aaron Davis
John Crouch
Capt. Staples (Ayer)
Ira Washburn
Nathaniel Parker
Phinehas Holden (No. 128)
Hezekiah Patterson (No. 127)
James Dickinson (No. 131) Francis Balch (No. 131) John Walker (No. 130)
MIDDLE SOUTH (POUND HILL)
Doctor Hartwell (No. 93) John Davis (No. 88) Silvanus Holdin (No. 89) Phinehas Page (No. 116) Joel Richardson (No. 86?) Levi Farnsworth (No. 85) Dennis Page (No. 84)
Capt. Parker (No. 117) John Kelsey (No. 118)
Daniel Kelsey (No. 118) Nathaniel Livermore (No. 125) William Bartlett (No. 123) Capt. Hazen (No. 100) Artemas Longley (No. 103)
William Conant (No. 104)
Abel Longley (No. 107)
John Kelsey, Jr. (No. 105)
Amos Day (No. 29) in both North and Middle North Districts. Edward Bolton (No. 47)
Widow Joseph Longley (No. 133) Jeremiah Richardson Israel Willard (No. 141)
Daniel Livermore (No. 135)
William Gleason (No. 142) Thomas Peabody (No. 144)
4 .. .
. ... %
THE POUND HILL SCHOOL, CORNER OF CENTRE AND HAZEN ROADS
I35
OUR SCHOOLS
The Committee's report was accepted in 1814, and the old schoolhouses were to be sold for the benefit of the different districts, the two middle districts to divide the price of the Middle School, the south and the north to have the price of their own, and the two east districts, which had new schoolhouses, twenty-five dollars each. The two east schools got the best of this bargain, because James Parker says that he went to the "selling of the middle school house &c at $32," on October 31st, so the two middle districts got but sixteen dollars apiece.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.