USA > Massachusetts > Nantucket County > The history of Nantucket County, island, and town : including genealogies of first settlers > Part 70
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*Congregational Quarterly, January 1865.
Lost at sea-on a voyage to England.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
and three hundred Indians, young and old, prayed to God, and kept holy the Sabbath day. This Church met at Ogguwame (Occa- wan) .* There were also congregations at Wammasquid and Squat- osit. There were three other religious teachers-Joseph, Samuel and Caleb, who also kept school.
"Nearly abreast the fifth milestone," writes Rev. S. D. Hosmer in the Congregational Quarterly for January 1865, "as one now rides out to the fishing village Siasconset, he sees at a distance, on his left hand, a bright sheet of water, stretching along the base of a sandy hill. Issuing thence, a lazy brooklet through the low meadow winds its way oceanward. That meadow marks the spot of the Indian village, Okawah, where John Gibbs for nearly twen- ty-five years preached to the church of converted savages. The water still bears his name, Gibbs' Pond; and farther down in the valley, a secluded spot of a few acres, in the midst of marshy reeds and brakes, perpetuates the memory of another aboriginal occu- pant in its appellation, Tashima's Island."
In 1684 John Eliot in a letter to Mr Boyle of London, mentions the Indian Church at Nantucket. Mather's Magnalia; contains an interesting letter from Capt. John Gardner, whom Dr Mather de- scribes as well acquainted with the praying Indians and having for several years assisted them in their government by instructing them in the laws of England and deciding difficult cases among them. Captain Gardner writes of two Congregational churches and one Baptist. He expresses regret at the decay of religion among the Indians, ascribing it to their not possessing the truth for itself, and to their fondness for strong drink, as well as because of their being more mindful of the outward form than of the inward sub- stance.#
In their civil government each of the praying settlements had its own Court which was authorized to hear and determine all caus- es of forty shillings or less; magistrates chosen from their own numbers, yearly, who frequently appealed to the English for advice in more important matters.
Four years later at the desire and expense of the Christian Indians, "the worshipful Capt Gardner," as the Indians called him, procured the frame of a meetinghouse which they were build- ing in June 1698. At which village it was being erected does not appear.
*Nearly abreast of the 5th milestone on the Siasconset road and near Gibbs' Pond.
+Book VI, Section 56.
1Capt. Gardner writes "Their decay is great chiefly in number there being now but about five hundred grown persons; as to their worship, there are three societies or churches; two Congregational, one of the baptists, but their number is small; but there are five con- stant assemblies or meetings; two amongst them that went by the name of the antipeatames or powatoms; and that I may now say there is not known a powaw amongst them; and although it is true there is a great decay of religion among the first Societies many of their best men and I may say good men are dead; yet amongst the now praying Indians, there is an increase.
preachers and
God raising up even of themselves serious men too some of them which is a cause of thankfulness."
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
. In the summer of 1698 Rev Mr Rawson of Mendon and Rev Mr Danforth, of Taunton, visiting the Indian plantations, reported five congregations at Nantucket. Job Muckemuck has succeeded John Gibbs who has deceased. The names of other preachers are given, one especially who frequently used the pulpit from which to rebuke all moral evils-Noah, an Indian never known to be in- toxicated, but a zealous preacher against drunkenness. These vis- itors, who appear to purposely overlook the Baptist Society, report two churches with regularly ordained officers, in each of which are twenty or more communicants under a commendable condition of discipline .* They state the whole number of adults to be about five hundred. They maintained commonly three schools. At the time of the visit of Messrs Rawson and Danforth the schools were temporarily suspended for want of primmers. Their report further says: "We preached to them in their own language twice in one assembly, into which they were generally convened on the Lord's Day. Three of their principal speakers were improved by us in prayer, that we might discover something of their abilities, in which we found them good proficients." Their churches flourished up to the year 1700. The ability to purchase liquor, however, en- couraged by the very few unscrupulous whites had its effect in les- sening religious influences and the "plague," so-called, of 1763 nearly blotted them out as a nation.
Zaccheus Macy in a letter to the Massachusetts Historical So- ciety, written in 1792, says of their meetings: "I will say some- thing more in recommendation of some of our old Indian natives. They were very solid and sober at their meetings of worship, and carried on in the form of Presbyterians, but in one thing they imi- tated the Friends or Quakers, so called; which was to hold meetings on the first day of the week and on the fifth day of the week, and attended their meetings very precisely. I have been at their meetings many times and seen their devotion; and it was remark- ably solid; and I could understand the most of what was said: and they always placed us in a suitable seat to sit; and they were not put out by our coming in, but rather appeared glad to see us. A minister is called cooutaumuchary. And when the meeting was done, they would take their tinder-box and strike fire and light their pipes, and, may be, would draw three or four whifs and swal- low the smoke, and then blow it out of their noses, and so hand their pipes to their next neighbor. And one pipe of tobacco would serve ten or a dozen of them. And they would say 'tawpoot', which is, "I thank you." It seemed to be done in a way of kindness to each other." "And as I said before, they had justices, constables, grand- jury-men, and carried on for a great many years, many of them very well and precisely, and lived in a very good fashion. Some of them were weavers, some good carpenters."
*Mr. Macy, in commenting on the religion of the natives, says (page 56) "They were assisted by a translation of the New Testament into their language, and encouraged to meet together for divine wor- ship. They at one time had four meeting-houses, one towards the east end of the Island, at a place called Okorwaw, near the east end of Gibbs' swamp, one at Myercommet, a little South from the town, one near Polpis, and the fourth in Plainfield, situation not exactly known." "In these they held their religious meetings, under ministers of their own nation."
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
In the summer of 1763 the Indians were attacked by the "plague" otherwheres referred to and only a mere remnant sur- vived. In 1784 the Town statistics record only 35 Indians. Eight years later the number was reduced to four males and sixteen fe- males.
So vanished the race. During the entire time of the occupation of the Island by the whites there was no time when a rupture be- tween the races was threatened. They seemed to be, as Mr Worth has described, unable to entirely comprehend the laws relating to the transfer of real estate and the manner in which they lost all control over the lands that had been their fathers from time im- memorial: nevertheless their discontent and dissatisfaction never reached the point of an armed outbreak either real or threatened.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
CHAPTER XIII THE NANTUCKET SCHOOLS
It must be admitted that for some reason our forefathers did not take kindly to the suggestion of Free Public Schools. Public sentiment had to be aroused in their favor. The law required a system of free instruction for all children, but the statute seemed to be either a sealed book or a quietly ignored demand. At any rate up to 1818, those children whose parents could afford the expense sent them to private schools; others got instruction or went with- out it according to their individual ambitions and possible oppor- tunities.
Samuel Haynes Jenks, a native of Boston, but for many years a resident of Nantucket, writes to William R. Easton, for many years an indefatigable member of the School Committee and for a long period its Chairman, concerning this period .*
"In April, 1817, I visited Nantucket for a sad and sacred pur- pose; remained a year, returned to this my native place; and in 1819 was induced to adopt Nantucket as the future residence of my- self and my two then motherless children. Educated as I had been under the free school system of Boston,-a system made universal (with only one exception) throughout the State,- by long stand- ing, and positive legal requirement, I was astounded and grieved to find that Nantucket, with a population of some 10,000, should have taken advantage of her necessarily tolerated exemption from certain other burdens, to set at naught the laws requiring every town to furnish instruction, without cost, to children of all classes .; I sought to arouse that people through newspapers (such as they were) and at Town meetings, to a sense of their duty, and of their legal liability. I met with repeated rebuffs in the old Town Hall. Some of the primitives said they had already "good enough" schools (meaning the charity schools). Others (the Friends) declared they had schools of their own, and would not mingle their children with those of the world's people. Others again, like our friend Jethro M., ridiculed my motion for an appropriation for public schools, by de- nouncing it as a "Boston notion." I was voted down thrice, as an efficious intermedling " "stranger and coof."}
*Proceeding of Nantucket Hist. Assocn. 1901 p. 16.
*The law of 1647 required that every town of 50 householders should support a school house and teacher.
įA term of derision among the Islanders and applied to residents on the main land.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
Mr. Jenks states that in his wrath he got the Town indicted* He adds that "Before the trial was to have commenced, the Select- men promised that if I should obtain a withdrawal of the suit, ample provision in the premises would be made. I did so. A small sum was voted. It served for a beginning; and thus originated the now (1859) excellent school system of Nantucket." On this point Mr Bunker's version is that "the Grand Jury found the bill of indictment a summons issued to the Town and the case was con- tinued for notice to the July term. 1827.
"Meantime, during the session of the Legislature, 1826-1827 the school laws were revised, codified and reformed into the law of March 10, 1827, substantially their present form. At the annual meeting of that year, this law having been constructed in reference to the increase in the community of knowledge, and the growth of opinion, and provision being made by its 19 sections for heavy penalties for violation or neglect, no opposition was made. A School Committee of twelve was chosen, a liberal sum (not "small" as Mr. J. says) was voted, I think it was three thousand dollars, and a system of Schools was at once established."
Neither of these statements, although written by men in the thick of the battle, seems to quite dovetail in to the testimony of the Town Records.
At a Town Meeting held April 25, 1818, it was "Voted that Joseph Chase, James Gurney, Seth F. Swift, William Coffin, Oliver C. Bartlett, Josiah Hussey and Silvanus Hussey Jr be a Committee to take into Consideration the subject matter and Expediency of having a free School and make report at the Adjournment of this meeting."} The meeting was adjourned until the following Satur- day, at which time the Committee made the following report:
"We the subscribers having been appointed a Committee to In- quire into the Expediency of Establishing schools in the town of Nantucket and having given the subject that investigation which the Importance of it demands ask leave Respectfully to Report that we find that there are in the town about Three hundred Children from three to fourteen years of age who do not Attend any school and whose parents in our opinion are unable to give them Even the first Rudiments of an education. Our attention has been direc- ted principally to that Class of Children who are destitute of the means of useful instruction, and who, without the benefit of pub- lick schools Can never share the advantages arising from literary Improvement. We believe that publick schools under the Regula- tions of a Judicious Committee would produce a salutary Effect and have a Commanding and beneficial influence upon the manner
*Charles Bunker Esq. disputes Mr. Jenks' claim to have had the Town indicted and claims in refutation that in June, 1826, at a sitting of the Supreme Judicial Court at Barnstable he met Attorney General Perez Morton and called his attention to the Town delinquency, and at the July session in Nantucket, Mr. Jenks, Henry M. Pinkham and himself lodged the complaint which resulted in the indictment. (See Proceedings Nantucket Historical Association 1901 p. 19.)
+This assuredly looks like the effect of Mr. Jenks's work. The preponderance of evidence seems to favor the general correctness of his statement.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
and improvement of Youth. We find in our Enquiries that school mistresses of good moral Character and well qualified to Teach Youth from three to Twelve years old may be procured to Teach a school of Fifty scholars for one hundred and Four dollars a year. That the school Rooms may be obtained for Twenty-five dollars Each per year, and that the annual Expense for Fireing for Each School will be about Twenty five Dollars per year, making the whole yearly Expenses of one woman's school one hundred and fifty four Dollars.
Thus it appears that four public schools to be taught by fe- males Containing fifty Children Each from three to Twelve years of age may be maintained for six hundred and sixteen dollars per year, and we, the Committee would ask leave to Recommend to this Town the establishment of Four schools of the above Discrip- tion- --. We are also of the opinion that one man school ought to be supported by the Town the annual Expense of which we Cal- culate at Three hundred and Eighty four dollars so' that
five schools, four to be taught by women and one by a man, may be maintained during the year for one Thousand Dollars.
"We therefore Recommend to the Town to Raise by Taxation that sum for the support and maintainance of schools of the above Discription. And also to appoint a standing Committee of seven for the year Ensuing to have the Care, management, oversight and direction of said schools and whose duty it shall be in a very es- pecial manner to visit Each School once in every month and to use their best endeavors to awaken a Zeal in the Youthful and to use their best endeavors to awaken a Leal in the Youthful mind for intellectual improvement and to impress on the minds of Children and Youth who may attend said schools the Principles of piety, Justice and a sacred Regard to truth, Love of Country, hu- manity and universal benevolence, sobriety, Industry and Tranquil- lity, Moderation and Temperance and those other virtues which are the ornaments of human society, and the basis upon which the Republican Constitution is Structured.
The above Report is Respectfully submitted to the consideration of the Town.
Nantucket May ye 9th 1818.
JOSEPH CHASE OLIVER C. BARTLETT WILLIAM COFFIN JAMES GURNEY SETH F SWIFT JOSIAH HUSSEY SILVANUS RUSSELL JR
Committee of Investigation."
The Town accepted the Report, appropriated $1,000 particu- larly to assist in "supporting the above schools," and chose as its first School Committee-Joseph Chase, William Coffin, Oliver C. Bartlett, James Gurney, Peleg Mitchell, Gilbert Coffin and Seth F. Swift.
The following week (May 16), for some reason which does not appear in the Record, the Town voted to strike out the word
603
HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
"Free" from the report regarding the school. The same Committee as chosen was to continue oversight .*
According to the report of the Committee presented to the Town Meeting April 24, 1819, that body overran its appropriation by $14.38, but the Town evidently was satisfied with their stew- ardship for the deficit was immediately covered.
The Committee made the following report:
"We your Committee appointed at the setting of the annual meeting to take into Consideration the subject matter of schools beg leave to state that we have paid attention to the object of our appointment and find that the school now superintended by the Fragment society Consists of about forty schollars the probable Cost of which per annum is $190. it is the opinion of said society that by adding an assistant teacher at $26 per annum the school might be increased so as to include all females who need the assis- tance of the Town in procuring their Education. We find the said Fragment Society are willing to Institute a school for Males not over ten years of age upon the same plan as that for females and at the same expense. If the above two schools are Established there will be left lads about ten years of age who will need the As- sistance of the Town to finish their education. the amount Estimated for this object is $100. Finally your Committee report that a school Committee be appointed by ballot at the adjournment of this meeting Consisting of five: and that said Committee when appoint- ed assist the fragment society in establishing the aforesaid two schools and that they superintend the education of those not in- cluded in said schools. To enable the school Committee to Carry the preceeding Report into effect your committee recommend the appropriation of Five hundred and Fifty dollars for the following purposes :
Viz't For the female school $216
Viz't for the male school
216
100
For such school not included above Contingencies 18
$500t
Your Committee further recommend that the school Commit- tee be instructed to Report at the annual meeting the name and family of each scholar together with the Items and ammount of Expencet all of which is submitted.
JOSEPH CHASE
Nantucket 5 mo 1st
1819
ZENAS COFFIN AARON MITCHELL PAUL MACY HEZ'H BARNARD
The Committee appointed to superintend the schools made a separate report. which set forth that-
"The Town school Committee before Reporting their proceed- ings ask leave to state the votes and proceedings of the. Town un- der which the Committee were
At to proceed. a Town Meeting held at Nantucket the 25th
of April, A 1818,
Committee was appointed to take into Consideration the sub-
*The charitable, and perhaps the correct, view of the action of the Town is that the word "Free" carried with it the same stigma as "Charity."
+The figures total $550.
¿That seems to be showing a scanty respect to the pride of those whose children were pupils.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
ject matter and Expediency of having a free school and to report at an adjournment of said Meeting.
At an adjournment of said Meeting held on the 9th May Next proceeding the Committee after making a Lengthy Report on the subject Recommended to the Town to Raise by taxation the sum of one Thousand Dollars to be appropriated towards the support of five publick schools.
The Town Voted to accept the Report and Raise the sum of one Thousand Dollars particularly for supporting the schools Recom- mended and Choise of Joseph Chase, William Coffin, Oliver C. Bartlett, James Gurney, Peleg Mitchell, Gilbert Coffin & Seth F. Swift as a standing Committee to have the inspection and Conduct- ing of said schools.
At an adjournment of the meeting held on the 16th of the same instant after Considerable debate had on the subject the Town Voted that the word free (publick) be struck out of the Re- port for a school and that the same Committee still have the Con- ducting Care and oversight of said schools. The Committee appoint- ed agreeable to the foregoing votes of the Town Respectfully state at their first meeting, in order to commense on the business assign- ed them they Examined the votes of the Town. it appeared the Town had the Report of a Committee which Reccommended Pub- lick Schools, and had appointed your Committee to superintend them after which they had Voted to strike the word free out of the Report the word Publick no Doubt was Intended, a question of some Delicacy now arose with the Committee how the scholars were to be selected that were to be benefitted by the liberality of the Votes of the Town being defficient on that. However your Com- mittee believing it to be the minds and intent of a majority of the meeting at the time the word free was voted to be struck out of the report that the money to be raised should be Exclusivly ap- propriated for the benefit of such Children whose Parents or guard- ians were in Indigent Circumstances. on that principle your Com- mittee proceeded and gave Notice to that Effect. The Fragment Society then had a school in which were about fifty poor Children which had been supported by donations. a Committee from that society made known to us that the Calls on them were great That if the Town would pay the tuition and Rent it would enable them to keep the Children Decently Clad and to appropriate their small fund to other Charitable purposes. the Committee agreed to that proposition and permitted that Society to Rule direct and order the same which they have Continued to do and such is the order, decorum and usefullness of the fragment society school that we beg leave to Recommend it to the Notice of the Town.
We Next organized two mens schools in which we put about Ninety scholars principly boys. we then placed from fifty to an hundred scholars in nine different women's schools the average number from the Commencement to the present time of Children that have been at the Town's Charge for Expense of Schooling is about two hundred as will appear by the school list that will be handed to the selectmen with the Bills, Recips and all other papers of the Expenditures from the Commencement of the Schools to the present time. The whole amount of which is $1014.38
Nantucket April 22d 1819.
JOSEPH CHASE WM COFFIN OLIVER C. BARTLETT SETH F. SWIFT GILBERT COFFIN.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
It does not seem quite clear from the Record just what the Town did in 1820, but some action was taken and the schools con- tinued, for at a Town Meeting held April 28, 1821 the School Com- mittee made the following report: *
"The School Committee have attended the Object of their ap- pointment. They have procured instruction in the course of the Year for about one hundred and Twenty-five Children, the greater number of whom have been Continued in school through the year. About thirty of those Children have been taught in a school under the immediate Superintendence of the Fragment society. the Committee have been so well satisfied of the superior Advantages of this school that they take this occasion to recommend it to the Continued patronage of the Town. There has been Expended for the Instruction of all the children in the course of the year Three hundred and Eighty seven Dollars and eighty one Cents and the committee recommend to the Town to Raise four hundred dollars to be at the Disposal of a school committee to be Expended in like manner for the Education of such Children as may require it. There remains in the hands of the Committee unexpended twelve dollars and fifty three cents.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
Nantucket April 28th 1821.
GILBERT COFFIN HEZ'H BARNARD PAUL MACY
JETHRO MITCHELL MATT. BARNEY
The report of the Committee was accepted, the same Commit- tee was re-elected and the sum of $400. was appropriated for the year. t
It is an error to suppose that the early settlers of the Island were illiterate. Their names are signed to many documents public and private. Thomas Macy had been an unlicensed preacher before removing to Nantucket and his letter to the General Court explain- ing his non-appearance to answer to the charge of entertaining Quakers is good in diction and penmanship. The Records of the State of New York, with letters of the early settlers on file, easily refute any charge of illiteracy especially as compared with their day and generation.
The early Town Records say- "At a Town meeting ye 24 day of ye first month 1716, warned to consult concerning setting up a School & any other besiness yt may be then thought needful, Rich- ard Gardner is chosen Moderator for this meeting. Voted yt ye Town will chuse a Schoolmaster for ye year ensuing. Also voted yt ye town will hier Eleazer Folger for a Schoolmaster for ye year
*The Warrant for the Town Meeting for April 29, 1820, called for ac- tion regarding Town schools and to see if the Town would raise money for them. The Record shows that the Town voted "to accept the re- port of the Fragment school Committee and chose Hezekiah Barnard, Jethro Mitchell, Gilbert Coffin, Paul Macy and Matthew Barney School Committee. No mention is made of any appropriation although one must have been made.
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