USA > Maine > Somerset County > Embden > Embden town of yore : olden times and families there and in adjacent towns > Part 41
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The following year, with dissatisfaction rampant, Joseph Chick, Abram Chick, James McKenney, Alfred Holbrook, Ben- jamin F. Chapman and the lands of Cyrus Cleveland and Joel Fletcher, Jr. - all on the eastern side of the No. 8 district and in the vicinity of the great pond and its outlet - were made into a district by themselves, while James and Andrew Wentworth, John and Asher Cleveland and Francis Burns were also set off from No. 8 to a district by themselves. Then in 1851 -six years later - Alfred Holbrook, Jonas Cleveland, Benjamin Mc- Kenney and land of James F. Collins, which had been in a special district No. 22, was transferred back to No. 8, as were Francis Burns and John and Asher Cleveland - also probably their near neighbors the Wentworths, although it does not ap- pear in the record.
And by this time the attendance at the school on the corner of the cross road and the Wentworth lane was reaching large proportions. Here at the Wentworth corner the smartest teach- ers from the Seven Mile Brook vicinity - alike from Embden, Anson and New Portland - held sway. One of these was the ate Edgar Millay (1837-1927) of New Portland hill, a massive, athletic youth of great natural talent, devoted to teaching, but tardly more so than to orcharding and to breaking and driving pirited young horses. The extent of his schooling was meas- red by ten winter terms of eight or ten weeks each in the home istrict and by a six weeks term in the high school at North New Portland, taught by S. J. Walton, who became a leader at the omerset County bar. Millay had worked on the farm as a boy nd in the summer of 1858 put in a long season with one of his ew Portland neighbors at $14 a month. That autumn friends 1 Embden, including Jonas Cleveland, then agent of No. 8
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with a school population of 26 scholars, urged him to try hi hand at teaching and he closed with an agreement to teach there at $16 a month and "board around." This effort was so much of a success that in the spring, the agent of the adjacent Hol- brook school (No. 12) engaged him to teach there in its new schoolhouse at $22 a month and board.
Thus one of the most famous teachers of district schools in all the country thereabouts began his unusual career, which at 70 years of age included forty terms of school, four others of which were in Embden. He was proud of recalling that he never applied for a school, was always engaged several months in advance, taught in the largest and most difficult districts having 50 or 60 pupils and received the highest wages those dis- tricts had ever paid. Of his advent at the Wentworth school (No. 8) the aged master a few months before his death and when nearly blind, wrote as follows:
"I was green at the business then and, at first, declined tc take the school as I feared I was not qualified. But I had ideas which I thought would be proper for success, viz .; order, atten- tion to school work by my pupils and all necessary instructior from the teacher which was always at hand. Wonderful, but in all my teaching in after years I don't think I ever carried & book home to prepare lessons for the next day -a commor practice with many teachers."
The Holbrook district (No. 12), which built its schoolhouse in 1855-56 and became one of the largest of Embden schoo centers, had a contentious history. The old schoolhouse, some times called "Fort Holbrook," was on a tiny square of land ou of the acreage of Solomon Walker but was named for Alfred Holbrook (1799-1871) who resided many years a quarter of : mile eastward where the Solon cross road strikes the highway from the mill pond. That district No. 12 and its schoolhouse were probably the resultant of the longest and most persisten battle in Embden's struggle for primary instruction.
When districts were organized by the lines designated at th 1823 town meeting, district No. 8 - north of the Barron district
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No. 7- included several farms east of the mill stream. All between that and the Middle road, or Canada Trail, was in the jurisdiction of district No. 5. The new cross road was several years into the future by 1823, although some distance north - considerably back of the town house also 20 years in the future - there was an east and west road. Daniel Goodwin, his brother George and their father, upon whose farm the town house of this day was located, Isaac and Ira Ford, whose farm just south of the town house Barzilla Ford subsequently owned, and Jacob Young in the same vicinity were thus a long way from the school in the No. 5 or Dunbar district. Elias Salley and his son, Uriah, were apparently dissatisfied although much nearer No. 5 school.
There was dissatisfaction westward among settlers around the foot of the pond and on the west side of the mill stream. This included Alfred Holbrook, the Chick family, Warren Rogers and Henry Daggett, whose farms were in a line west- ward of the pond. These complainants were persistent before the annual town meetings for years and, after concessions and rearrangements of small school districts for their convenience had been made to little purpose, the town on March 1, 1852 auth- orized a school district No. 12, which included two tiers of farms east of mill stream up to Mullen cove and covering considerable land originally set aside "for the use of the ministry" and an- other tract, directly south of the pond "for the first settled minister" as well as a tier of farms west of the mill road and the mill stream. Three years later, March 5, 1855, quite a part of the adjacent territory of the No. 8 district was also annexed.
Meanwhile Alfred Holbrook and others began agitation for a schoolhouse. They speedily fell into disagreement. The new district now extended well over the Canada Trail and residents near the town house wanted the school near by. They had voted on March 18, 1839, when forming a newly organized school group by themselves, known temporarily as district No. 15, "to build a school house 22 feet square on first flat on the east side of he pond stream, near the north side of the new cross road" and
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agreed to raise $100 to be paid in materials, labor and produce." Alfred Holbrook was moderator of that early meeting and Eli- sha Walker, who at that date, had come into ownership of the mill property at the foot of the pond, was clerk. They main- tained this No. 15 school several years. May Quint was teacher there in 1842.
A school location like that was more acceptable in 1852 to the town house contingent. The warrant for a special meeting of the new district on April 2, 1852, was addressed by the select- men to Eli C. Walker, who then owned a part of the mill with his father. It directed that the meeting be at the house of Joseph Chick, Friday at 6 p. m. to see if the district will agree on a location for a schoolhouse, what sum of money shall be raised for the building and "if necessary to pay for a location."
The meeting was so badly divided that no further action was taken for three years. Following the town meeting of 1855, the selectmen issued a warrant to Elias Salley to call a meeting of the freeholders in school district No. 12 for Wednesday, March 22 at 1 p. m. to see if the districts will build a schoolhouse, if it will agree on a location and what sum of money it will raise. Again it was found impossible to agree, whereupon Alfred Hol- brook, Benjamin McKenney, Elias Salley, Daniel Goodwin and Uriah Salley asked the selectmen to designate a site, which Amos Hutchins and Moses M. Thompson did following a hearing April 11, 1855, at the residence of Alfred Holbrook.
The schoolhouse was accordingly erected that summer and autumn and may have been occupied at the winter term of 1855- 56 but probably was not entirely completed till Sarah Wentworth taught the summer term of 1856 and Elias Hutchins the winter term thereafter. The new house cost $176.77 and stood till a few years ago, when it was hauled to the south side of the cross road and remodeled on modern lines at a cost of $1,500. The money for the original structure was raised on a commitment dated Feb. 28, 1857, to Capt. John Walker of northeast Embden then the town collector with directions to "assess upon the polls and estates of school district No. 12 the sum of $175, voted by said
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district to build a schoolhouse and $1.77 overlaying. The col- lector's vouchers indicate that most residents of the district paid their assessments in labor and materials. Uriah Salley was probably the boss carpenter on the job. He was paid Oct. 10, 1855, the sum of $9.41 and on March 26 following $16 and $16.33. Others who had payments for work or materials on the school- house were D. G. McKenney, Benjamin McKenney, Daniel Good- win, Elisha, Eli and Solomon Walker, Alfred Holbrook, Barzilla Ford, Elias Salley, Joseph Chick, Cyrus Cleveland, Amos Copp and Williamson Moulton.
The Holbrook school soon vied with No. 3 by Bowens mill and with the Dunbar school, No. 5 for highest honors alike in num- bers and in scholarship and in the amount of wages paid to men teachers. It was known for half a century as No. 12, the num- ber that had been given in 1823 to a district south of Seven Mile Brook in the triangle of ground that eventually was an- nexed to Anson. This triangle was bounded by a line running south from the brook at Ephraim Sawyer's (Lisherness farm) to the southwest corner of the town, thence east on the town line to the brook and thence by the brook to the southeast corner of Lot. 183 (Lisherness farm). This olden district No. 12 had been created as result of long standing complaints by James Paine, Jeremiah Thompson and William and Nahum Quint, whose farms comprised the triangle. After more than 10 years of petitioning Paine, Thompson and the Quints were allowed by the town in 1820 to form a school district by themselves. Thus No. 12 has had a stormy history in Embden schools. "Fort Hol- brook" in modern days is the Emerson school.
These four districts - Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 12- excluding the household schools and other subdivisions that flourished for a season, covered quite precisely the southwest quarter of the town. The first two and the last, in no small degree, were out- growths of the West Ward school. Many families in those three districts were akin to pioneers in No. 9. The town's northwest quarter was divided quite equally by districts 10 and 11. The first was the Moulton school, west of Embden Pond, where set- tlers from New Hampshire largely occupied the land. The
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second touched Lexington on the north and New Portland on the west. The Tripps, Stricklands, Isaac Burnses and Fletch- ers were the most numerous families there, even as Moultons, Joseph Greenes, Mullens and Fosses dominated in No. 10 . The map on page 266 under letters "S H" notes the locations of all these schoolhouses, except that in No. 8 district. The Cragin school appears on the south side of the road, which Olive (Jack- son) Barron says is an error. It stood on the north side.
Schooling facilities, like the establishment of roads, were a long and persistent problem in this northwest section. The land there was opened to settlement slowly and the town was dilatory about making roads. Hancock Pond, in the extreme northwest divided the No. 11 district. North of it and adjacent to Concord were families who persisted from early days in schools for their children. On a warrant to Jesse Fletcher a meeting was called in 1837 at Isaac Burns' house to arrange for the erection of a schoolhouse. The No. 11 district was divided, east and west in 1840. It included several families on the slopes of Black hill - Samuel Norton, Whiting S. Hinkley, John Skillings, William R. Jackson and Josiah M. Cook, among others, with the Ben Pierce and, afterward, the Gordon families immediately south of them. Several of these were notable for their appreciation of schooling. Sometimes there were as many as three house- hold schools in this Black hill region. Here, too, where the eye now beholds only a reforested expanse, grew up several talented Embden teachers.
The Moulton, or No. 10, district served families of more than ordinary frontier attainments. Joseph N. Greene one of the earliest settlers there was the agent of the Rhode Island pro- prietors. Northward of the Greene farm and over into Concord were families of the capable Moulton clan. One or two of the Tripp families were also immediate neighbors. The school- house for No. 10 was located some distance below the Greene, or Sky farm, on the west of the road not far from the little Moulton burying ground. Amos Copp, Oliver Moulton, William Q. Chick, Benjamin R. Moulton, James R. Foss and H. B. Moul- ton on Nov. 19, 1849, petitioned the selectmen to issue a war-
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rant for a district meeting "in this month if convenient and as soon as may be." The people of the district assembled at James R. Foss' on Dec. 3, 1849, with Oliver Moulton as moderator and Benjamin Moulton as clerk. They voted to build a schoolhouse at a cost of $150 but it seems to have been four or five years be- fore the building was completed. Elder Job S. Hodgdon, from across the pond, used to expound Methodist doctrine there and occasionally a funeral service was held within its portals. Every vestige of this house long ago disappeared.
For many, many years Seven Mile Brook teachers dominated in the schools of districts 7, 8 and 12 and to no small extent in Nos. 10 and 11. They held aloft the torch at summer terms and winter terms for the hardy youth who were to be men and women of a tomorrow. Teaching rosters of these schools bear names much like those of the West Ward. Starting with the Bar- ron school in 1845 is the name of Amos Hutchins, Amaziah Getchell agent. Polly Paine (Mrs. Martin Dunbar) came there the next term, with Nathaniel W. Gould, Amaziah's cousin, as agent. She had another term in 1846 but Sybil Paine was teaching No. 7 in 1848 with Lemuel Williams, father of Fairfield, as the agent. From then up to 1860 with Elisha Walker, Simeon Cleveland, William Barron and William Quint (descendant of William who resided in the southwest triangle) taking turns as agents, there was a succession of teachers including Elmyra Hutchins, Ellen Paine, J. L. Batchelder, Elizabeth Pease Norton, Georgianna Hutchins, Hannah Cragin, Clymena Salley and Hamden T. Williams. Sarah Gamage, another remarkable school "marm" from Anson, daughter of William Gamage whose brick residence was a short distance below the meeting house, taught in No. 7 about 1861, as did Lydia M. Hutchins, Randall Durrell agent. Sarah married Austin Andrews but continued teaching into the 30's when their home was on the middle road near the Embden- Anson line. Her son, Austin G. Andrews, is now at North Anson.
With 25 scholars in 1862, No. 7 was taught by Amos Heald f New Portland, descended from a brother of Maj. Ephraim Heald of Concord, and a daughter of William Fletcher. The
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same year he taught one term in No. 12, with Solomon Walker agent. Anthony L. Donohue, the singing master - agent in 1862 - engaged Alice Moore (Mrs. S. H. McAlpin) now of Port- land, for the summer term and Sarah Gamage again for the winter term. The next year Emma Fletcher (Mrs. Charles W. Steward) from North Anson and Flora E. Cragin, half-sister of Hannah, were the No. 7 teachers; Eldorah Barron, daughter of William, kept the summer term of 1866 - marrying in 1876 Josiah Holway of The Forks - and Sarah Gamage in the winters of '66 and '67. Ella Ayer (Mrs. Gardiner S. Benson) had the summer term in '68; Harriet Elizabeth Pierce (Lizzie) the winter terms in '68 and '70.
The Wentworth school had hardly 20 scholars in the 1840's but Edith Pierce kept a term there in '47, David G. McKenney agent, and was succeeded in '48 and '49 by Sybil Paine, engaged by Isaac Daggett - then living just north of the log cabin schoolhouse. In 1850 Solomon Walker, who had recently pur- chased a farm from his uncle, Samuel Walker, brought his sis- ter Caroline A. Walker (1830-1881) to teach in No. 8. She had had her first two terms in the Barron district where her father Elisha resided and before 1855 was two terms teacher in the Wentworth school. Soon after this she married Hiram G. Mer- rick and went to Wisconsin but in 1860 they were at Central City, Colo., and settled eventually at Georgetown in that state. Merrick was a miner and had quite a conspicuous part in the clashes of the Civil War period between northern sympathizers and southern sympathizers. He operated in 1862 the Sears stamp mill for the owner of the famous Tennel lode and died at Denver in 1910. Several of Caroline Walker Merrick's im- mediate kin in the next two generations were teachers. She was a cousin of Olive and Adaline Albee.
Among the notable teachers of No. 8 school into the days and years when much of the district was becoming part of the larg- er school in No. 12 were Harriet Palmer, Sybil and Ellen Paine, Sophia Chase (Mrs. Everett Quint of North New Portland), M. Winslow, daughter of Jonathan on the cross road; Sarah Went- worth, Sabrina Knowles, Laura T. Knowles, Hannah B. Went-
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worth, Augusta Hinkley, Eldorah Barron, Olive Jackson and Sarepta Thompson (Mrs. Frank Moulton.) Conspicuous among them was Sarah Wentworth, daughter of Andrew. Her cousin, Hannah Wentworth, a woman of great religious zeal, went to Lawrence, Mass., where she married Peter Higgenbotham, a preacher. Her later life was passed however, in Embden, and she rests in the burying ground near the old time Wentworth lane, near her unmarried sister, Ruth Wentworth, a woman of splendid character.
The notable teaching talent at the Holbrook school began to appear in 1853 when Alfred Holbrook, agent, with a fund of $38.88 for the 27 scholars there engaged Adaline Albee at $8 for the summer term and Lucy Hutchins at $17.50 for the winter term. In Septem- ber that year Adaline Albee married Cyrus Cleveland, 2nd. Barzilla Ford, near the town house, boarded the teacher that winter and next year was agent. Elizabeth Atkinson, sister of Joseph and William from far up the middle road and one of the town's foremost teachers, kept the winter terms in '54 and '56. Elias Hutchins of New Portland, Sarah Wentworth, Sybil Paine and Ellen Camp- bell followed in about the ADALINE (ALBEE) CLEVELAND order named. Then in 1858 came young Marcellus Ayer, from Ayer hill as has already been mentioned, and after the future business magnate of Boston. Cyrus Cleveland, the agent, "agreed" with Isaac H. Thompson of North Anson to teach the winter term of No. 12 in 1859. Following his service as an of- ficer in the Union army, Capt. Thompson became a North Anson business man of unusual integrity.
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Still other outstanding teachers of the Holbrook school were Rev. Hartwell Churchill - better known in the eastern part of the town - Laura T. Knowles, Caroline Howes (1844-1913) who taught there in 1864; Lizzie Jacobs, Hamden Williams and Mrs. Lovina Fassett. Mrs. Fassett was Lovina Walker (1824-1906) daughter of Deacon Joseph Walker and had been teaching in Embden schools since 1841. She had married in 1847 Alex- ander Fassett, who lost his life in 1855 when his team broke through the toll bridge at Madison. In 1865 at Holbrook school she was a widow with four children, but after teaching that winter married her first husband's brother, Calvin, of Gibson- ville, Calif. She died at Auburn, Me., and has many descend- ants in Androscoggin county.
Wages for winter term at Holbrook school went higher and higher. Edgar Millay in '68 had $82.50 but after him came Nelson Walker of Strong, then of wide reputation as a teacher. He got $78 for teaching the first winter but Bryant N. Savage, agent, engaged him for the following year at $114. They were different types of teachers, as indicated in a letter from Mr. Walker, wherein he wrote -
"I think it was the winter of 1869-70 that I taught the Hol- brook school and I had another term there the next winter. I had 52 names on my register and was very busy I can assure you. I can remember having three classes reciting at the same time. Amos Hilton was agent the first year. Among those who attended the first term were Columbus and Artie Foss, Albert and Ellen Daggett, Sarah Cleveland, Olestin, Eldwin and Carrie Hilton ; Forrest, Horace and Alice Savage, Jake and Joanna Goodwin. Llewellyn Denico, Sarah and Ada Ford; Charles and Lydia McKenney, Alabama and two other Copp children; and I think there were two from David Pierce's and a Chick boy.
"They did not try to lug me out in the Holbrook school. I was told that but two or three terms had been taught out by the same teacher for twenty years and one boy said he could lug me out and that another would carry a big knife in his bootleg. There were two incidents that might have led to unpleasantness
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EDGAR MILLAY
NELSON WALKER
had I acted hastily. A smaller boy whom I had occasion to shake up tried to arouse Jake Goodwin (now at Solon) to make trouble. But Jake and I went out and talked it all over together after which he was one of the best boys and would do anything for me.
"Another thing came near causing trouble. Ed Millay fin- ished the term the winter before and they told me he chewed tobacco in school and, of course, spit around. So several of the boys thought they must do the same and they made the floor very filthy under their benches. Some of them resented it when I asked them not to do it and did worse than before. I asked them the second time with but little success. I gave them chance to think it over. Some of them quit when I had spoken to them pleasantly but the third time I told them what they might expect if they did not stop their filthy habit in school. They understood what I meant and stopped. Whatever success I had was largely due to the parents who stood by me in all I tried to do."
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Nelson, not a kinsman to the numerous Embden Walkers, al- though a brother-in-law of Warren Getchell, returned to Emb- den in '76 to teach a small school in No. 7 at Warren Getchell's house, where gathered also the scholars of Calvin, Leonard and Eli Walker. Fairfield Williams, agent, asked him to come an- other year but he thought the school too small for him. Born at Freeman in 1845, Nelson Walker had the school privileges of a farmer boy and three terms in the Strong high school. He started teaching fall and winter terms at 18 and continued for fifteen years. He set up housekeeping with his first wife at Gardiner but returned to Freeman to care for his parents till both died. For seven years he was selectman and superintend- ent of schools there. Then he went to Strong to give his chil- dren better school privileges, built houses and other structures and was postmaster till he had passed the age limit. He had been a Republican since the party was organized in 1854 - al- though he was not then a voter - an official member of the Methodist church for more than 60 years, a Freemason for over fifty years and at 80 was working a part of the time in a lumber mill. He died in 1928.
Many young women teachers in those days, even as now, were attractive and erelong teaching ended in marriage. They were recognized as desirable wives and that quality looms in the story of their school work. They frequently began teaching at 15 or 16 - an age when romance occupied their minds quite as much as directing the education of boys and girls. Many a tale was told in that connection. Here is one from the daughter of a much respected Embden teacher :
"Old Squire was a lawyer at a neighboring village 1 and a widower. He was a man of good ability but a periodic drunkard. He used to shut himself in a room, where he lived alone, and drink for days, emerging at length for a time of sobriety.
"He was considerably older than my mother - at that time barely more than 15 and teaching an Embden school - but the Squire asked her to marry him. It being her first offer, she felt quite flattered. About that time he brought her home from
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school one Saturday. Halting on the way to water his horse, he gave my mother a drink out of a tin dipper. It was at that old watering trough on the Brook road at the foot of the hill, two miles and more above North Anson village.
"Some time later she tried one of those foolish experiments as girls will occasionally do. She ate a tablespoonful of salt and went to bed backwards, believing she would dream of her future husband. If she were to be rich, he would give her a drink out of a goblet; if of moderate means out of an earthern cup; if poor out of a tin cup.
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