USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Harpswell > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 45
USA > Maine > Cumberland County > Brunswick > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 45
USA > Maine > Sagadahoc County > Topsham > History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, Maine, including the ancient territory known as Pejepscot > Part 45
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462
HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
school-house, on School Street, previously referred to, on April 22, 1848. This meeting was adjourned to May 6, at which time a com- mittee, consisting of G. C. Swallow, A. C. Robbins, William Mount- ford, Thomas Knowlton, and E. S. Parshley, were chosen to obtain information in regard to the high-school system, and to report at a subsequent meeting. The next meeting of this district was held June 24. The committee reported in favor of the adoption of the high- school system, and it was voted "that the district concur with Dis- tricts Numbers 1 and 20 in adopting the system and in the formation of a Village District, agreeable to the petition of Benjamin Furbish and others and a vote of the town." G. C. Swallow, George F. Dunning, A. C. Robbins, John F. Titcomb, and John S. Cushing were chosen a committee to confer with Districts Numbers 1 and 20.
At a special meeting of District Number 20, held June 24, 1848, it was voted "to unite with School Districts Numbers 1 and 2 for the formation of the Village District." The district also chose Professor HI. H. Boody, Charles J. Noyes, and Robert Melcher a committee to confer with the committees chosen by Districts Numbers 1 and 2, and they were authorized and empowered to adopt such measures as might be necessary on the part of the district, " to bring the object of said preceding vote into full and complete effect."
On June 20, 1848, a petition was sent to the legislature, stating that the three above-mentioned districts had united and formed one district, with the consent of the town, and requesting the passage of an Act confirming the action of the town " and giving to said district power to raise annually such sum of money as may be needed for the support of the public schools therein." This petition was signed by Abner B. Thompson and nineteen others in District Number 1, by Robert P. Dunlap and thirty-five others in District Number 2, and by Parker Cleaveland and twenty-three others in District Number 20.
In accordance with this petition the legislature, the same year, passed an Act confirming the vote, of the town, and granting to the Village District all the powers and privileges of other districts in the State ; authorizing the district to raise such sum of money as might be deemed necessary for support of the public schools within the dis- trict, the amount so raised not to exceed " three fifths of the amount apportioned to said district from the school money raised by the town for the same year " ; requiring this money to be assessed and collected as other school-district taxes were; and authorizing the district to choose school agents and adopt proper by-laws.
Immediately after the passage of the preceding Act, measures were
463
EDUCATIONAL HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK.
taken for the organization of the Village District. A meeting of the inhabitants of the three districts in the village was called by the select- men, to be held on August 18, 1848. At this meeting a committee of seven were appointed to draft a plan of organization. To this com- mittee were added the superintending school committee of the town, making a committee of ten. This committee reported, at a meeting held August 30, as follows : In favor of the annual election of a board of nine agents, three of whom might be from each of the former sections of the district, and this board were also authorized to act as an executive committee, and to prescribe a course of study and deter- mine the text-books to be used; to examine teachers; to visit the schools ; to conduct examinations ; to promote deserving scholars ; to admit pupils from without the district ; and to establish by-laws. The committee also recommended that there should be three grades of schools, - primary, grammar, and high ; determined which should be taught by male and which by female teachers ; fixed the commence- ment and close of the several terms and vacations ; prescribed the classification and course of studies for each school, and the require- ments at examinations and for admission to school.
This report was accepted at this meeting and its recommendations approved and authorized to be put into execution, though they were afterwards (April 17 and May 8, 1849) somewhat modified.
The Board of Agents made a report, September 27, 1848, in which they recommended the purchase of a lot on Union Street, between O'Brien and Lincoln Streets, for the erection of a granmar and high school building, the renting and furnishing of rooms for these schools until such a building should be erected, and the enlargement and repair of the primary school-houses.
In their next report, this board state that all the schools had been organized according to the plan agreed upon. During the winter of 1848-9, four primary and two grammar schools had been taught, the average length of each being fifteen weeks. The number of teachers employed was eleven ; eight in the primary schools, two in the prin- cipal grammar school, and one in the select grammar school. This was five more teachers than had been usually employed in previous years. The number of pupils at this time in the primary schools was four hundred and forty-six; the number in the principal gram- mar school was one hundred and twenty-five, and in the select grammar school, forty-six. The total number of pupils in the vil- lage schools was six hundred and seventeen.
As the number of scholars very much exceeded what had been anti-
464
HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
cipated, the committee had been under the necessity of establishing a fourth primary school on Union Street. The select grammar school was a temporary expedient made use of at this time, on account of the number of pupils really fitted to enter a high school being too small to justify the immediate establishment of such a school.
Some fault having been found with the result of the examinations, the board in this report explained their method of conducting them, and defended their action in the matter.
The total receipts for the village schools this year were $1,204,49 .- Of this sum, $1,137.09 was expended for rent and repair of school- houses, payment of teachers, and incidental expenses, leaving a balance unexpended of sixty-seven dollars and forty cents. If from these expenditures the unusual expense of rent, repairs, etc., be deducted, there remains a sum less by twenty dollars than that ex- pended for the three winter schools of the previous year, which demon- strated the advantage of the system in a financial aspect.
The agents urged strongly the necessity of providing suitable accommodations for the high and for the principal grammar school. They say, "By next September, at least one hundred and forty scholars will be entitled to a place in the grammar school, - a number which it is totally impossible to accommodate in any room in the vil- lage of which the committee have knowledge."
In concluding this report the board congratulated the district " on the successful introduction of a new and better system of schools."
In their report for the year ending April 2, 1849, the superintend- ing school committee also speak of the very decided improvement in the schools, in consequence of the adoption of the grading system and of a uniformity of school-books.
The Board of Agents, in their report for the year 1849-50, make the following statements : -
In the summer there were two grammar and four primary schools kept; in the fall and winter, two grammar, three primary, and one miscellaneous school. The number of teachers during the year was, in the summer, ten, - one male and nine females. The school year was thirty weeks, divided into three terms of ten weeks each. In the summer term there were five hundred and sixty-seven, and in the fall and winter terms five hundred and seventy-three pupils.
At the beginning of the year there were not enough children suffi- ciently advanced in their studies to enable the agents to constitute the high school with all its appropriate classes. No high school was established, therefore, but the pupils were taught in the grammar
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EDUCATIONAL HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK.
school. The time had then arrived, however, in their opinion, for establishing the school.
They affirm, " without fear of contradiction, that never has there been in this village schools, public or private, of so high an order as the schools of this district the last year."
The committee also stated that they had contracted with teachers, and conducted the schools on the assumption that the additional tax levied by the district would be paid promptly. A part only of this tax had thus far been collected. and the most of this had been paid to cancel a note of the district, and that in consequence the teachers had not been paid for their last term's service. They stated that most of the citizens had favored, or at least acquiesced in, the change in the school system, but all had not. "On the part of some, there is an avowed hostility to this system, which will not be satisfied with any- thing short of its entire overthrow."
The committee stated that this hostility was exhibited the previous summer in an effort to procure from the legislature a repeal of the Act of Incorporation of the Village District. Failing in this, they refused to pay the tax levied by the district, on the pretext that the district had not been legally constituted, and that the power granted to it in its Act of Incorporation was in violation of the Constitution. The committee added that this objection came with bad grace from those who signed the petition for incorporation. They considered the mat- ter practically settled by the action of the legislature, but were ready to meet the matter at once before the Supreme Court. In accordance with a vote of the district they had taken legal advice, which was that the collector should be asked to proceed at once in the collection of these taxes and that he should be supported therein by the. whole strength of the district.
The petition to the legislature, to which reference was made above, was signed by John Crawford and one hundred and four others, and declared that the plan of uniting the schools into one district had proved a failure, and therefore a repeal of the Act was prayed for. This petition was first referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and was subsequently laid before the Committee on Education. Seven- teen of the signers were petitioners for the Act of Incorporation of the Village District.
As soon as it was known that the above petition was in circulation, a remonstrance against a repeal was at once started. It was signed by Robert P. Dunlap, Adam Lemont, and two hundred and twenty- one others.
30
466
HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
One of the positions taken by the opponents to the Village District was that District Number 1 never intended to unite and form with Districts Number 2 and 20 a Village District, and that they did not acquiesce in the matter. In refutation of this argument, Messrs. Isaac Lincoln, William H. Hall, and Alfred J. Stone deposed, June 8, 1850, " that since the organization of the Village District in Brunswick, in the summer of 1848, District Number 1 has claimed to have no legal existence, nor has the said District Number 1, since that time, per- formed any acts as a district, but has united with Districts Numbers 2 and 20 in the formation of the Village District.
'. No public schools have been taught in what was District Number 1 since the summer of 1848 up to this date, excepting the schools which were under the control and supervision of the agents of the Village District, to which schools the people in the part of the Village Dis- trict which was formerly District Number 1 have cheerfully sent their children for instruction, and have received their full share of benefit therefrom."
The truth in regard to the feeling in this district is shown by the following facts, which were certified to by John F. Hall, the last clerk of the district : Of the voters in District Number 1, twenty petitioned for the Act of Incorporation of the Village District, thirty-five petitioned for the repeal of the Act, and sixty-seven remonstrated against a repeal.
To show that the selectmen recognized the Village District as hav- ing an existence in November, 1848, the following certificate was written : -
" SELECTMEN'S OFFICE, BRUNSWICK, June 7, 1850.
" On the seventeenth of November, 1848, I was called upon by A. C. Robbins, one of the Board of Agents for the Village District, for that year. At his request I balanced the accounts with School Districts Numbers 1, 2, and 20, and carried the balances forward to the credit of the Village District. At that time there was due to District Num- ber 1, 8381.03 ; to District Number 2, $319.08 ; to District Number 20. 8179.40. All which balances were credited to the Village District in Brunswick, since which time we have had no accounts with Dis- tricts Numbers 1, 2, and 20 : the money formerly due to them being credited to the Village District in Brunswick.
"(Signed)
" RICHARD GREENLEAF, Chairman of Selectmen."
In July, 1849, the president and directors of the Warmmbo Manu- facturing Company petitioned the legislature " that the said company may be exempted from the payment of the taxes by special legislation
467
EDUCATIONAL HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK.
imposed upon them, or thit if they must be specially taxel for such objects beyond the general provisions of law, that the avails may go to the benefit of the whole town in which their property is situated."
Among the reasons given for asking for this exemption was that, in the passage of the Act, the corporation had no agency nor notice. It was true that they had no notice, as a corporation, but the company were represented in the petition for incorporation by their treasurer and one of their directors.
The petition for the repeal of the Act of Incorporation, the petition of the Warumbo Manufacturing Company, and the remonstrance, were all laid before the Committee on Education. On an appointed day the petitioners appeared, and were heard by their counsel, Gen- eral A. B. Thompson and Honorable James W. Bradbury. The remonstrants were heard by their representatives, Professor William Smyth and Phineas Barnes, Esquire, of Portland. Richard Green- leaf. Esquire, appeared as a witness for the petitioners.
After the somewhat protracted hearing, the committee of nine, all of whom were present, voted eight to one to give the petitioners leave to withdraw. On July 20, 1849, this report of the committee passed both houses of the legislature without a dissenting vote.
At the annual town meetings in 1848, 1849, and 1850, it was voted : " That the several school districts be authorized to choose their sev- eral school agents."
The foregoing account relates to the organization of the Village District. What follows will relate to the doings of this district.
At a meeting of the Village District, held on the twenty-seventh of September, 1848, the Board of Agents were authorized to borrow such sums of money as might be needed from time to time for the expenditures already authorized, not to exceed $5,000. At the annual meeting of the district in 1849, it was voted " to raise three fiftlis of the amount of money raised by the town, apportioned to this district by a tax on the same." 'This vote was passed under the law of August 3, 1848.
Under the first vote, and by the authority therein given, the Board of Agents hired the sum of three hundred and twenty-five dollars for the purpose of altering and repairing the primary school-houses, and gave their note for the district.
This loan of three hundred and twenty-five dollars, together with the amount raised by vote of the district, April 17, 1849, was certified to the selectmen and assessors, and at the annual assessment in 1849 the assessors made one tax for both items.
468
HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSIIAM, AND HARPSWELL.
The Board of Agents for the year 1849 were William Smyth, John C. Humphreys, Allen Colby, Benjamin Furbish, and Richard Green- leaf. They put the schools in operation, basing their expenditures and calculations upon the supposition that the extra tax of three fifths, voted in April, 1849, would be paid.
Early in the spring of 1850 it was ascertained that very many of the large tax-payers had declined and absolutely refused to pay the extra school-tax. The consequence was that the district was largely indebted to school-teachers, and had no means of paying their claims so long as the extra tax was withheld. A meeting of the district was held March 7, 1850, at which the following resolution was passed : -
" Whereas certain individuals in the district have declined the pay- ment of their taxes upon the ground that the law under which the tax is levied is unconstitutional. Therefore, Resolved that the Board of Agents be instructed by this meeting to procure such legal advice as they may deem expedient and take such measures as may in the speediest manner test the constitutionality of said law and secure the collection of the taxes."
At the annual meeting in April, 1850, the following vote was passed : -
" Voted, that the town collector be requested at once to collect the taxes remaining unpaid, by distraint or otherwise, and that the dis- trict will indemnify him in the same."
This vote of the district was formally certified to the collector, yet he declined doing anything towards the collection of the extra tax.
The Board of Agents for the year 1850 found themselves very unpleasantly situated. The district was largely indebted to teachers. The larger part of the extra tax was uncollected, and the collector refused to perform his duty. At a meeting of the board, May 7, 1850, the following vote was passed, all being present : -
" Whereas Stephen Snow, the collector of the town of Brunswick to whom was committed a certain tax, assessed upon the inhabitants of the Village District in said town, by the proper authorities of said town, raising money for the support of schools in said Village Dis- trict, has collected and paid over a part of said tax and neglects and refuses to collect and pay over the balance of said tax, the time men- tioned in his warrant of commitment having expired some time ago, therefore : Voted, that John C. Humphreys be a committee to call upon the treasurer of the town of Brunswick and inform him of the neglect and refusal of Stephen Snow, the collector, to proceed in the collection of the taxes, and request the treasurer to issue his war-
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EDUCATIONAL HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK.
rant against the said Stephen Snow, collector, agreeably to the pro- visions of the Revised Statutes, Chapter 14, Section 111, as the contingency has occurred which makes it the duty of the treasurer to issue his warrant against the collector for neglect of duty."
Mr. Humphreys reported that he called upon the treasurer May 11, 1850, and handed him a copy of the vote, after reading which he returned an answer that he would see the collector the first of the week and see what could be done about it.
At a meeting of the Board of Agents, May 7, 1850, the following vote was passed : -
" Voted, that A. C. Robbins be a committee to obtain legal advice as to certain points affecting the welfare of this district, and which are now in dispute between the friends and opposers of the schools."
Under this vote Mr. Robbins made a statement of all the facts in the case and laid it before Phineas Barnes, Esquire, and Honorable William Pitt Fessenden, of Portland, and received a written opinion from them in reply. Amongst other things they say, " No particular form of assent is specified in the vote, and the law regards substance rather than form. . . If therefore the several proceedings in voting. certifying, and assessing the taxes, and their commitment to the collector, were correct and legal (all which we have taken for granted). we have no doubt that it is the collector's duty, and still remaining so, to collect these taxes, according to his warrant. The warrant constitutes both his authority and his protection." If he neglects, they say the treasurer should be requested to issue his war- rant against him ; and if the treasurer neglects or refuses to do so. the proper remedy is to apply to the Supreme Judicial Court for a writ of mandamus.
May 23, 1850, the treasurer of the town gave to the Board of Agents a written refusal to issue his warrant against the collector, as requested by them.
On the same date, the Board of Agents gave an order to Augustus I. Owen, one of the teachers, upon the treasurer of Brunswick.
The latter indorsed upon this order the following : -
" The subscriber declines paying the within, there being no funds in his hands subject to the order of the treasurer of the Village District."
On account of this action of the treasurer, the Board of Agents gave Mr. Owen an order on the selectmen, on which the latter in- dorsed the following : -
. The selectinen of Brunswick decline paying or accepting the above order for the reason that the district has already received its full
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HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK, TOPSHAM, AND HARPSWELL.
proportion of school money raised by the town, and that the amount raised by extra taxation in the district has not been collected and is not therefore subject to their order."
May 25, 1850, William Smyth, Robert P. Dunlap, John C. Hum- phreys, Augustus C. Robbins, and Leonard Townsend, the Board of Agents, petitioned the Supreme Court at the session to be held at Paris, Maine, on the last Tuesday of the month, for a writ of man- damus against the treasurer. They showed in their petition all the facts given in the preceding pages.
Upon the foregoing petition, the affidavits in support thercof, by the petitioners, having been heard and considered by the court, it was, on the May term, 1850,
" Ordered, That a rule be issued to the said John F. Titcomb, treasurer of the town of Brunswick, requiring him to show cause, if any he have, why he has neglected and refused to issue his warrant of distress against the said Stephen Snow, named in said petition, and why a writ of mandamus should not be granted by the court, com- manding him to issue such warrant of distress according to law ; at the term of this court to be holden at Norridgewock, within and for our county of Somerset, on the second Tuesday of June, 1850, on the third day of the term, and that the petitioners give notice thereof to the said John F. Titcomb by causing an attested copy of this petition and of this order thercon, to be served upon him fourteen days at least before the said third day of the term of the court to be holden at Norridgewock aforesaid."
At the court held in Norridgewock, the petitioners appeared by their counsel, Phineas Barnes, Esquire, and the respondents appeared by John S. Abbot, Esquire. The respondents asked for a continu- ance, which was opposed by the petitioners. It was finally agreed between the parties that the case should be continued to the term of the court to be held at Belfast on the fourth Tuesday of July, 1850. It was also agreed that a hearing then and there should be had, and that the respondent should furnish the petitioners with an attested copy of his answer, fourteen days before the sitting of said court.
At the court held in Belfast no witnesses were introduced by either party. The petitioners put into the case the documents already men- tioned. General Samuel Fessenden, of Portland, appeared for the respondents, and Phineas Barnes, Esquire, for the petitioners.
In his answer to the petition of the Board of Agents for a writ of mandamus, the treasurer gave the following reasons for refusing to issue his warrant of distress against the collector : -
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EDUCATIONAL HISTORY OF BRUNSWICK.
1. That the Act of Incorporation of the Village District was unconstitutional, on account of its allowing them to raise money addi- tional to that raised by the town.
2. That the district was not legally constituted : (a) because the several districts had not voted to form a Village District, but only to unite for a " high-school system "; (b) because the old districts had never been discontinued; (c) because the meetings had not been legal ; (d) because the vote of the town was illegal ; (e) because the Act of legislature was subsequent to the action of the town, which was itself conditional on an act of the district which it had no right to delegate to them the power to do ; (f) because the legislature has no right to create a school district by direct legislation.
3. That the assessment of the tax by the district was illegal : (a) because there is no constitutional authority for the legislature to create a corporation of any kind, compelling individuals to become members thereof, and subject to taxation against their will, except in the case of the formation of a town; (b) because the assessors had never had any official notice that the conditions of the town had been complied with, and the district legally formed ; (c) because the money assessed by the assessors was never raised by a legal vote of the district ; the vote not only authorized the purchase of land and the erecting of a school-house (which would be legal), but also authorized the enlarge- ment and repair of the old school-houses, and the renting and furnish- ing of rooms for the use of schools, and the whole was embraced in one vote, contrary to the law providing the way in which " incidental expenses " should be paid; that the money was neither borrowed nor expended for purposes for which a school district is authorized by law to borrow money ; (d) because the several certificates and copies provided by law, to be given by the officers of the school district to the assessors, treasurer, and clerk, of the town, were not duly certi- fied, filed, and recorded, as required by law ; that no certificate of the vote of the district, authorizing the borrowing of money, was ever certified by the clerk thereof to the above officers ; (e) that if the legislature has power to authorize school districts to raise money, such power cannot be given to a single district, but should be granted by a general law operating throughout the State ; (f) that a school district is not such an organized body, nor has such interest as to enforce the collection, by a town collector, of a tax by mandamus, - the treasurer being the officer of the town and not of any school district.
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