USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Bristol > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 24
USA > Maine > York County > York > History of York, Maine, successively known as Bristol (1632), Agamenticus (1641), Gorgeana (1642), and York (1652) Vol. II > Part 24
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Writing was taught in the same manner by the use of written examples in home-made books provided by the teacher. Pens to be cut from long goose quills were a part of the daily task of the master and pupils and the ink used in the schools was of domestic concoction from the earliest times, often prepared from the bark of swamp maple or oak boiled and diluted with copperas. Each child brought to school an inkhorn filled with this crude decoction.
Children went to elementary schools at a much earlier age than is now considered desirable as well as to the schools where the "higher learning" was taught. Instances of children able to read the Bible at four and studying Latin at six and eight are of record. Of the birch rod little need be said. It was an integral part of one's education in Colonial days. "I have not red of any virtue byrche hath in physicke," wrote an ancient botanist. "Howbeit it serveth many good uses and none better than for the betynge of stubborn boyes that either lye or will not learn." If it can be said of "sparing the rod" that the parents thereby gave children too much liberty, it may also be said of modern discipline that the children do not give their parents freedom enough. The discipline of the Colonial schools brought forth a race of self-respecting men who knew how to respect law and order.
The personal reminiscences of a graduate of the "Little Red Schoolhouse" in York are reprinted here as furnish- ing a picture of the primitive methods employed a century ago in the provisions for educating the children of that generation :
The house where we graduated stood on the same spot now occupied by one of more modern architecture, situated just behind the Court- house and Congregational church. It was a small one-storied, clap- boarded, wooden structure, rather dilapidated, with a chimney in one end nearly overtopping the door. A fire-place, wherein was burned
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HISTORY OF YORK
whole cordwood, was employed in lieu of stoves or other heating apparatus. Two rows of long benches, with desks to match, filled up the space, except what was occupied by the teacher and his desk, and a strip across the room for the classes to recite in. In the winter of 1838 this schoolhouse was burned down, and the present (1873) one built on the same spot, on about the same plane of architecture, the following year.
This old-fashioned "district school" has, within the memory of very many persons now living, been the prevailing type of school-house and paraphernalia, and indeed, abundance of specimens of this may yet be found. There was no wall-map, nu globe, no apparatus of any kind, unless an unpainted water-pail accompanied by a tin dipper may be called such for illustrating hydraulics and hygienics at once. As for a school library or any real appliances, as well expect to find a grand piano growing in the woods. Each pupil had an arithmetic, a slate, a grammar, a spelling-book, and possibly an atlas and geography; and very likely there was a ferule, a rattan, or even a cowhide within reach of the pedagogue's hand. During the past period in the history of the common schools, some of the questions propounded and mixed up with what was then called instruction would seem now perfectly absurd. An example may show the difference. A teacher, who taught little else, once asked a class in grammar, "What is nonsense?" and the answer given was," Bolting the door with a boiled carrot." The same teacher gave out for parsing and analyzation "The superfluity of the sugar superanimates the tea, and renders it altogether obnox- ious to my taste."
Just before the close of a term, particularly if a change of teachers was contemplated, it was customary to have an examination in order to record the progress made since the last term; and at this, in order to diversify or add zest to the occasion, it was required of a portion of the scholars that were supposed to have made any advancement at all in their studies to either "speak a piece" on some subject the teacher might suggest, furnish a sample or specimen of chirography, or write a "composition" on any topic the scholar chose, for the in- spection of a prudential committee who were to be present on the occasion, to judge for themselves whether the cause of education was gaining or losing ground, and thereby determine in their minds whether a change of teacher was expedient. The following will show what a "composition" is. It appeared at the closing of a fall term in 1831 - "The elaboration of conception is the surest perambulation to the recognition of cognition, which being perfectly delineated by permeating the realms of futurity; therefore it becomes necessary to resort to indiscriminate transcendentalism." (Emery, Ancient City of Gorgeana, 152-155-)
School teachers were a sort of peripatetic class of public servants who went from town to town, as opportunity offered, and rarely were residents of the place where they were employed. For some reason these itinerants were supposed to be beyond personal interests in their pupils and hence had greater influence with them. It is there-
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SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION
fore impossible to supply a continuous list of those who have at all times presided at the desks of our common schools. In the past century the names of William Harris, Edgar McIntire, Master Cape, Howard Moody and Charles A. Chapman have come down to us, as well as the Misses Elizabeth Lunt and Lydia Smith. In the early part of the last century it was the custom to employ women teachers for the Summer terms and men for the Winter.
Up to the middle of the last century the school dis- tricts, varying in number from seven in 1785 to fifteen in 1850, were under the direct supervision of local "agents," residents of their district, and as a result there was no uniformity in methods of conducting the educational affairs of the town. In 1857 the schools had grown to accommodate over a thousand pupils and the necessity of some more efficient management over the fifteen districts was met by the election of Col. Luther Junkins as Super- visor of the Schools at a yearly salary of thirty dollars. He was a seasoned educator, having taught in one of the district schools for a number of years, and was interested in the subject of public education. In his first report, 1858, he stated that three hundred and seven out of eleven hundred children of school age, "never enter the portals of the school room," and in the next year he gave a prob- able reason for this condition of affairs.1 He described the forbidding character and appearance of the schoolhouses, mentioning District No. I (York Village), in particular. "It is surrounded by everything that is gloomy," he wrote, "within the partition walls of the hearse house, unlighted, cold and dreary, shut out from the light of the free sun." He was succeeded by John A. Swett in 1861 who held the office until 1866, when the contol of the schools was given to a paid school committee, who received ten dollars annually for their services.
It had been the custom from early in the last century to put the minister of the Congregational church, and occasionally one of the newer denominations, on the school committee. It was the duty of this body to visit the schools at convenient intervals and especially to go in state to the closing exercises at the several districts and
' This was an improvement over 1853 where there were reported to be five hun - dred and twenty absentees in the Summer and four hundred and sixty in the Winter schools.
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HISTORY OF YORK
solemnly hear the scholars recite their "pieces," or respond to the question of the Committee in the "Three Rs." Naturally such casual inspections were superficial and untrustworthy, but they monopolized our school manage- ment for nearly three quarters of the last century. In return the citizens were treated to annual reports of these functions, consisting mostly of moral homilies on obedi- ence to authority, virtue or learning, now dust-laden in the town archives or in the printed reports of the town officials. In 1857 the committee bewailed the fact that parents complained of the discipline maintained by the teachers and in answer they fulminate to this charge in these dramatic words: "In countenancing the violation of school law they are encouraging the violation of civil law, and may be preparing their children for a gloomy prison cell." In 1867 the committee repeated this warning and called attention to the "necessity of stating facts indicating so strong a spirit of insubordination to right- ful authority." Youth was having its fling as usual in every age.
In 1873 the committee took the occasion to arouse the voters to the increasing inadequacy of school manage- ment by reporting the need of a change in the supervision of the general system. "We are rather of the opinion that the use of the probe will be preferable to the application of the plaster." This distinctly professional language suggests that it was penned by Dr. Jeremiah S. Putnam, who was then a member of the Board. At best the position of a school committee man was a thankless job, except to the few who were personally interested in the needs of adequate educational facilities as a matter of public policy. That some were so imbued is evident from their continued services over considerable periods. Since 1860 some of those citizens who have filled this office may be enumerated as a record of unselfish service to the town:
John A. Swett, Washington Junkins, Samuel E. Payne, Charles C. Barrell, Isaiah P. Moody, Almon H. Merrow, Jasper J. Hazen, Jeremiah S. Putnam, Joseph Freeman, Henry Stetson, John C. Stewart, Gilbert Robbins, George M. Payne, G. W. S. Putnam, Charles W. Junkins, H. B. Marshall and W. B. Flanders. It need not be considered invidious if the long services of Charles C. Barrell and the several members of the Junkins family are singled out of
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the list for special mention as rendering yeoman service to the town's school system.
The present school system in the town answers every modern canon of variety and efficiency. Since 1890 a Superintendent of Schools has direct charge of the entire educational plant, under the town officials, and from the small beginnings recited in this chapter it now has a budget of about $40,000 annually to manufacture the rising gener- ations into an intelligent citizenry. "The three Rs" have become an intricate maze of advanced learning, in which the schools are divided into elementary, secondary and vocational branches. Music, drawing, manual training and domestic science have become the frosting on the cake that was the plain lot of our ancestors. Nor is the physical well-being of the pupils the least important interest of the school authorities. Regular inspections of the hundred or more pupils in the High School and about three hundred and fifty in the grades are made for the discovery of defects which affect their health and efficiency. The State con- tributes towards this feature of the system. Twenty- one teachers supply the nine schoolhouses of the graded class and six are employed in the High School.
PRIVATE SCHOOLS
In 1760 further development of educational facilities was provided for those who desired to obtain the necessary qualifications for a collegiate degree. The First Parish "Voted and granted to Mr. Samuel Moody with the con- currence of the Revd. Mr. Lyman Liberty and Priviledge of Erecting a House for the Instruction of Youth in the Lerned Languages," on Parsonage land, and he was authorized to erect his proposed school "in front of Mr. Lymans Field near the Pound." A lease of the necessary land was authorized to be given to Mr. Moody "for the term of his natural life." It is stated that the Rev. Samuel Moody, and perhaps his son Joseph, instructed individual pupils in the higher branches of learning as a part of their work in their parishes, a not uncommon avocation followed by early clergymen.
About 1827 Miss Mary Jacobs opened a private school at her house on the hill at the northeasterly end of Sewall's bridge. During the Summer it was kept in the kitchen where instruction was dispensed while her sister was per-
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HISTORY OF YORK
forming the necessary family laundering and culinary functions. In the Winter she transferred her scholars to the parlor, where better facilities existed for heating the room. Nothing of an advanced curriculum was attempted in her course, simply the good old branches of reading, arithmetic, writing, spelling and the fundamentals. The tuition, when paid in cash, was six cents per week; but payment in the necessaries of life, sugar, tea, coffee or any article of food was taken at current prices, and it is pre- sumed they were "thankfully received."
About 1830 a school for young children, similar to the Kindergarten system of the present day, was established by Solomon Brooks, Esq., and others. Miss Maria Champ- ney of Ipswich, N. H. was the chief instructor and George A. Emery and Miss Elizabeth Clark assistants. The method used was a limited plan based on object-teaching aids, with astronomical, arithmetical, geographical, geo- metrical and other apparatus, which brought into use an abacus or numerical frame, a globe, hanging maps and an orrery to illustrate the movements of the planets. As may be surmised this · mode of teaching was considered not only novel but fanciful, although it was a forerunner of the modern views on education, now universally employed.
In 1849 a private Boarding School was established by Isaiah P. Moody which was well patronized with an aver- age yearly attendance of resident and day pupils to the number of fifty.
The public school system, however, now supplies every practicable need of educational requirements and the pri- vate school no longer offers much to compete with it, and none now exists in the town.
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CHAPTER XVII COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES
BARTERING
One of the important factors in the history of the Colonial period was the medium of exchange. Actual money was a rarity in that era, and "trading" was done with commodities as a basis for calculation, and balances were paid in cash, as little as possible. In trading with the Indians the settlers had to forget their pounds, shillings, pence, marks, nobles and florins, and learn a new currency in sea shells which was called wampumpeag or strung shell beads. They were valued according to their color, white or purple. Six of the white beads went for a penny and three of the purple for the same amount. A fathom of their stringed money was valued at from five to ten shillings. But this had a limited application in point of time as the Massachusetts Bay Colonists developed a coinage of their own in silver called the "Pine Tree Shil- ling," specimens of which are now so rare that they are museum pieces. Corn was the recognized unit of value and was sometimes known as "turkey wheat." Trading was done with so many bushels of corn in trade for so much other merchandise of various sorts. In fact, the general trade of the Colonies and Provinces was conducted on a basis of commodity exchanges.
It was not until 1690 that the Massachusetts Colony issued a paper currency in the form of "Indented Bills." These were successively called Old Tenor, Middle Tenor (1737), New Tenor (1741) and New Tenor 2d. It had a legal value by fiat of the General Court, but like all "fiat" money it lost its reputation for worth and in 1748 Old Tenor was worth only one-quarter of the New Tenor. In that year New England currency had so depreciated that £100 sterling could not be purchased for less than £1100 of the paper money. This was a part of the frenzied finance which occupied the minds of the traders of York in Pro- vincial times, and it was not a small part of the difficulties which the clergymen of that day experienced in collecting their salaries, which were offered to them by the distracted
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HISTORY OF YORK
townsmen in the depreciated currency, as near its face value as could be imposed on the parsons.
When the expenses of the Louisburg Expedition were paid in silver by the English government, in amount £183,649 sterling, it was applied to reducing the Provin-
Forty
Shilling
Old
Ten Shillings
OLD TENOR BILL
cial debt. A Spanish milled "dollar" struck in Spanish America was paid by the Treasurer of the Province for every forty-five shillings, Old Tenor, and the same for every eleven shillings of the New or Middle Tenor. This caused almost a panic and rioting. Silver as a medium of exchange was driven out. In Scarboro the minister had to be paid £5400 in paper to make good his salary of £60 gold. The Province of New Hampshire issued a paper bill which was designated "An Angel," reviving the name of
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COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES
an ancient gold coin first circulated in England in 1465 and last minted there in 1634, during the reign of Charles
ANANGEL
Affo Bil of Len Pulling
Due from the Province of NEW HAMPSHIRE! A New England to the Reflektor thereof Shall be'in Value equal to Maxey and shall be accordingly accepted by the Trea lurerand Receivers Subordinate tohum in Ball Bulduk Payments and for any Stockat. any timem the Treasury, Portsmouth Dal April theo 8737 By Order of the Generalis
Assembly
COMMITTEE
A NEW HAMPSHIRE "ANGEL"
First. The coin had a representation of the Archangel Michael destroying the dragon, which gave it the name of Angel. It was originally of the value of 6s. 8d., later
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HISTORY OF YORK
increased to 8s. Iod., but the New Hampshire bill was of ten shillings value. A representation of it, as current in York, is here given.
"Dollars" are first mentioned in 1780 in our town records. This coinage came in halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths, the last two known as shillings and six- pences. "Coppers" are first mentioned in our records during the Revolutionary War in connection with the supply of beef for the Army for which the inhabitants were allowed at the "Rate of four Coppers a pound." Although having a touch of piratical origin in the romance of the period, "pieces of eight," i.e., eight reals, were one of the foreign coins in use with our mariners trading in the Carib- bean Sea. In 1850 the so-called "York shillings," worth twelve and a half cents, were still in use as currency.
MERCHANTS AND TRADERS
George Newman, who owned a house in the lower town in 1636, was a merchant by designation as he had been in Bristol, but whether he carried on a business here is uncertain. John Davis, living at the mouth of Meeting House Creek in 1651, was the earliest resident who can be classed as a dealer in merchandise here, which he com- bined with inn-keeping. It may be said that these early traders were not shopkeepers, as is now understood, for most of the residents before 1700 supplied themselves with household needs by the home industries of weaving, shoe- making and supplying their own tables with food. Such things as could not be produced in that way, sugar, rum, spices and utensils made of metal, were sold by these primitive dealers. A number of the residents here bought goods and ran accounts in Boston before 1650, and doubt- less this continued for many years after that date. Half a day's sail, under fair weather conditions, would bring them to the big town, or even to Salem or Newburyport, where a "full assortment" of English goods would tempt them to purchase.
Perhaps the distinction of being the first shopkeeper belongs to Mrs. Phebe (Royal) Tanner, who came here in 1714 and bought a small lot adjoining the Minister's lot (Deeds x, 103), just westerly of the present Public Library. There were merchants who imported and sold goods out of their warehouses previously, but she opened a shop for the
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COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES
sale of small articles by retail. She was the wife succes- sively of James Tanner and James Tyler. Their grandson, Royal Tyler (1756-1826), was the first American drama- tist, author of "The Contrast."
Ebenezer Storer came here in 1721 and opened a shop near the Meeting House, and ten years later Nathaniel Leeman of Charlestown followed, setting up his wares in his house on the Lindsay Road, over the bridge. Alexander Woods was a clothier, which was distinct from a tailor, and presumably displayed his stock in his house at the far- ther end of the Long Sands in 1735, where he sold cloth.
In 1762 John Stone was keeping a provision store deal- ing in "Corn, Oats, Rice and Peas," which he offered "Cheap for Cash." John Savage, a Boston merchant, came here about 1775, and continued as a trader while he lived on the Lindsay Road. These do not, in all probability, comprise the whole number of persons who were engaged in business before 1800, as many combined this activity with other lines of work. Jonathan Sayward was an example of this class, who were ready to buy or sell any- thing. The old wharves, five in number, in lower town were busy marts of small trade for two centuries, but their transactions never reached the dignity of a definite mer- cantile quality which got into records. In 1850 George W. Freeman, Samuel Adams, Joseph Weare, Isaiah Goodwin, Sylvester McIntire, Edward A. Bragdon, Asa L. Wiggin, Jeremiah Brooks and Francis Plaisted were carrying on the traditions of trading in York. In 1872 S. W. Junkins & Company and George F. Plaisted at York Corner, Samuel A. Currier, A. Goodwin and Joseph Weare at Cape Neddick, and John F. Plaisted at Agamenticus, were their successors as business men, keeping "General Stores."
THE FIRST ADVERTISER IN NEWSPAPERS
Almost one hundred and seventy years ago a York merchant first was a patron of newspaper advertising to increase his business. This distinction belongs to Edward Emerson whose "ad" appeared for the first time in the New Hampshire Gazette on November 9, 1759, and con- tinued for several weekly issues. It was renewed two years later showing that it had been of service to him. This first business card is worth reproduction here:
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HISTORY OF YORK
-
TO BE SOLD By Edward Emerfon, At his Shop in York, oppofite the Town Houfe, A Great Variety of Englifh and Weft India GOODS, cheap tor Calh or Treafurer's Notes.
N. B. Said Emerfon carries on the .TAYLOR's Bufinefs ; by whom Gentlemen, or others may depend on being well ufed, and Garments made in the beft Manner, and with Difpatch. [64]
That his stock was of "A Great Variety" will appear from his card of 1763 in which he offered for sale "Coffee, Choco- late, Flour, Indigo, Rice, Pepper, Allspice, Nutmegs, Cin- namon, Raisons, Ginger, Pewter and Tinware, 20d, rod and 4d Nails, Flax, Sheep's Wool, Bibles, Psalters, Testa- ments, Primers and Spelling Books," not forgetting to state that he carried on "the Taylors Trade as usual." In 1764 he notified his customers that he "Thought it by no Means safe to himself, or his Family and Customers to purchase any more Goods from BOSTON till such Time as the SMALL POX has gone through said Town: he has therefore procured A Fine Assortment of English Goods from Newburyport." Thus he took advantage of the epi- demic in Boston to keep his sales up. Such modern methods found further outlet for this progressive trader, as in 1765 he opened a branch store in Portsmouth! In this new place he offered "Koppen's Snuff, Cheshire Cheese, Liverpool ALE, Raisons of the Sun and Best of Women's Lynn Shoes." In 1768 at York we find Rum, Sugar and Molasses added to his display, and next year he could deliver "Rum by the Hogshead, or Barrell and severall sorts of WINE and distilled SPIRITS" and was ready to buy for cash White Pine Boards. He was always carrying on the "Tailor's Trade as usual." Keeping abreast of the times, he advertised Tea in 1770, but not after the Boston "Tea Party." It was York's first department store.
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COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES
LEATHER INDUSTRY
The factors in this occupation were the tanners and the manufacturers of articles from the tanned and curried stock. John Parsons had a tannery in 1686 probably attached to his house lot, near York Corner, where he car- ried on the business of a shoemaker. John Rackleff, living on the south side in 1690, facing Bragdons Island, had a tan vat, probably located near the small pond back of his house. The principal tannery business here was begun by Nicholas Sewall in 1713, when he came here from New- bury and built his vats next the old church. He carried on this business until his death in 1735 and it was still in operation in the early part of the last century.
Thomas Moody, son of Rev. Joseph, had a tanyard at Scotland, and at least two generations followed him in the trade of tanner. The tan-pits may still be seen on the Moody farm, near the highway. Storer Sewall had a tan- yard near the site of Samuel W. Moulton's greenhouses.
The products of these tanneries were used principally by the many cobblers of home-made shoes, who doubtless combined with this necessary occupation that of harness making. About 1764 Samuel Nason came here from South Berwick to ply his trade as a saddler, and as an example of the diversity of interests which accompanied every trade, he advertised for "flax-seed and all sorts of small furs," for which he offered the highest prices. He offered saddles and bridles at eight dollars at his shop "for cash only." He was in the first company of Minute Men who marched to Lexington with Captain Moulton.
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