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GENEALOGY 974.202 N42ro
A CENTENNIAL HISTORY
COLBY ACADEMY COLBY JUNIOR COLLEGE
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/centennialhistor00rowe
GOVERNOR ANTHONY COLBY
A CENTENNIAL HISTORY 1837-1937 COLBY ACADEMY COLBY JUNIOR COLLEGE
BY
HENRY K. ROWE
NEW LONDON : NEW HAMPSHIRE COLBY JUNIOR COLLEGE
1937
COPYRIGHT, 1937 BY THE PRESIDENT AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF COLBY JUNIOR COLLEGE
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A.
To
BERTHA HOWARD ROWE
WHO SHARED WITH ME THE FRIENDSHIPS OF FOUR YEARS WHILE I SERVED MY APPRENTICESHIP IN TEACHING AT THE EXPENSE OF THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF COLBY ACADEMY
PREFACE
C OLBY ACADEMY was one of the numerous ex- periments in secondary education that marked the nineteenth century in the United States. High up among the hills it drew like a magnet the boys and girls of New Hampshire, as to a mountain spring where they might slake their thirst. The modern high schools have brought the decline of many of the old academies and some of those that remain have changed their character, but their story is interesting as a chapter in American history and to their alumni as a tale of an institution dearly beloved.
Colby Academy has owed much to the faith and fore- sight of its promoters and trustees, to its numerous principals and teachers who have come and gone, and to its benefactors through the years. To the Colby and Colgate families it is deeply indebted, particularly to Susan Colby Colgate and her daughter Mary L. Colgate, who again and again came to the rescue in a time of financial difficulty. They were worthy representatives of an age of princely generosity to educational institu- tions. To the Baptists of New Hampshire Colby has always held an intimate relation and owes a debt of grati- tude to individual benefactors. To the Board of Edu- cation of the Northern Baptist Convention is due the gratitude of all who use the gymnasium which so amply meets the needs of the students of today. To the stu- dents of the past century the new Colby may well pay its meed of respect and honor for the record that they made and the traditions which they established and held dear.
That record speaks for itself. I have written it from pages yellow with age, from manuscripts whose writing
vii
PREFACE
is fading with the lapse of time. Letters and diaries, records of trustees and of literary societies, programmes of Commencements and of open meetings of the literary societies, files of Colby Life, the Colby Voice, the Col- byan, and the recent Bulletins of the college, have all yielded their treasures. School catalogues have supplied names and dates and a variety of other information. I am indebted deeply to individual trustees, to members of the faculty, to alumni, and to friends of the school, who, often with arduous labor, have lightened my task. The people of New London have helped to make the summer of my research both pleasant and profitable. I cannot mention them all and it would be invidious to name a few. Nothing shows better the loyalty to the institution than the willingness to gather information. I am grateful for it all.
I have tried to write something more than a chronicle, to make it seem as if the Colby of the past really lived, and to put it in its setting in the midst of the town of which it has been a part. Girded by mountain ramparts, with a vision far over the hills, Colby stands like a me- diaeval castle looking out upon a changing world. It must adapt itself to those changes, even though its alumni regret the passing of the old. We may all well believe that the best is yet to be.
H. K. R.
viii
CONTENTS
I. THE PIONEERS OF NEW LONDON 3
II. IN THE DAYS OF THE DISTRICT SCHOOL 18
III. NEW LONDON ACADEMY. 1837-1853 . 35
IV. THE NEW LONDON LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION. 1853-1861 . 61
V. STUDENT LIFE ON THE HILL. 1861-1868 . 92
VI. BENEFACTIONS AND BUILDINGS. 1860-1880 113
VII. THE DIXON DECADE. 1879-1890 139
VIII. PLAIN LIVING AND HIGH THINKING. 1890-
1899 . 166
IX. UP FROM THE DEPRESSION. 1899-1912 196
X. IN WAR TIME. 1912-1922 221
XI. TRANSITION TIME. 1922-1928 248
XII.
THE ALUMNI - MINISTERS AND MISSIONARIES
264
XIII.
THE ALUMNI IN LAW, MEDICINE AND PUBLIC
LIFE 284
XIV. THE ALUMNI IN EDUCATION AND BUSINESS . 301
XV. THE FACULTY . 317
XVI.
OUTSIDE THE CURRICULUM
346
XVII. THE JUNIOR COLLEGE. 1928-1934 376
APPROACHING THE CENTENARY. 1934-1937
396
XVIII.
ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
GOVERNOR ANTHONY COLBY
Frontispiece
MISS SUSAN COLBY 46
ORIGINAL ACADEMY BUILDING, NEW ACADEMY
BUILDING, 1870-1892, COLGATE HALL
.
ยท
56
MRS. JAMES B. COLGATE
(MRS. SUSAN COLBY
114
COLGATE)
SOME TREASURERS OF THE BOARD
136
MOUNT KEARSARGE
170
THE OLD CAMPUS
180
SOME PRESIDENTS AND PRINCIPALS
220
SOME PRESIDENTS AND HEADMASTERS
221
MISS MARY COLGATE
.
224
PRESIDENT H. LESLIE SAWYER
250
SOME PRESIDENTS OF THE BOARD AND THE PRES- ENT CHAIRMAN . 270
SOME OF THE LADY PRINCIPALS AND DEANS
330
COLBY ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION LODGE
396
THE 1937 FACULTY .
400
WILLIAM COLGATE COLBY
410
-
A CENTENNIAL HISTORY 1837-1937
I
THE PIONEERS OF NEW LONDON
I T IS twilight on New London hill. The breeze that has blown all the afternoon is gone. A bird twitters as it settles for the night on a friendly bough and the tinkle of a cow bell comes from a pasture farther afield. It is curfew time with nature. For a few minutes time itself seems to stand still betwixt the dark and the daylight. The distant mountains that guard the high- land country are veiled. Ascutney, which was burnished with gold at sunset, and the sharp peak of Cardigan which glistened white in last winter snows, have van- ished. The forests of Sunapee and Ragged mountains are dark against the evening sky. Kearsarge looms gray and old against the nearer horizon, standing like a senti- nel keeping his eternal watch above the plain.
It is a time for memories and whimsies, a time when ghosts may walk and spirits of the past flit by, a time for the chronicler to weave his tale and for the philoso- pher to muse over its meaning. And Kearsarge is there to give it perspective. How pygmy is the palaver of a century of human history compared with the saga that the mountain might tell if it found voice. Ages have passed since it pushed its shoulders above the plain. Lashed by primeval storms, swept by mighty glaciers, denuded of vegetation by ice and snow, if not by fire, cracked and fretted and scarred, it stands as a symbol of unchanging time. A hundred years are but as yesterday in its calendar. A hundred years more will but deepen the furrows in its face.
For uncounted centuries the mountain felt the streamlets trickle down its flanks. For centuries more
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THE FIRST CENTURY OF COLBY
it saw the flower in the crannied cliff and smelled the fragrance wasted on the desert air. Then birds nested in its tree growth and deer browsed in its coverts. Years came and went and after long ages the Indian arrived. He picked wild berries on the hillside, scared the rabbit in the forest, and tracked the lynx to his den. He roamed the hills and valleys and made his hut by lake and stream. He lived at Keyser Lake and left stone hearths behind him as evidence that he was there. He followed the trail to the big lake and called it Soo-ni-pi because it meant goose and geese stopped there on their migra- tions. He had camps at Little Sunapee and Pleasant Lake for summer hunting and fishing, and passed on moccasined feet from one to the other across the height of land that separates them.
At last the white man came. His axe felled the trees that stood in his way. His gun took toll of the forest creatures. His plow turned the sod and his hoe heaped the soil about the hills of corn and beans. For his first cabins he rolled up logs and thatched the roof, but in later days his saw and plane and hammer made frame houses for families to live in. Thus the highland village was born. Through all the years of change stood the changeless mountain, lone sentinel of the highlands.
While Mount Kearsarge tells its tale, the night ad- vances. Stars prick through the canopy of heaven and lights flash out in the houses of the village. They beckon from Cemetery Hill across the valley and there are points of light in the farm houses beyond the fields. Every house has its own history, every grave in the old cemetery its record of life and death. When daylight is all gone and dusk has changed to dark, then it is easy to ignore the present and to live again the life of this country one hundred and fifty years ago.
The trees on the lower slopes of old Kearsarge were growing green when the pioneer settlers of New London
4
THE PIONEERS OF NEW LONDON
arrived in the spring of 1775. It was a year of stirring events in the older settlements. Colonial Americans, vexed by taxes and annoying regulations enacted by the mother country, were seething with political discontent, and in April war broke out at Lexington and Concord. Independent in spirit and conscious of their increasing strength, the people were determined not to submit to foreign control.
The same spirit that fired the enthusiasm of the min- ute men on Lexington Green burned in many a youth who felt the restraint of the settlements and longed for the freedom of the wilderness. He felt it when he went hunting and fishing, for forest and stream beckoned him far afield. He fretted against social distinctions in the community and against the dogma and discipline of the meeting-house. He was aware of the economic pressure of large families and the lack of sufficient acreage to earn a good living. Without money to buy land that was increasing steadily in value he never could hope for a large place in the sun.
Many a younger son in Massachusetts with these things in mind felt the pull that has lured young people to the frontier through three centuries of American history, and he turned his thoughts to the undeveloped country farther north. He infected his sweetheart with his desire, presently they were at the manse for the bless- ing of the minister, and then with an ox-load of personal and family belongings they fared forth to plant their homestead in the highlands of another state. They were joined in the new location by older men who had failed to make good in the older settlements, and who drifted where land was cheap and economic and social demands were few. Sometimes a whole family down country would pull up stakes and a farmer with stalwart sons would secure a large holding where land was cheap and divide it as the young men grew up and married.
5
THE FIRST CENTURY OF COLBY
The highland country of central New Hampshire was attractive. It was heavily forested with pine and spruce and fir, and maple, beech and birch among the hard woods. Green were the hills and blue the crystal lakes. Floating clouds cast their vagrant shadows on the slopes, or mists drifted off over the crests after rain. The moun- tains that rose here and there to a height of two thousand feet or more seemed less like frowning enemies than friendly wardens.
Three men visited the region west of the Merrimack River in 1774 and where they took a fancy they cleared a patch of woods and planted corn, expecting to return and harvest a crop. But the Revolutionary war came on, only one came back, and he left an arm at Bunker Hill. Nevertheless Moses Trussell carved a farm out of the wilderness and lived until 1843. A Lamb and a Lyon were among the earliest settlers, but Ebenezer Hunting and Samuel Messer were the first to gain local distinc- tion. The first families to come settled on the Sutton side of town, but they soon spread out where the best opportunity presented itself. Hunting went to Low Plain, Messer and his descendants gave his name to Messer Hill, because his farm was there, until the name was changed to Knight's. Asa Burpee and his two brothers were the first to locate on the hill that bears their name. Nathan Goodwin settled at Pike's Landing on Sunapee Lake. Ensign Nathaniel Everett camped down near the Sutton line.
The tract of land on which these settlements were made was known as Alexandria Addition, but the early settlers called it Heidelberg, blueberry land. The land was owned by proprietors whose claim rested on the royal grant made to John Mason in the seventeenth cen- tury. The pioneers bought their farms from the pro- prietors, finding it inexpensive and fairly fertile after it had been cleared.
6
THE PIONEERS OF NEW LONDON
Individuals came scouting on snowshoes while it was still winter. Others brought in their families before spring was far advanced. For a few weeks they put up with an open camp of saplings and brush, but a log cabin must be ready before the snow came. It was necessary to clear the land of trees and rocks before much farming could be attempted. The miles upon miles of stone walls in all parts of the town are the silent memorials of the pioneers. Unbroken forest stretched from Crock- ett's Corner over Colby Hill to the present Hospital. Men and women alike worked persistently from sun-up to sun-down to build their homes. The logs that were cut were used for cabin construction and firewood. Brush was burned to get rid of it and many a giant trunk rotted where it fell. The soil exposed to the sunshine responded to the seed corn, though it was sown among the stumps. As soon as he could attend to it the settler rolled up the logs that he needed for his cabin, fitted them together at the corners, chinked them with mud and roofed the cabin over with a roof of bark. With his own axe he hewed out planks for a floor. He collected stones and made a fireplace, and in its mammoth mouth hung an iron kettle. When winter approached he piled up brush and leaves around the house to make it warm.
The furniture of the family was scanty and home made. A few chairs, a rude table, and a settle by the fireplace were necessities. A few dishes and cooking utensils there must be, and the large spinning wheel that demanded so much time from the housewife.
Near neighbors were scarce and there were no roads. It was necessary to tramp through the woods guided by blazes on the trees. Some of the first comers of a roving nature did not remain but fared on to more attractive fields. Those who settled down prepared to make their tenure permanent. It was no easy task to clear the land or break the sod and cultivate the soil those first years.
7
THE FIRST CENTURY OF COLBY
The soil of the New Hampshire highlands is not over- fertile. Tools and farm implements were as crude as household utensils; farm machinery was unknown. The pioneers were compelled to fall back on their own in- genuity if they did not have what they needed, or if a plow or ox-yoke broke. The farmer must be up early and work late. He must keep the crows and squirrels from the corn and set his traps for skunks and foxes. At one time the farmers were so annoyed that the town voted bounties for the killing of crows and grackles, squirrels and hedgehogs. Bears prowled in the thickets, wildcats stole stealthily through the woods, and even wolves in winter lurked on the frontiers of the settle- ments.
It took courage to face the winter in the highland country. Illness was likely in large families of children crowded into the small cabins and accidents were fre- quent. The only physician was Solomon Flagg, an itiner- ant vendor of medicine, who visited the hill towns two or three times a year when he was sober. He tramped afoot through the woods with saddle-bags over his shoulder, and stopped long enough to deal out pills to those who preferred his medicaments to their own home remedies. He possessed a modicum of skill but a maxi- mum capacity for hard liquor, and one day he was found dead in a mud hole. The first resident physician, John Cushing, won the affection of a New London girl, but when all was ready for the wedding he failed to appear. She consoled herself with another man, but he lost his practice as well as his bride, and left town to drown his sorrows in strong drink.
The pioneers were poor. They lacked money to pay taxes or the salary of teacher or minister. In 1779 the sixteen farm owners of Heidelberg petitioned the Gen- eral Court of New Hampshire that they might be set off from Alexandria as a separate town so that they might
8
THE PIONEERS OF NEW LONDON
vote their own taxes and make their own roads. They were self-reliant and confident and they wanted their own way. The Legislature voted favorably and the petitioners proceeded to organize. They called the new town New London; whether from a desire to reflect greatness or from an expectation that this community among the hills would become the metropolis of the region is not clear. In its enabling act the Legislature authorized Samuel Messer, whose name headed the list of petitioners, to call a town meeting for the election of the first town officers. The townsmen met at the Mes- ser house on Knight's Hill, and with due respect to what was proper named their host moderator of the meeting and then elected him their first selectman. A century and a half has passed since then, but rarely, if ever, has a year passed without one or more Messers on the list. of town officers. There were three Messer families among the pioneers.
The political organization of the community implied certain definite responsibilities. There was no street department since there were no roads. There was no need of a water department when every farm had its spring and there were lakes on every side. There was no fire department, though occasionally the woods caught fire. Pioneers got along with a few essentials, but they knew the value of social institutions. Some conveniences no community can long do without. As yet there was no store, no tavern, no blacksmith shop. There was neither school nor church. All these might wait, but two things they must have, roads and mills. Grain must be ground if people would eat, and lumber must be sawed as soon as frame houses were to be built. But roads were required to get to the mill.
The first appropriation of the new town was for the construction of roads; no action was taken about a mill. Levi Harvey built a grist mill at Hominy Pot, where a
9
THE FIRST CENTURY OF COLBY
stream brought the outflow from Clark's Pond, and farther down he constructed a saw mill. The grist mill had an open shed where a team might be hitched, and the miller advertised with a posted notice that he would do custom grinding on Tuesdays and Fridays, taking two quarts out of every bushel to pay for the grinding. Levi Harvey reared a family of ten children on the profits of his mills and the produce of his farm. The mill remained in use for seventy years and the first high- ways radiated from there.
Harvey's Mills became the first community center. There the isolated farmers met one another. A man who was building a log cabin could get help there for rolling up the logs for his cabin walls. He could ex- change an axe or a pig. He could convey a message for a lone woman who had no telephone in time of need. He could talk politics or remark on the weather. If the farmer was too busy to go to mill he would send his small boy with a sack of corn on horseback.
John Harvey, a cousin of Levi, built a carding and fulling mill below the first mills, but he sold it and went west. Matthew, a younger brother, owned five hundred acres in Sutton from the New London line to Keyser Lake. This pioneer had two sons who reflected honor on the family name. One of them was president of the New Hampshire Senate and went to Congress, the other became speaker of the House, later was chosen governor, and was appointed by President Jackson a judge of the United States District Court.
Four years after the town was incorporated the war came to an end. As soon as it was over the population of New London was increased by the advent of a num- ber of Revolutionary soldiers with their families. They had learned to like the freedom of open air life and they were glad to settle among the hills where land was cheap and to grow old with the North country folk. Most of
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THE PIONEERS OF NEW LONDON
them came from towns in Massachusetts. Among them was Captain Thomas Currier, who must have been martially-minded; in the War of 1812 he joined the regular army and led away nine other men of the town. Several families came from Attleboro. Ephraim Gay brought with him three sons. Eliphalet, who had fought for his country, settled down towards Wilmot. His brother William bought from him two hundred and twenty acres of land, which included a large part of the present hamlet of Elkins. Another brother, Seth, mar- ried and settled at the upper end of the town near the site of Twin Lake Villa. Anyone who knows New Lon- don history understands how large a part the Gays have played in town and church. Lieutenant Levi Everett came to town after he had served three years and a quar- ter in the army of the Revolution. Jonathan Everett settled not far from the Four Corners and his wife, an educated woman, taught the first school in that section in her own house.
Zebedee Hayes was another old soldier. Lieutenant Ebenezer Shepard, one of the minute men of Dedham, Massachusetts, came with his wife Jane and settled at Low Plain. Nine children and their families rose up to do them honor. The record of the Shepards in New London is an open book for all to read. Joseph Colby and his young wife occupied a log cabin beside Pleasant Lake hard by an Indian maize field. He moved shortly up the hill to the neighborhood of the Four Corners, then down the back road towards Low Plain, and later built the Colby mansion on the summit of Colby Hill. There he became the most prominent citizen of his gen- eration. He was a farmer and tavern keeper, and was much occupied with real estate, since he was the agent of one of the original proprietors, who owned a large amount of land in the town. Peter Sargent came up from Amesbury with thirteen children, twelve of whom
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THE FIRST CENTURY OF COLBY
made their own homes in New London. As Oren D. Crockett wrote in the New London News: "On every hill and in every shaded nook some Sargent pitched his tent and reared his family altar. Sixty-six grandchildren of Peter could be called home on great occasions." John Adams brought five sons from Rowley, and his relatives, Captain Samuel and James Brocklebank, owned from Morgan Hill to Squire Messer's and from Jonathan Everett's to Little Sunapee. A number of families lived in the King Hill section and others in the West Part; several were between Harvey's Mills and Crockett's Corner. Other families with familiar names which date from the pioneer days are Bunker, Dole, Dow, Fales, Gile, Herrick, Hutchins, Jewett, Knowlton, Pillsbury, Pingree, Putney, Whittier, Woodman, Woodbury and Woodward.
The bed rock of an agricultural community is the land and the people who make their living from it. Ten years from the incorporation of the town the seeds of settlement had been sown in every part of the town, and in every home boys and girls were growing up to take their place in its future activities. On the continent of Europe in those days they would have been peasants with no social standing, no education, and no political privileges. Not so in America, even on the frontier. In New London every man was as good as his neighbor if he was good for anything. There were a few social gradations. A deacon was especially honored in church and community, and he had a privileged seat in the meeting-house. A military title, if only in the local militia, was a proud distinction. But in the wear and tear of country life it was what a man was in himself that counted most, and integrity and ability were the qualities that gave a man town office.
The people of New London had respect for the in- tangibles, even if they spent their time and money on
12
THE PIONEERS OF NEW LONDON
material things. They wanted their children to grow up intelligent and upright, and to that end they knew that the school and the church were essential. At the first town meeting when they made their first appropriation for roads, it was voted that schooling should be provided for three months in the year and a schoolhouse was erected near Harvey's Mills. The question was raised whether any provision should be made for religious purposes, but the decision was in the negative. For the time being the people would blaze their own trail to Heaven.
As the Massachusetts people came and took up land the town felt able to do more for roads and schools, and before long they made provision for religion. It was voted to spend twelve "hard dollars" for school purposes and "to do something towards the support of a preacher." In those days of Continental paper currency twelve dollars in coin was a considerable sum.
There was no church as yet but there were towns- people who prized religion and they wanted regular preaching. After some hestitation the town voted to build a meeting house fifty feet long. Up to that time religious services had been held in private houses and in the schoolhouse near the mills. The new building was to be located near Hutchins' Road, which connected the new road at the Four Corners with the parallel high- way on the other side of the valley, which later was to be known as Cemetery Street. Samuel Messer and two others were appointed a committee to select the exact site for the meeting-house, to conduct an advance sale of pews, and to use the money as far as it would go for construction. It was provided that payment might be made in corn or rye, since coin was scarce.
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