USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Brookline > History of Brookline, formerly Raby, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire : with tables of family records and genealogies > Part 16
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At the time of Mr. Hall's death in 1773, in addition to his other extensive dealings in this line, he was, and for many years had been, furnishing, under a special contract, four of Boston's largest hotels with their annual supply of charcoal.
In the early sixties, Lot Colburn and Ebenezer J. Rideout, each acting independently of the other, began to manufacture and to deal in charcoal; finding a ready market for the same in Nashua, to which city they hauled it by horse teams; and where for many subsequent years their heavily laden coal wagons were familiar and welcome sights to its citizens. Mr. Rideout continued in the business for some fifteen or more years, when ill health compelled him to abandon it. Mr. Colburn carried on the business until his death in the last of the eighties. With Mr. Col- burn's death, charcoal burning, as one of the town's industries, became relatively of little importance; and so remains at the present time.
The Granite Business.
Although the town abounds in ledges of granite of most excellent quality, prior to the opening of the Brookline and Pepperell railroad in 1892, but few of them had been worked; and for obvious reasons the use of the quarried materials had been restricted to home enterprises.
The Corey ledge, so called, was one of the first to be opened up. It was worked for the first time about 1804 by Capt. Nathan Corey, who obtained from it the underpinning for his dwelling house on the east side of Main street in the village, which he was then engaged in building.
During the past one hundred years this quarry which has always remained in the possession of Captain Corey's descendants has been operated under lease by many different individuals and firms; and in that time has produced many thousands of tons of granite of the highest grade of quality. At the present time this ledge is owned by Walter E. Corey, a great grandson of Capt. Nathan Corey. The ledge is located on the west side of Corey Hill, some one hundred rods almost directly east of the old Capt. Nathan Corey dwelling house.
As early, probably, as 1825, Samuel Gilson, Sr., began, and for many years subsequently continued, to carry on business here as a worker and dealer in granite in the rough and also in the finished state. His quarry was located about one mile north of the village on the east side of the main highway from this town to Milford. After Mr. Gilson's death, he was succeeded in the business by his son, Samuel Gilson, Jr., who carried on the business until 1892, when he sold the ledge to the firm of Badger
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Brothers, of Quincy, Mass. At the present time (1914) the ledge is owned by Mrs. Samuel Swett of this town, and is lying idle. During the years when it was operated by the Gilsons, father and son, this ledge produced more rough and finished granite than was gotten out in the same period by all the other ledges in town combined.
The ledge known as the Wright ledge, located about one mile north of the village on the west side of the east highway to Milford, was opened up by Col. Artemas Wright about 1840. Colonel Wright continued to operate the ledge until about 1860, when he abandoned it and removed with his family to Ayer, Mass. The ledge remained unworked from 1860 to 1892, since when it has been operated occasionally and in rather a spasmodic way.
The Ephraim L. Hardy Edge Tool Manufactory.
Ephraim L. Hardy came from Hollis to this town in 1841. He set- tled in the south part of the town on the old David Hobart, Sr., place, which he purchased of Benjamin M. Farley on the 13th day of November of that year. Soon after coming here he began to manufacture hand- made ploughs and edge tools in the blacksmith shop on the premises. At that time the coopering business was beginning to exhibit signs of the activity which subsequently made it for many years one of the town's leading industries.
Mr. Hardy, who was a skilled mechanic, immediately took advant- age of the situation, and made a specialty of the manufacture of edged tools for coopers' use. In a short time the name of Hardy when stamped on an edge tool of his make became synonymous with the word excellent. His reputation as a maker of edge tools of the highest quality increased with his years, and throughout his life was the cause of a steady and con- stant demand on the part of the public for implements of his manufacture. He died Nov. 28, 1870, and with his death the business ceased to exist.
The Hobart Steam Sawmill.
In 1846 David Hobart built the first steam sawmill to be erected in town. The mill was located on the west side of the street which, begin- ning at a point near the general store of E. E. Tarbell, connects Main street with the east highway to Milford. Its site at the present time is occupied by the dwelling house formerly of Jeremiah Baldwin, but now belonging to the Albert W. Corey heirs.
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In 1847, the year following its erection, Mr. Hobart sold, at different dates, and to different parties, his interest in the plant, as follows: March 10, to Wilkes W. Corey, one undivided half part; March 27, to Lemuel Brooks, one undivided fourth part; April 27, to James N. Tucker, one undivided fourth part.
After doing a successful business for several years, the mill was destroyed by fire in the summer of 1852. It was never rebuilt.
VILLAGE SCHOOLHOUSE-1854
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HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF BROOKLINE
CHAPTER XI.
Schools and Other Educational Matters.
First Appropriations for Public Schools-Depreciation of Currency- Second Appropriation for Schools-First Public School-Teachers- Wages Paid School-Teachers in 1783-Schools Kept in Dwelling Houses-First School Districts-First Schoolhouses and Their Locations-School-Teachers in 1806-First Superintending School Committee-New School Districts in 1812-New Schoolhouses in 1812 and Their Locations-Descriptions of the New Houses- First Printed School Report-Redistricting of the Schools in 1848- 49-New Schoolhouses and Locations of Same in 1850-Schools Included in One District in 1884-New Schoolhouses and Loca- tions of Same in 1886-Superintending School Committees from 1815 to 1914 Inclusive-Partial List of Names of Teachers from 1850 to 1912-Biographical Sketches of Ellen C. Sawtelle, Juliette H. Gilson, Louise O. Shattuck, and Frances D. Parker-College Graduates and Biographical Sketches of Same-Biographical Sketches of College Graduates Born in Brookline, but Graduating from Other Towns.
The first recorded action of the town relative to appropriating money for school purposes occurred at the annual March town meeting in 1781, when a vote "To raise three hundred pounds for schooling" was passed. There is no record that this vote was subsequently carried into effect. And if it had been, the sum realized compared with that indicated by the vote would have been insignificant. For at that time the continental paper money had depreciated in value to the extent that one hundred pounds in the latter currency was equal in value to one pound only in silver.
The actual value of the Continental paper money, as compared with that of silver, is shown by a scale of values which was that year prepared and adopted by the Great and General Court of New Hampshire, as follows:
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"Authorized Scale of Depreciation of Continental Paper Money.
June, 1777,,£100 in silver equal to £120 in Continental Paper Money.
1775,£100
£425
£1342
66 1780, £100 66 66 £5700
66
1781, £100
66 £12000 66
66
By that scale it is evident that the three hundred pounds authorized by the vote, if raised in silver, would have been equivalent to thirty-six thousand dollars in continental currency ; a tidy little sum of money, the raising of one-sixth part of which, at that time, would have rendered the town insolvent. It is probable that the vote was passed on the assump- tion on the part of the voters that its absurdity would have the effect of destroying its validity.
No further action relative to schools was taken by the town until the March town meeting of 1783, when the following vote was passed; "To raise four pounds for schooling the present year; said schools to be kept by Isaac Shattuck and James Campbell at James Campbell's house at the pond and each party to draw their own money."
There is no reason for doubting but that these schools were kept at the house designated in the vote and by the designated parties; and thus it happened that Isaac Shattuck and James Campbell became the town's first public school-teachers of record. And as at the time the vote was passed Campbell was living in the dwelling house-or a house then stand- ing on its site-at the present time located on the west side of the Mason highway opposite the old meeting-house, and owned and occupied as his home by Lieut. William L. Dodge, there can be but little doubt but that in that house was kept Brookline's first public school.
The schools at this time, and for many subsequent years were kept in private dwelling houses. The second school-teacher of record was Caleb Trowbridge, supposed to be a son of Rev. Caleb Trowbridge, of Groton, Mass., who, in 1783, officiated in that capacity, and received for his services one pound and four pence.
In the same year James Campbell received-"One pound and seven shillings and one half bushel of rye for keeping school in the Lieut. Shed house"; probably Jonas Shed's house in the northwest part of the town. In that same year, also, Caleb Trowbridge for teaching school five weeks received one pound and ten shillings, or about one dollar per week, and he provided his own board and lodging at that. In these modern days
66
1779, £100
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of high prices, one wonders where he lodged and of what his fare con- sisted. But Caleb evidently was not discouraged nor cast down; for after retiring from the business for several years during which he was, perhaps, engaged in spending his five dollar wage in riotous living, he again appears on the scene in his old role of schoolmaster; as did also, for the first time, Eleazer Gilson; each receiving pay at the rate of one pound and eight shillings for the term, or forty-two cents per week. This last experience as a teacher probably finished Trowbridge, for, thereafter, his name does not appear again in the list of teachers mentioned in the records of the town.
The first action taken by the town relative to the building of school- houses occurred Nov. 6, 1786, when there was an article in the warrant- "To see if the town will build a house for the benefit of the schools." The article was passed over.
Up to this time all matters appertaining to public schools had been conducted in an irregular and unsystematic manner. Some years the town failed to make any appropriation for them and, in the years when appropriations were made, it frequently happened that the appropriation was used for other purposes. There were no prudential or superintending school committees, their functions being performed by the selectmen; who hired and paid the teachers, and regulated the terms at which and the places in which the schools should be kept; and as there were no school districts established, they apparently located them for any time of the year and at any part of the town which best suited their fancies or whims.
First School Districts.
At a town meeting in March, 1787, the selectmen were empowered- "To divide the town into squadrons"; and it was voted-"That such squadrons have the benefit of their own money for schooling but in case any squadron neglects to school out their money within the year that those squadrons which have schooled out their own money shall have the benefit of the same."
The word squadron as used in the foregoing vote was equivalent to the word district as it is used in connection with the public schools at the present time. The above vote was not carried into effect. But, the following year, the town again voted to divide its territory into school districts, and also designated the number of districts to be formed as five, and selected a committee to make the division as follows: Benjamin
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Farley, Lieut. Isaac Shattuck, Lieut. Ephraim Sawtelle, Lieut. James McIntosh, and Ezekiel Proctor.
April 11 of the same year this committee reported as follows-"To have the town stand as it is classed now that is four classes." At the same meeting it was voted-"To build a house for each class and to do it as a town; and to raise one hundred and ten pounds to build said houses; and to build them twenty feet long and eighteen feet wide, and to have said houses completed by January next."
The First Schoolhouses.
The foregoing vote was carried into effect and before the end of the year in which it was passed, the four schoolhouses for which it called were either completed or well under way; and in the following year, 1788, all of them were completed and occupied.
At this late day it is almost impossible to locate the sites of these houses. But tradition says that the house erected in the northwest class, or district, was located on the west side of the highway to Greenville (then Mason) near the dwelling house then of Moses Shattuck, but after- wards of the late Henry K. Kemp. The house in the northeast class was located on the west side of the highway to Milford near Lakin's pond; that in the center class was located a few rods north of the old meeting- house on the east side of the highway to Mason; and that of the southeast class on the east side of the highway to Pepperell, Mass., and opposite to the southeast corner of the South cemetery.
Of these first schoolhouses, that in the centre class located near the old meeting-house is mentioned by the Rev. T. P. Sawin in his "Chroni- cles," read at the town's centennial in 1869. There is also a reference to it in an ancient "order book" of the town as follows: "Ezekiel Proctor- one pound two shillings six pence and three farthings, it being his rate towards Building the schoolhouse by the meeting-house"; and again in 1796 it is mentioned in the order book, in connection with an order on Asher Spaulding, as the "Central schoolhouse near the meeting-house."
In the southeast class schoolhouse in 1798, the year after he was or- dained, the Rev. Lemuel Wadsworth taught for seven weeks at a wage of four dollars per week. In the same year Louis Jewett taught in this class, Samuel Brown in the northeast class, Polly McDonald in the central class and John Daniels in the northwest class.
The town maintained this system of four school classes for a period of sixteen years, or until 1808. During this period the records furnish but
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little information concerning the schools. But on the said order book there is a record to the effect that in the winter of 1801, Benjamin Mark Farley taught school in the southeast class, receiving as pay for his services thirteen dollars and thirty-two cents for the term.
In 1806 the school-teachers were Lucy Wadsworth, Joseph F. Ben- nett and Polly Daniels. Polly taught the summer term in the northwest class at a wage of nine dollars and twenty-six cents for the term.
In the year 1807 the sum of one hundred and thirty dollars was raised for the support of the schools.
In 1806 the word district as a substitute for class appears on the records for the first time when, at a town meeting holden on the twenty- ninth day of August, it was voted to accept the report of a committee in favor of a new division of the town into school districts. The report was in favor of three instead of four districts. No action was taken on the vote, and the old system of four districts prevailed until 1810.
First Superintending School Committee.
In 1808 the town elected its first superintending school committee as follows :
James Parker, Sr., Capt. Eli Sawtelle, Deacon Joseph Emerson, Lieut. Benjamin Shattuck, George Daniels, James McIntosh, and Capt. Robert Seaver. It was styled-"A committee to regulate the school classes."
The following year, 1809, John Daniels, Lieut. George Daniels and Rev. Lemuel Wadsworth were elected "Inspectors of Schools." Among the names of the school-teachers for that year appear the names of Amos Ames and Sally Daniels.
In 1810 the question of redistricting the town again came up for con- sideration and, at a town meeting holden on the 5th day of August, the town voted to divide its territory into three school districts.
No immediate action relative to carrying this vote into effect appears to have been taken. But in reading between the lines of the records it becomes apparent that between the years 1812 and 1815 the said division into three districts was made, and that the old schoolhouses were aban- doned and new ones erected.
The three new districts were known, respectively, as the north, north- west, and southeast districts. The three new schoolhouses were located as follows: that in the north district was located about two miles north of the village Main street on the west side of the Milford highway and a few rods north of the north cemetery; that in the northwest district
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was located about one mile north of the village Main street on the west side of the highway to Mason in the V formed by the junction of the latter highway with the highway leading out of it to the Mathew Wallace place. Of these two schoolhouses, that in the northwest, or Pond district, was destroyed by fire many years ago. But the house in the north dis- trict is in existence at the present time. A few years after its abandon- ment by the town, it was removed to a site near the dwelling house on said Milford highway, formerly of Calvin Shedd, but at the present time of Ichabod Lund, where for many years it was used as a cooper's shop, and where at the present time (1914) it is still standing.
The third in number of these three schoolhouses, or that one erected in the southeast district, was located at what is now the south end of the village Main street, and on the west side of the highway to Pepperell, Mass. It was built in 1812 by Capt. Nathan Corey with bricks burned in the Luther Rockwood kiln in South Brookline. Its cost was two hundred and fifty-two dollars. This house is still standing. At the present time it is owned and occupied as her home by widow Ira Daniels.
As to their outside dimensions, these houses were identical. Inside, they were patterned after the style then prevailing in schoolhouse inte- riors. The central ground space, for a breadth of from eight to ten feet and extending in length from end to end of the room, was covered with rough plank flooring which, on either side, rose on inclined planes to the side walls of the house. Upon these inclined planes were located the desks and seats of the pupils. Both desks and seats were of primitive shapes, rudely constructed, and as uncomfortable as it was possible for human ingenuity to conceive and construct them. The girls sat together on one side of the house and the boys on the other. At the back part of the room, opposite the entrance door to the house, was a large chimney with a fireplace of dimensions sufficient to take in cord wood sticks; on one side of which, generally on the side next to the girls, the teacher's desk was placed.
Pupils attended school to a much more advanced period in their lives than at the present time. Especially was this the case in the winter time, when a large percentage of the scholars was made up of young men and women of from 21 to 25 and even older years of age.
In the winter terms of school, males were generally employed as teachers, and their success in the business depended more upon their physical than their mental qualifications.
The big boys generally devoted the first few days to "trying out" the master; and woe to him if he failed to exhibit the tact, nerve and strength
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necessary to govern and control them; for, in that case, his reign was generally brief, and its ending an ignominious one.
In some districts it was no unusual event for the school to experience a change of teachers several times in the same term ere one could be pro- cured whose staying powers were sufficiently developed to enable him to hold out to the end.
The textbooks in use at this time, as they continued to be until well into the forties, were Emerson's Mental, Colburn's Mental and Adams' Practical Arithmetics, and Olney's Geographies.
From 1815 to 1836 the annual appropriations for schools averaged from $150 to $200.
In 1827 Dr. David Harris' name appears upon the records for the first time as a member of the school committee, a position which he con- tinued to hold for several years in succession thereafter. In 1828 the Rev. Jacob Holt served on the committee. In 1836 the committee con- sisted of Dr. Harris and Rev. Henry E. Eastman.
School Report Printed in Pamphlet Form for the First Time.
In 1832 the superintending school committee, as the school board was then termed, consisting of Dr. David Harris, John Sawtelle and Capt. John Smith, submitted to the town the first formal and detailed report of the condition of its public schools.
By the report it appeared that the number of pupils attending the schools during that year was 148, divided among the three districts as follows: District number one, 44; district number two, 44; district num- ber three, 60. Among the textbooks reported as being in use at that time were The National Reader, Scott's lessons, Analytical Reader, Easy Lessons, and Kelley's Spelling Book.
In 1842 the school report shows the number of pupils in the public schools to have been 180; and gives a list of the textbooks then in use as follows: "Rhetorical Reader, Monitorial Reader, National Reader, Young's Reader, New Testament, Emerson's First and Second Spelling Books, Smith's, Olney's and Peter Parley's Geographies, Adam's and Colburn's Arithmetic's and Smith's Grammar."
Redistricting of the Schools. 1848-49.
Almost every year from 1836 to 1849 the warrants for the annual town meetings contained articles calling for a re-division of the town into
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school districts. These articles were generally voted down or passed over; but, finally, at the March meeting in 1849, Nathaniel Shattuck, I. Bard Sawtelle, Artemus Wright, Abel Foster and Eldad Sawtelle were elected as a committee-"To redistrict their territory into school districts and define their bounds." March 30th of the same year this committee re- ported in favor of dividing the town into seven school districts. The report was accepted and, although at a subsequent meeting an attempt to reconsider it was made, stood.
The report defined the boundary lines of each of the contemplated new districts and, soon after its acceptance by the town, the inhabitants in each district met, organized and commenced the building of new school- houses. Before the close of the following year, 1850, the houses were all completed and in use.
The Locations of the Schoolhouses Built in 1850.
The schoolhouse in district number one, known as the "Paddledock district," was located on the east side of the road leading out of the south side of the highway to Townsend, Mass., at a point just south of the bridge over the Wallace brook in South Brookline and passing in an east- erly direction to the Oak Hill road, so called, with which it united near the bridge over the river known as Bohanon's. It was located about one hundred rods west of the latter bridge. The house in district number two, in the southwest part of the town, was located on the east side of the north highway to Townsend and a few rods west, of the old Mathew Wallace place; that in district number three, known as the Pond dis- trict, was located about two and one-half miles north of the village Main street on the east side of the highway to Mason, and nearly opposite a lane which leads out of said Mason highway on its westerly side and terminates at the dwelling houses formerly of John S. Daniels and Davis Green. The house in district number four, the village district, was lo- cated on the east side of the highway to Milford a few rods north of the Congregational church; that in district number five was located on the west side of the east highway to Milford about one mile north of the vil- lage Main street, and a short distance north of the old James McDaniels place (more recently the Artemas Wright place). The house in district number six, known as the Alpheus Shattuck district, was located about three miles north of the village Main street, on the east side of the high- way to Greenville, near the point where the highway to the old Nathaniel Hutchingson place leads out of the same. The schoolhouse in district
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number seven, which comprised the northeast part of the town, was lo- cated about three miles north of the village on the west side of the high- way to Milford, and near the dwelling house and sawmill of the late Beri Bennett.
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