USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume II > Part 58
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The school appropriation for 1808 was eight hundred dollars ; 1809, '10, and '11, nine hundred dollars, and one thousand dollars an- nually from 1812 to 1817, inclusive.
The first superintending or visiting school committee was appointed in 1818, in compliance with a law of the state making it the duty of towns to appoint committees to visit and inspect schools in a manner " conducive to the progress of literature, morality, and religion." This committee was composed of twelve of the leading citizens of the town, viz .: Thomas W. Thompson, Dr. McFarland, Captain Ayer, William A. Kent, George Hough, Abiel Rolfe, Stephen Ambrose, Thomas Chadbourne, Moses Long, Richard Bradley, Samuel A. Kimball, and Samuel Fletcher.
Lancastrian schools were introduced in this town in 1819, in which year the town voted "to allow the south end of the town house, called the senate chamber, to be prepared and occupied by a Lancas- trian School, provided the town be at no expense," and the same vote was renewed the following year. These schools were princi- pally private or tuition schools, in which a large number of pupils
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were offered instruction at very low rates. It was a system first introduced by Dr. Andrew Bell, a distinguished English clergyman and chaplain, in India, and later improved and perfected by Joseph Lancaster, an English educator who came to this country in 1818. John Farmer, our historian, met him in 1819, and describes him as " a large, fat man, forty-one years of age, a man of wit, easy in his manners, free in conversation, and a Quaker."
These schools were conducted on the principle of mutual instruc- tion, the most of the teaching being done by the pupils themselves. The school was divided into several classes, and pupils in higher grades gave instruction to the children in lower grades, the whole under the direction of a single principal instructor or master. It was maintained by its advocates that children, particularly the very young, would more readily receive instruction from older children than from adults, and by this means a great saving might be effected in lessening the number of teachers to be employed in the conduct of large schools. A committee of citizens, of which Timothy Chandler was chairman, arranged for the introduction of the first school of this kind in April, 1819. A second was kept in the town house, beginning March, 1820, of which Joshua Abbot was principal, with a preceptress to superintend the female department, in which in- struction was given in sewing, tambouring, embroidery, drawing, and painting. Mr. Abbot was a son of Captain Joshua Abbot, who com- manded a company in the battle of Bunker Hill. He was born in this town in 1782. He began teaching about 1806 and kept school for many years. The Lancastrian system, when first introduced, found ready followers, but after a little while the experiment proved less successful than its friends had anticipated ; the schools degenerated and were finally given up for lack of support.
" The first schoolhouse in what is now Penacook village was a union schoolhouse built by the districts of Boscawen and Concord in 1817, near where the Gahagan house now stands, on Crescent street. This was on the main road, which at that time passed through what is now the yard of the Concord Axle Works, before the road was changed to cross the new bridge at Main street. It was built on the line between the two towns, half in each town. The boys were seated on the north side of the room, in Boscawen, while the girls' seats on the opposite side were in Concord."1 This may account, in part, for the very amicable relationship which has always existed between the two places. The house was a small, wooden building. Both towns united in the support of the school, Boscawen generally furnishing the larger number of pupils. About 1826 the house was
1 D. Arthur Brown's " History of Penacook."
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taken down and rebuilt on Brown's hill, near the present residence of Charles H. Sanders. School was continued there for ten years, until the union district was dissolved in 1835 or 1836.
As early as 1814 an attempt had been made to secure the removal of the old schoolhouse at the north end of Main street, which had been in use since 1790, and build a better one in some other loca- tion. One of the reasons urged was the necessity for laying out a road "at the east end of the meeting-house from the road opposite Francis N. Fisk's house to the road opposite Capt. Enoch Coffin's barn," but the attempt was not successful until six years later. One of the best remembered teachers in this old building was Mrs. Sarah Martin of Boscawen. She was a daughter of Captain Peter Kimball, a brave and efficient soldier of the Revolution, and was born Decem- ber 31, 1778. After thirty years of age she fitted herself for a teacher under the instruction of Reverend Samuel Wood of Bos- cawen, the tutor of Daniel Webster. Mrs. Martin was large and matronly in personal appearance, with an amiable disposition and gentle manners,-combining good ability and natural tact in the exercise of her calling. She had a great love for children, was a favorite with her pupils, and on the way to school was generally accompanied by a large number of the younger members of her flock. After a service of nearly twenty years in Boscawen and Concord, she removed, with her daughter, to Wisconsin, continuing in service as a teacher until upwards of seventy years of age. The late S. S. Kimball, the late Mrs. Mary Herbert Seavey, of this city, and Mrs. Abial Rolfe and Miss Harriet Chandler, of Penacook, pupils in her school in early life, have borne testimony of her great excellence as a teacher and friend.
Another teacher of marked superiority was Miss Ann Sawyer, daughter of Deacon Moses Sawyer of Salisbury, and a graduate of the academy in that town. She gave up her school to become the wife of Captain Joseph Walker, in 1820, and died four years later. One of the last male teachers in the old building was John Bartlett, of whom the late Reverend John LeBosquet, writing in 1884, said : " I lived in the North End district when I first went to Concord, and Bartlett was the teacher in the old, low-studded, hip-roofed school- house that stood near the old elm tree, between the main street and the road that went up by the Old North church to the left, in 1818. He was a severe teacher, and almost knocked out of me all the sense I ever had, with a large, heavy, round ruler."
In 1820 the town voted "That the selectmen be directed to lease to the 11th school district, for such length of time, and on such terms as they may think proper, so much of the parsonage lot near
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the house of David George as will be needed by said district for the purpose of building a schoolhouse, provided Dr. McFarland, or those who may claim to a right to said lot under him, shall give his or their consent." In 1820- 21, a two-story brick building was erected on this lot, on the corner of State and Church streets, the site now occupied as the home of Frank W. Rollins. Captain Joseph Walker was chairman of the building committee and Nathan Call the con- tractor. The house contained two rooms, one on the first floor for primary grades, and one above for the grammar school. It was the best schoolhouse in the county, and perhaps in the state, at the time of its erection, and the building committee were subjected to some criticism for alleged extravagance. At a subsequent meeting of the district, Captain Walker presented a claim which the voters refused to allow; whereupon he obtained posses- sion of the key of the house and notified the district that there could be no school until his bill was paid. A settlement was soon effected, and the house reopened. The old schoolhouse, corner of Fiske and Main streets, was sold at auction, April 22, 1820. The first male teacher of the grammar school in the new building was the late George W. Nesmith, of Franklin, a close friend of Daniel Webster, and afterward judge of the supreme court from 1859 to 1870. Judge Nesmith said, in 1875: "The brick schoolhouse was erected in 1820, and I was the first teacher. I taught the school from November, 1820, to March, 1821, and was employed by Francis N. Fisk, and boarded at the tavern then kept by Lemuel Old North End School. Barker. I cannot state the exact amount of wages per month, but think about twenty dollars. The price of board was two dollars per week. The school was above the average of district schools in this state at that time, in point of capacity and acquirements. Among the pupils I recollect Paul George, Charles West, Charles Emery and his sister, Mrs. Towle, Miss Coffin, who married in New York city, and Emeline, the daughter of Nathaniel Abbot, the wife of Judge Per- kins, Rev. Mr. LeBosquet, Calvin Thorn, and a few others." Other notable teachers in this building in later years were, Edwin D. San- born, afterward a professor in Dartmouth college, Chandler E. Pot- ter, Joseph Robinson, Miss Ann Morrill, and Moody Currier, after- ward governor of the state.
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By a vote of the town in 1822 the selectmen fixed upon a location for a new schoolhouse to be built in district No. 1, describing it as " within the corner of the orchard owned by Ezra Hoit, nearly oppo- site the Horse Hill burying-ground, and within the corner made by the road leading from said burying-ground to the old school-house, and the road leading from the same burying-ground to Boscawen." The old building stood about a third of a mile directly north of this later site, on the cross road running between the Bog road and the upper road leading from Penacook to Warner. The foundation walls of the latter are still visible.
3 x 4 rods, is now West
In September, 1823, district No. 9 purchased a lot of Isaac Shute, on the north side of what street, a few rods back from Main street. This building was the second in town for school pur- poses to be constructed of brick, and contained but one large school-room originally, which was fur- nished with old-fashioned double desks with enor- mously heavy lids or cov- ers. The girls' seats faced Dimond Hill School. to the south, and the boys' to the west. The teacher's desk was near the window on the south side. A large cast-iron stove was in the center of the room. The building was very low- studded, with no means of ventilation except through open doors or windows. Fuel was plenty and cheap in those days; West Street School. a roaring fire was kept in cold weather, and the heat was so oppressive that the boys used to call their school the " bake house." Some years later a thin partition was put in the building, dividing the interior into two rooms, the smaller of which was used for a primary, and the larger room for higher grades.
The visiting school committee, by a vote of the town in 1824, were requested to prepare a small hand-book for the government of schools, and furnish a copy to each district. One of these little manuals has been preserved in the library of the State Historical society. It prescribes the duties of district committees, which must consist of one person for each district, to select and hire teachers,
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provide for their board, and furnish necessary fuel. Teachers must be persons of sober life and conversation, and well qualified to give instruction in the various sounds and powers of the letters in the English language, reading, writing, English grammar, arithmetic, geography, and such other branches as may be properly taught in an. English school. Pupils are forbidden the use of the lips in study and any unnecessary moving of the feet. The committee recom- mend that writing be taught three afternoons in each week and 110 more. The following text-books were prescribed for use : The Bible or Testament, Cumming's or Marshall's Spelling Book, Murray's English and Blake's Historical Readers, Putnam's Grammar, Cum- ming's, Woodbridge's, and Morse's Geographies, Colburn's and Adams's Arithmetics, Whelpey's Compend of History, and Bascom's Penman- ship. Nathaniel W. Williams, Samuel A. Kimball, and Elijah Colby were the superintending committee. Rev. Mr. Williams, who pre- pared the rules, was pastor of the Baptist church.
Whenever the original proprietors of the township, or their suc- cessors, made a further division of the undivided lands, as they were wont to do from time to time, " the school," as in the original grant, was a beneficiary, until its accumulated holdings could be found in all parts of the township. In the first allotment "the school " be- came the owner of a house or home lot in the village proper, and by subsequent divisions secured other tracts of land on the far-away hills to the west. It acquired title in the same way to others on Contoocook Plains. Its possessions were increased by other parcels of land described simply by the number of acres which they con- tained, as the " six-acre lot " and the "eighty-acre lot." Others yet, of plow land, rich in soil and tillable, situate on the intervals or flat meadows that surround the winding river.
The home lot originally laid out for the school was that con- siderable tract of land on the south side of Penacook and the west side of Bradley street, now owned and occupied as the residence of J. N. Patterson. This was rented, as opportunity offered, some- times for a single season and at other times for a term of years, until, finally, in 1790, it was exchanged by the town for one on the south side of the old burying-ground, owned by Lieutenant Robert Davis, and in 1842 the cemetery was enlarged by the addition of the latter. The other lots were leased for shorter or longer terms, like the home lot. The land was of little value, the rents were small, and some of the lessecs were slow to pay and frequently delinquent. People were also found to be cutting timber and fuel from the forest lands without authority, and the parsonage lands suffered occasion- ally from the same causes, so that after considerable deliberation,
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the town voted, March 15, 1826, "that Joseph Walker, Robert Davis, and Jeremiah Pecker be a committee to sell all the parsonage and school lands, and invest the proceeds to constitute a permanent fund, the income from which shall be applied for the purposes for which said lands were reserved." They were accordingly disposed of at public auction from the steps of the Washington hotel, April 22, of that year, in six parcels, for the sum of one thousand six hun- dred and ninety-one dollars. The names of the purchasers of the different lots were as follows: Land on Little Pond road, Isaac Hill. Land on Little Pond hill, a portion of which is now the home of the Snow Shoe club, Henry Chandler and Henry Martin. Land at Old Fort, a part to Enoch Coffin and a part to Abiel Walker. The Emendation lot, on Contoocook plains, to Abiel and Henry Rolfe. The interval on the east side of the river, to Josiah Fernald. The lot on Beaver Meadow, where now the cozy house of the Golf club stands sequestcred, to Richard H. Ayer. The proceeds of this sale constituted the original school fund. The parsonage lots were dis- posed of at the same sale for five thousand three hundred thirty-five dollars and fifty-one cents. The town further voted at its next meeting that " the above funds remain for the year ensuing as they now are," probably in interest-bearing notes given by the purchasers.
The annual appropriation for schools was one thousand two hun- dred dollars each year from 1818 to 1820, inclusive, and one thou- sand two hundred and fifty dollars from 1821 to 1829.
The first school report to be printed covered the school year end- ing March 14, 1827. It was prepared by Reverend N. W. Williams, of the school board, and printed by George Hough. It appears from this report that schools had been kept in each of the twenty dis- tricts, in the winter of 1826-'27, sixteen of which had been un- der the direction of male teachers, and the other four conducted by females. The whole number of pupils was nearly seven hundred.
The committee, during the next few years, constantly urge the introduction of cast-iron stoves for warming, in place of the huge fireplaces still in use in more than half of the districts, and say fur- ther, in doleful strain, " the most of the schoolhouses are out of repair and wholly inadequate to the purpose for which they are intended. Broken windows are of common occurrence in all of the buildings, and in one district, where the people are to be commended for their enterprise and good economy in their ordinary concerns, nothing worthy the name of schoolhouse is to be found." Hope is expressed that the time is not distant when a convenient brick house, warmed with a stove, will be found in every district in town.
The legislature, in June, 1821, imposed an annual tax on the
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several banks in the state, of one half of one per cent. on their cap- ital stock, to create a literary fund for the purpose of establishing another college, its intended location to be at the capital or near the center of the state. In 1828 the sum so raised by the accumula- tion of principal and interest, amounted to more than fifty thousand dollars ; and, " other views prevailing," the legislature directed the whole sum to be distributed among the several towns in the propor- tion of each town's share of the state tax. Concord's share in the distribution of this fund was about eight hundred dollars. The annual tax was continued, as before, to provide a fund for the sup- port of the public schools, to be divided annually among the towns in the same manner. Of the first-mentioned sum the principal was to be invested by the towns, and only the interest used each year.
In 1830 the whole number of pupils was nine hundred and sev- enty-one, with an average attendance of six hundred and seventy- seven. The cost per pupil, based upon the latter number, was about two dollars each, and the whole cost of the schools, including the contribution from the literary fund, about one thousand four hun- dred dollars. The Concord Female Charitable society maintained a Sabbath school in the locality then known as the " New Colony," a small settlement near the upper end of Franklin street, in the years 1830-'31, and in the latter year kept a charity day school for twenty-five weeks, with an attendance of between twenty and thirty children. Miss Elizabeth McFarland and Miss Susan Dow were the teachers.
Three new schoolhouses were built in 1834 on the east side of the river-one in the East village (district No. 12), on the present site of the store and post-office, near the engine house, of brick ; a second in district No. 21 (a new district formed by a division of No. 13), on the " Mountain," about half way between the church and North Con- cord, on the road to Canterbury ; and the third at Sewall's falls. The whole number of pupils this year reached one thousand and three, with an average attendance of seven hundred and twenty- nine. The committee express much regret that the standard of edu- cation is so low. "Very few are pursuing the higher branches of an English education, and many have a very indifferent knowledge of the common branches. As to grammar, very few understand it, and there is a general repugnance to the study." In alluding to the causes for this deficiency the committee specify the shortness of some of the schools, only nine weeks during the year, cold, smoky, crowded, and in every way inconvenient schoolhouses, and a lack of skill on the part of many of the teachers.
The old building which stood opposite the Old Fort cemetery in
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the East village, and had been used for the school for nearly forty years, with its old and worn benches black with age, on the completion of the new building was sold, moved to the foot of the hill and to the opposite side of the road, where it became a part of the dwelling- house now known as the J. T. Clough place. For two generations, at least, it had sheltered the young people of East Concord while literally climbing up the hill of science and solving those problems which will always perplex the young. When burials were taking place in the cemetery opposite, a number of the larger boys were per- mitted to go out and care for the horses of the mourners during the ceremonies of interment. This was considered a special privilege, and there was never a lack of pupils to render this kindly service, as it offered a little respite from the stern discipline of the school-room.
Long-needed repairs were made to the schoolhouse in district No. 8, at Millville, in. 1835, and a new schoolhouse was built on the road across the "Dark Plains " leading to Loudon, the " Old Red Schoolhouse," a landmark which older citizens well remember. The West Parish, too, built a new house on " the north side of the road leading from Brown's Tavern in Concord to Hopkinton," the lot con- taining nine square rods. In 1837 a new building of brick was erected in the Oak Hill district. John Potter, when a boy of ten years, went with a team to Portsmouth for the lime to make the mortar with which the bricks were laid. "One of the best teachers to whomn I ever went to school," said he, " was True Brown of Lou- don, who taught in this district between 1836 and 1840."
The schoolhouse on Brown's hill, Fisherville, having been aban- doned in 1836, a new one of one story was built in the Boscawen district near the present Congregational church the same year, but a few years later it was removed to Queen street, a few rods west of Main street. Here, in 1844, one Richard Morgan held sway, and D. Arthur Brown, the historian of Penacook, certifies to the skill with which discipline was enforced by means of a persuasive instru- ment of oak two feet in length and of liberal dimensions in width and thickness.
It was some years before another schoolhouse was built on the Concord side of the river, but schools were kept in private houses. Henry Rolfe kept school for a time in his house, and William P. Chandler also kept school in the old Chandler house, still standing, in 1840.
By the census of 1840, the number of school children was reported to be one thousand four hundred and eighty, but the actual number attending school was a little less than one thousand, or, to be exact, five hundred and eighty-four boys and three hundred and eighty
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girls, a total of nine hundred and sixty-four. The cost of the schools was two thousand and seventy dollars, or a little more than two dollars per pupil. Four schools were kept in district No. 10, two in the " Old Bell," which had been thoroughly repaired during the year, the third in the town hall, and a fourth in the basement of the Old South church, which at that time was located on the south- west corner of Main and Pleasant streets, the site now occupied by the Acquilla building. One of the most popular teachers in the lat- ter building a little later was Miss Mary J. Bailey, from Groton, Vt., who afterward married Lewis Tower, and died in this city in 1854. Two schools were kept in district No. 9, at the South end, and two in No. 11, at the North end. In addition to these, no less than four private schools were held in the main village. The schools were kept, on an average, twenty weeks during the year, in twenty districts.
The first attempt to establish a high school was made in 1842. The voters of districts numbers 9, 10, and 11 were requested to meet in the court house, May 28, to consider the expediency of dividing the districts and establishing a high school. The call was signed by Theodore French, Benjamin Rolfe, Moses H. Clough, John C. Ordway, and Hazen Walker, prudential committee of said districts. This meeting and one or two adjournments thereof were largely attended, and committees appointed, one of which was to se- cure additional legislation if such should be required. The proposi- tion met with very general favor, but was not immediately successful.
A new school building, which, the committee say, does honor to the liberality of the inhabitants, was completed in district No. 3, at the West village, in the fall of 1843. It was built upon the lot now owned and occupied by Harrison Partridge, on the east side of the main street. John Jarvis was the first teacher in the new building. This school was at one time during the school year entirely sus- pended on account of almost universal sickness among the pupils. Dr. Bouton says, " The number of deaths in town was one hundred and thirteen, a larger number than ever occurred in a year before, of which fifty were children under ten years of age, who died mostly of inflammation of the bowels, a disease which prevailed very exten- sively."
The whole number of pupils in town in 1843 was one thousand one hundred and sixty-five. Summer schools were maintained in twenty-one of the twenty-five districts. The length of terms aver- aged about cleven wecks, but were too short in some of the districts to be of much benefit. No. 1 had only three weeks of school; No. 2, four weeks; No. 13, five weeks; No. 20, twenty-eight days; and No. 23, only fifteen days. Distriets Nos. 12 and 19 had one school
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