USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Canterbury > History of the town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1727-1912, v. 1 > Part 36
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After the apprehension of Indian raids had subsided, the school was kept at the dwellings of the inhabitants, and in time a special room in some of the houses was set apart for this purpose. Tradi- tion has it that these school rooms were not always the best that the house afforded, one being located, it is said, so near to a hog pen that the grunting of these animals frequently disturbed the teacher and pupils. In 1765, the town voted four months' school- ing for the year ensuing, two months to be kept in the winter and two months in the summer "half of the time at John Dolloff's and the other half at William Glines."
The inhabitants at this date were distributed over the three present towns of Canterbury, Loudon and Northfield, for Loudon was not created a separate township until 1773 and Northfield was
1 See Chapter I.
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not set off until 1780. In 1767, a town school of six months was provided and the people east of Soucook River were to "have their part of the schooling voted at this meeting." The teachers did not always receive cash payments for their services, for in 1768 and later it was provided that the school and town rates "should be paid in such things as the people raise." Currency was scarce and the products of the town were legal tender for pay- ment of the taxes. The school master at the end of his term was fortunate if the selectmen had turned the Indian corn which was delivered to them by the inhabitants for schooling rates into currency with which to pay him. If the people of Canterbury were no more prompt in paying their school rates than they were in paying the minister tax, the school master may have had to do his own collecting from house to house.
"In the early settlements of this place," says the Rev. William Patrick, "the opportunity for the improvement of the rising generation was very limited. For several years we find no traces of a school. Indeed, the inhabitants had not the means. Good instructors were not easily to be found, and, if they had been, the people were not able to defray the expense. Still, the children were not left wholly in ignorance. Parental instruction together with the perseverance of the children enabled some to acquire the rudiments of science. It is not a little surprising to see with what facility and accuracy the public business of the town has been done by the children of the first generation."1
The first teacher mentioned in the records of the proprietors is "Master Mooney." This was in 1772 when he is referred to as teaching school at the east side of the Soucook River in Loudon. That town was set off from Canterbury the next year. In 1797 a "Master Obadiah Mooney" was one of a committee appointed by the town to inspect schools. The United States Census of 1790 shows Obadiah Mooney to be the head of a family in Canterbury that year, his family consisting, besides himself, of one male under sixteen and three females. As "Obadiah" Mooney is several times mentioned as a school inspector, it is very probable that the identity of one of the first, if not the first, school master in Canter- bury is established. Whether he came to the town originally as a settler and took up teaching as incidental to his work of clearing
1 Historical Sermon by Rev. William Patrick, October 27, 1833.
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a homestead or was drawn to the settlement by its desire for a school master and later became an inhabitant is not known.
In the call for a town meeting October 17, 1774, were articles "To see if the freeholders and inhabitants will vote to have the school stationed at one place for the space of eighteen months for the benefit of the inhabitants living south of Scoonduggady Pond and if so to agree upon a place where the said school shall be stationed.
"To see if the inhabitants will vote that the inhabitants liv- ing within a mile and a half of said stationed place shall erect a school house at their own expense.
"To see if the inhabitants living north of Scoonduggady Pond shall have their school money among themselves."
Upon all of these articles the town acted as follows:
"Voted the school of this town be stationed at one place eigh- teen months from our next annual meeting, exclusive of those inhabitants living above Scoonduggady Pond.
"Voted that the stationed place for the above school house is at or near where the meeting house road and the mill road cross each other.
"Voted that the inhabitants of this town living above Scoon- duggady Pond have the benefit of their school money laid out among themselves at the discretion of the selectmen."
There is a question as to the location of Scoonduggady Pond.
The History of Northfield identifies it with Chestnut Lake in the easterly part of that town, from which the Tilton and North- field Water Precinct draws its water supply.1 If this is the body of water referred to in the Canterbury records, then some of the inhabitants of the "Northfields" living south of the pond sent their children some distance to school. Another theory is that Scoonduggady Pond was situated north of the present Northfield railroad station and is synonymous with the pond known as Sun- duggady. In 1774, when the foregoing votes were passed, there were very few inhabitants in the easterly part of the present towns of Canterbury and Northfield, the settlements being mainly in the western section, the intervales along the Merrimack River being the earliest land to be cultivated, later settlers pushing eastward. Equal doubt exists as to the location of the school south of this pond. The description "at or near where the meeting house road
1 History of Northfield, Part II, page 208.
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and the mill road cross each other" is indefinite to the present inhabitants of Canterbury. A "mill road" did not necessarily mean at that time a regularly laid out highway. There were sev- eral streams in town upon which sawmills were built before 1774. There is a tradition of a school house located on the right hand side of the highway from the Center to Canterbury Depot, about two thirds of the distance from the Center to the Billy E. Pillsbury house, or where the Capt. Jeremiah Clough Fort stood. This would have accommodated the residents of Canterbury at that - time and those who resided in the southwestern part of what is now Northfield. That part of the original town embraced within the limits of Loudon had been made a separate township the year before. If a school house was built at that time it was erected at the expense of the people benefited by this location, namely, those south or below Scoonduggady Pond. There is no subsequent reference in the records to this school or to any school house sit- uated as this is described. It was at least fifteen years later before the subject of school houses was again brought to the attention of the voters.1
The period of the Revolution was to intervene, and, as has been seen in Chapter V, the resources of the people were taxed to the utmost to answer the calls of the state government for men and supplies. From 1774 to 1779 there is no reference to schools in the town records. In the latter year there was voted at the annual meeting $1,000 for schooling, but the size of this appropriation shrinks when at the same meeting it is seen that $4,000 was voted for highways to be worked out at the rate of $8 per day per man. The dollar of that period was of the depreciated currency of a government whose independence was not yet established.
In the warrant for a town meeting held December 19, 1782, is an article "To see if the town will raise money for a town school, as we expect to be complained of for neglect."
There was a penalty for not maintaining a grammar school, as Canterbury had at this time at least one hundred householders or families. With a shrewdness characteristic of the early settlers, they sought to evade the consequence of their laches by calling a meeting in December and then voting, "not to hire a town school
1 The Rev. William Patrick says in his historical sermon that the first school house was built in 1781. This may refer to a school house of which there is tradition near the residence of John P. Kimball.
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the present year, it being so near the end of the year." There was no refusal to comply with the law, but rather a disposition shown by this vote to conform to its requirements if the season had not been so late, leaving the inference to be drawn that another year the subject would receive their attention. What was done, if any- thing, at the next annual meeting does not appear in the records, but March 18, 1784, Deacon Asa Foster, David Foster, Samuel Gerrish, Abraham Durgin, John Bean and Leavitt Clough were chosen a committee "to divide the school keeping into classes in this town." The term classes was but another name for districts, as in 1786 it was "voted that the schools shall be kept this year in the several parts of the town in classes and for every class to pro- vide their own teachers and have the benefit of their own money." The town included only such territory as is now embraced in the present limits of Canterbury, the "North fields" having been set off as a township in 1780.
During the latter part of the provincial period, the towns had become deplorably negligent in providing for the maintenance of schools. In his message to the Assembly December 14, 1771, Governor John Wentworth felt called upon to direct the attention of that body to existing conditions in emphatic terms. He said, "Among other important considerations the promoting of learn- ing very obviously calls for legislative care. The insufficiency of our present laws for this purpose must be too evident, seeing nine tenths of your towns are wholly without schools or have such vagrant foreign masters as are much worse than none, being for the most part unknown in their principles and deplorably illiterate."
The difficulty, however, was not in the insufficiency of the stat- utes, as the governor states, but in the disposition to evade them. Maurice H. Robinson in his "Monograph on the History of Tax- ation in New Hampshire" 1 referring to this subject says:
"Notwithstanding the excellence of the school law as perfected in 1721, the evidence indicates that public taxation for schools was irregular in kind and uncertain in amount. The town of Chester in 1748 voted 'that the town defend and secure the selectmen from any damage they come at for not providing a grammar school.' Again in 1756 the same town was warned by an 'express from the
1 American Economic Association, August, 1902, pages 177 to 179.
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court' to provide a grammar school and thereupon voted 'to fulfill and answer the interests of law if possible.'
"Amherst, another of the leading towns, shows a similar record. The town was incorporated in 1762. There were then 110 tax payers and the largest tax paid by a single individual was £46, 18s. 3d. Yet in the years 1763, 1765 and 1766, no mention was made of any effort to secure an appropriation for schools. In 1764, 1767 and 1769, the town refused to vote a tax for that purpose. Finally the selectmen were in danger of being 'presented' for neglect of duty, and on the 12th of December 1769 the town voted to 'keep a school a part of this year.' "
The Revolution followed the change from province to state, and the people were too fully occupied by the pressing calls for troops and supplies to give attention to schools. It was not, therefore, until after peace was declared with Great Britain and the state government was firmly established that the authorities could properly enforce existing statutes for the maintenance of schools or the legislature find time to improve them by amendment. The vote of Canterbury in December, 1782, "not to hire a town school the present year, it being so near the end of the year" was merely in keeping with the spirit of the times and almost identical with the vote of Amherst, December 12, 1769, to "keep a school a part of this year."
At the annual meeting March 19, 1789, the first attempt at supervision of the schools was made. Asa Foster, Laban Morrill, Benjamin Blanchard, Joseph Ayers, Samuel Gerrish and James Lyford were chosen a committee "to inspect the school classes and the spots where each school house shall stand." If this com- mittee was appointed to locate school house sites, another five years was to elapse before the town took action to erect school buildings.
In 1793, a town meeting was called "to see what method the town will take for building convenient school houses in town." No action was taken, but the number of classes was fixed at five.
At the annual meeting in 1794, it was voted to build six school houses and "leave it with the selectmen to determine the places where they were to be built." The town appropriated £150 old tenor for this purpose and the selectmen were authorized to "lay out so much of said sum on each house as is paid by the persons rated in each class on the house belonging to that class."
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The location of some of these school houses is shown by the record of a subsequent town meeting. There was dissatisfaction with the location of two of the buildings, those for the "South Class" and the "North Meeting House Class." After recon- sidering the vote by which they were authorized, it was voted in July, 1794, "to have one a small distance north from the old meeting house 1 and the other near William Moore."
The location of a third school house was at Hill's Corner at the junction of the highways leading therefrom to Hackleborough and to Tilton. It is known that the first school house in this locality was destroyed by fire. At the annual meeting in 1795, the town "voted £10 old tenor towards building a school house in the northeast part of the town where one was lately burned." The Hill's Corner District had at this time a considerable number of settlers.
In 1796, Joseph Clough was chosen inspector of schools. The. next year Obadiah Mooney, Joseph Ham, Leavitt Clough, Asa Foster, Joseph Ayers and Shubael Sanborn were elected. In 1798, these inspectors were Samuel Gerrish, Joseph Ham, Leavitt Clough, William Forrest, David Foster and Asa Foster, Jr.
The inspectors of school classes were probably prudential offi- cers with a general oversight of the schools. They may have engaged the teachers for the different classes, and, after school houses were built, they may have looked after the buildings. In 1799, the selectmen, the town clerk and the Rev. Frederick Parker were made "general inspectors of the schools of the town." Then later at the same meeting Lieut. Samuel Haines, Col. Jere- miah Clough, William Forrest, Enoch Emery, Leavitt Clough and Moses Cogswell were elected "a joint committee with the aforesaid selectmen, town clerk and Rev. Mr. Parker," and the committeemen were empowered "to call class meetings in their respective districts" and "to give their respective school masters caution not to leave the school houses at night till the fires are extinguished or taken a proper care of." One school house had al- ready burned, perhaps through carelessness in not attending to the fire when school was dismissed, and others may have beenm enaced with destruction from the same cause. Hence the necessity for instruction and caution to both school master and pupils, for the
1 This was the meeting house at the Center. It was called the "old meet- ing house" to distinguish it from the North Meeting House at Hackleborough.
First type of School House, 1794.
The Red School House, 1843.
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larger boys probably took turns building the fire in the morning and banking it at night.
At the annual meeting in 1800, it was "voted that the money raised over and above what the law obliges may be laid out in women's schools by those districts which desire it." The next year a similar vote was passed. As early as 1767 there was an article in the warrant of the annual meeting "to see if the inhabi- tants settled in the southeasterly side of Soucook River1 have a school dame if the major part of them think best." If any action was taken on this article, it is not recorded.
The "school dame" in New England at this date referred to women employed to teach girls who were not generally admitted to grammar schools until towards the close of the eighteenth century. In some instances the "school dame" taught a primary school for boys and girls, the boys graduating to the grammar school while the girls stopped there with their education. There is little evidence that the people of colonial days considered the education of their daughters as important. "Doubtless in the home many of them became familiar with at least the first two of the 'three R's' and occasionally a girl in some of the larger settle- ments seems to have prevailed upon some fortunate brother of grammar school privileges to share with her his knowledge of the third, but such cases were extremely rare." 2
In marked contrast with the people of other New England colo- nies, the settlers of New Hampshire very early made provisions for the coeducation of the sexes. "When the town of Hampton engaged John Legat as school master in 1649, it was for 'all the children both male and female (which are capable of learning to write, read and cast accounts'). And when Dover in 1658 voted to raise £20 a year for the support of a teacher, it was distinctly stated that it was for 'all the children' within the town- ship." 3 The action of the town of Hampton appears to have been the first attempt in New England to give equal opportunity for education to boys and girls.
In Portsmouth in 1773 the selectmen employed David McClure to take care of a girls' school, and he makes this interesting note in his diary :
1 Loudon.
Dexter, History of Education in the U. S., pages 424 and 425.
Idem, page 52.
26
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"Opened school consisting the first day of about 30 Misses. Afterward they increased to 70 and 80; so that I was obliged to divide the day between them and half came in the forenoon and the other half in the afternoon. They were from seven to twenty years of age. I attended to them in reading, writing, arithmetic and geography principally. This is, I believe, the only female school (supported by the town) in New England and is a wise and useful institution." 1
Until the nineteenth century such action as was taken for the education of girls in New England was that of the town rather than of the colony or state. Each community determined this question for itself. It is, therefore, to be presumed that the article in the warrant of Canterbury in 1767 for the employment of a "school dame" and the votes of the town in 1800 and 1801 for "women's schools" referred to the public education of the daughters of the settlers.
The term "school mistress" first appears in the records in 1809 when provision was made for the examination of teachers by a town committee and the issuing of certificates to those found qualified. The women might have taught some of the sum- mer schools at an earlier date, but it is doubtful if any woman could have maintained order at the winter term, which was attended by all the boys at home until they were twenty-one years of age. The first test of the school master's qualifications at a win- ter term was whether he was enough of an athlete to maintain his authority over the larger boys. This test was usually made the first day of school, and the teacher either subdued these ambitious youngsters, proud of their physical prowess, or he was thrown out of the school house. At the summer term, the larger and older boys were either working at home on the farm or were earning wages elsewhere for the support of the family until they became of age or were "given their time," as it was called.
That the five or six classes into which the town was divided did not furnish convenient school facilities for all of the inhabitants appears in the records for the year 1804. At a town meeting in November it was "voted that Ebenezer Parker, Reuben French, William Brown, Jesse Ingalls, Nathaniel Ingalls, Josiah Rollins, Benjamin Collins, Jonathan Blanchard, Francis Sawyer and Noah Sinclair have and receive their respective school taxes this
1 Dexter, History of Education in the U. S., page 427.
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current year, provided they make it appear to the selectmen that they have laid out the same in schooling." The warrant for the town meeting sets forth that "they receive little or no benefit from the schools in which they were classed." This may have been due to the distance they were from schools or the condition of the highways in the winter season.
The first regularly elected superintending school committee were the Rev. William Patrick, Samuel Hazelton, Isaac Smith and Samuel Ames, chosen in 1809. The legislature the year before had revised the school laws of the state and provided that each town at its annual meeting should appoint three or more suitable per- sons whose duty it was to annually visit and inspect schools "in a manner which they may judge most conducive to the progress of literature, morality and religion." 1 By vote of the town Mr. Pat- rick and his associates were to issue certificates to "school masters and school mistresses" if found upon examination to be properly fitted for their duties.
The statute of 1789 defined an English grammar school to be one "for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic," and it pro- vided for "a grammar school for the purpose of teaching of Latin and Greek" in all "shire or half shire" towns of the state.2 The latter was evidently intended for a high school which the acad- emies later more fully supplied, as this provision disappears when the school laws were revised in 1804.3 English grammar and geography were added to the curriculum of the common schools four years later.4
The law of 1789 provided that "no person shall be deemed qualified to keep such a school unless he produce a certificate from some able and reputable school master, and learned minister, or preceptor of some academy, or president of some college that he is well qualified to keep such school."
To this was added in 1808 the provision "and likewise a certi- ficate from the selectmen or minister of the town or parish to which he or she belongs that he or she sustains a good moral character."
The latter statute also provided that "the literary qualification of school mistresses be required to extend no further than that they
1 Act of December 22, 1808.
2 Act of June 18, 1789.
¿Act of December 13, 1804.
4 Act of December 22, 1808.
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are able to teach the various sounds and powers of the English language, reading, writing and English grammar, granting them the liberty always of teaching such other branches of female educa- tion as may be deemed necessary to be taught in schools under their tuition." 1
The examination of school teachers by a committee of the town does not appear to have been provided by statute until 1827. The action of Canterbury, therefore, in authorizing Mr. Patrick and his associates in 1809 to issue certificates to "school masters and school mistresses" after examination, was in advance of the requirement of the state.
In 1807, at the annual meeting of Canterbury, the Shakers first made application to be set off as a separate school district, which was denied by the town. Their application was renewed in 1812, when it was voted to make the Shaker community a school dis- trict by itself. In 1814, it was "voted that the Shakers receive from District Number 4 such part of their money as their proportion of children from four years to twenty-one (is to the number of) children of the same age in said district and also from Districts Number 5 and 6 in the same proportion respectively, provided that they shall never receive more money than they pay."
In 1813, a committee consisting of John Clough, Samuel Gerrish, William Forrest, Jeremiah Pickard, Abiel Foster and William Brown was chosen to establish the bounds of school districts "where they now are, or district the town anew, or make such alterations as they shall think proper and make report to the next town meeting."2 Their report was submitted at the annual meet- ing of 1814. It provided for six districts, and, if it were thought best to subdivide District No. 1 and make two districts of it, the bounds of the two districts were given. The town voted to accept the report of the committee for six districts.
The Shakers having been classed by themselves in 1812, and in 1814 having been voted their proportion of the school money in dis- tricts Nos. 4, 5 and 6, the whole number of school districts num- bered seven. This number was recognized at the annual meeting of 1814, when the town chose the following persons class masters,
1 Act of December 22, 1808.
2 Towns were authorized to divide into school districts by act of December 28, 1805.
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