USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Exeter > History of the town of Exeter, New Hampshire > Part 27
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The next immediate head of the institution was Dr. Albert C. Perkins, a native of Byfield, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Dartmouth College. He occupied the post of principal for about ten years, when he resigned it to accept the presidency of the Adel- phi Institute in Brooklyn, New York.
For two years after this the duties of the principalship were practically performed by the two senior professors, George A. Wentworth and Bradbury L. Cilley, each of whom had been con- nected with the academy as a member of the corps of instruction for about a quarter of a century. They were active coadjutors of Dr. Soule in the " new departure " which was begun in his term of office, and still retain their positions in the institution.
Walter Quincy Scott, D.D., the present principal of the academy, assumed the station in 1885. He is a native of Dayton, Ohio, a graduate of Lafayette College in 1869, and had been the president of the Ohio State University before his appointment to this position.
In the one hundred and five years of its existence, the Phillips Exeter Academy has, as might be expected, made a prodigious growth, in point of means, and numbers and extent and character of instruction. For the first twenty years the average number of students was less than forty, and at the close of Dr. Abbot's coll- nection, did not exceed seventy. It is now nearly five times the latter number. The endowment given by the founder, large as it was for the time, has been increased almost tenfold, in part by
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wise management, but chiefly by additional gifts from various benefactors. The average age of the pupils has increased by at least two years within the last half century, and in the extent and thoroughness of the work accomplished, the advance has been fully commensurate with the progress of the institution in the other respects mentioned.
The original endowment of Dr. Phillips has been since supple- mented by various benefactions.
John T. Gilman of Exeter gave, in 1794, two and one-quarter acres of land, which constitute a great part of the inclosure in which the present academy buildings stand.
Nicholas Gilman of Exeter bequeathed, in 1814, one thousand dollars, the income to be expended for instruction in sacred music.
John Langdon Sibley of Cambridge, Massachusetts, began, in 1862, a series of gifts, amounting in all to more than forty thousand dollars, the income to be expended for the support of students of poverty and merit.
In 1870 the academy building was burned to the ground, and subscriptions were raised to the amount of nearly fifty thousand dollars to replace it. The chief contributor was William Phillips of Boston, Massachusetts, who gave ten thousand dollars.
Jeremiah Kingman of Barrington, in 1873, bequeathed the resi- due of his estate, amounting to above thirty-six thousand dollars, the income to be appropriated to the support of indigent and mer- itorious students.
Woodbridge Odlin of Exeter left by his will, in 1875, twenty thousand dollars to endow a professorship of English.
In 1877 and 1879 a gentleman, who preferred that his name should not be known, made gifts to the amount of ten thousand dollars.
In 1878 and 1880 Henry Winkley of Philadelphia made dona- tions amounting to ten thousand dollars.
John C. Phillips of Boston gave twenty-five thousand dollars in 1884.
Francis P. Hurd, son of the Rev. Dr. Isaac Hurd, bequeathed, the same year, fifty thousand dollars.
Francis E. Parker of Boston made a residuary bequest in 1886, which yielded about one hundred and ten thousand dollars.
The last five gifts were unrestricted, and are applicable to the general purposes of the academy.
In addition to the foregoing principal donations, four scholar- ships have been founded, named for the donors :
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Charles Burroughs, in 1868, of the value of one thousand dollars.
George Bancroft, in 1870, of the value of two thousand dollars. Samnel Hale, in 1872, of the value of two thousand dollars.
Nathaniel Gordon, in 1872, of the value of two thousand dollars.
To-day the Phillips Exeter Academy has a faculty of ten in- structors, pupils to the number of three hundred and twenty and upwards, representing nearly every State and Territory in the Union, and divided between a classical and an English course of instruction of four years each ; property, including lands and school buildings, to the amount of nearly six hundred thousand dollars ; chapel, recitation rooms, dormitory, gymnasium and in process of construction a laboratory, -all fitted with the best modern improvements.
And these advantages are not for the rich alone ; they are equally within the reach of any young man who has the ability and determination to obtain an education. Good conduct and diligence are the only requisites. The payment of tuition is remitted in all cases where students are in needy circumstances, and twenty-four scholarships are annually distributed among the pupils, who are applicants, according to proficiency and general merit. Four of the scholarships, the Bancroft, Gordon, Hale and Burroughs, are worth in money from seventy to one hundred and forty dollars each. The others -foundation scholarships as they are termed- yield between one and two dollars per week during the school year. The rooms in Abbot Hall are assigned to students of restricted means, at a trifling rent, and accommodate about fifty. In the same hall there are commons for the board of a somewhat larger number, at simply the cost price. A young man who obtains a foundation scholarship, therefore, needs little more to defray his expenses. About one-third of the whole number of students receive free tuition.
No distinctions have ever been made in the academy by reason of pecuniary condition. The poorest lad is as free to carry away the honors, and is as much respected if lie is deserving of respect, as the millionnaire. Indeed, some of the most venerated names on the list of alumni are those of men who received aid from the foundation, which alone enabled them to accomplish their educa- tion, and who were proud in after years to attribute their success in life thereto.
The present faculty of the Phillips Academy is as follows :
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Walter Quincy Scott, D. D., Principal, and Odlin Professor of English.
George A. Wentworth, A. M., Professor of Mathematics.
Bradbury L. Cilley, A. M., Professor of Ancient Languages.
Oscar Faulhaber, Ph. D., Professor of French and German.
James A. Tufts, A. B., Professor of English in the Classical Department.
George L. Kittredge, A. B., Professor of Latin.
Clarence Getchell, A. B., Instructor in Physics and Chemistry.
Carlton B. Stetson, A. M., Instructor in Latin and English.
Albertus T. Dudley, A. B., Director of the Gymnasium.
William A. Francis, A. M., Instructor in Mathematics.
The board of trustees consists of the following : George S. Hale, Boston, President ; Charles H. Bell ; Walter Q. Scott, ex-officio; Charles F. Dunbar, Cambridge ; John T. Perry ; Francis O. French, New York ; and there is one vacancy.
THE FEMALE ACADEMY.
The Exeter newspapers of the earlier part of the century show repeated advertisements of private schools for " young misses." They met with so much patronage that it naturally occurred to the people that a permanent seminary for the instruction of females would be desirable. In 1826 a charter was obtained from the State Legislature, to incorporate the Exeter Female Academy. It went into operation soon afterwards, and the upper story of the building on Centre street, in which was the vestry of the First church, was secured for the accommodation of the school. The first teacher is believed to have been Miss Julia A. Perry, who was a pupil of the celebrated educator, Miss Z. Grant. Miss Perry remained at the head of the academy until 1834, when she was succeeded by Miss Elizabeth Dow, danghter of Jeremiah Dow of Exeter. She continued in charge of the academy for two years, it is believed. Her successor was Isaac Foster, A. M., a native of Andover, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Dartmouth College, in the class of 1828. He also served two years, from 1834 to the spring of 1836, when Miss Emily S. Colcord, of South Berwick, Maine, a lady who is remembered as possessed of peculiar qualifi- cations for the charge of such an institution, became the principal of the academy. Iler term of service extended over a period of seven years. Miss Elizabeth A. Chadwick, a daughter of Colonel Peter Chadwick of Exeter, was the next principal teacher for four years, and in the spring of 1849 gave place to Miss Sarah J. P. Toppan, daughter of the Hon. Edmund Toppan of Hampton. She
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held the position two years at least. Miss Harriet Russell, daughter of Dr. Richard Russell of Somersworth, is believed to have been the next in the order of preceptresses. Her stay was probably not longer than two years. Elbridge G. Dalton was at the head of the academy in 1853-4. At that time he had five assistants, and the aggregate number of pupils for the year was one hundred and sixty-six. The course of instruction extended over a period of five years, and Latin, modern languages, instru- mental music, designing and landscape drawing, and other accom- plishments were taught. The trustees at that time were the Rev. Isaac Hurd, Dr. David W. Gorham, Hon. Amos Tuck and Joseph Tilton, Esq. It is supposed that Mr. Dalton retained the direc- tion of the academy until in 1858 he assumed the same position in the High school.
Miss Mary A. Bell, daughter of the Hon. James Bell of Exeter, next had the principalship of the Female Academy, probably for four years, when she was succeeded by Miss Amanda C. Morris of Somersworth, daughter of Captain John Morris. John Foster, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1858, was the last principal of the Female Academy. He had the charge of it through the summer and autumn of 1864, and then gave it up. It was never revived. The splendid gift of William Robinson for the educa- tion of the girls of Exeter became known the next spring, and the Female Academy was superseded.
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CHAPTER XV.
THE PRESS.
As there is no more efficient educational agency than the print- ing press, a chapter upon what it has accomplished in Exeter cannot be out of place in this division of our history.
The first printer who practised his art in the town was Robert Luist Fowle, a nephew of that Daniel Fowle who introduced print- ing in the province at Portsmouth in 1756. The uncle and nephew were partners there for a time before the latter came to Exeter, which was apparently before 1775. It is intimated that a difference in their political opinions was a moving cause of their separation, Daniel favoring the views of the "liberty-boys," while Robert inclined towards the conservatives. If so, they made a poor choice of abiding places, for while there was a strong ministerial party under the wing of the royal governor at Ports- month, Exeter, almost to a man, stood up for the liberties of the country.
Robert Fowle, though a poor enough printer, is said to have done some work for the royal government, and afterwards, in 1775, for the new régime. He had enough of the Vicar of Bray in his composition, to appear, at least, to be true to the ruling powers, whoever they might be.
TIIE EARLIEST NEWSPAPER.
In 1776 he began to publish a newspaper in Exeter, called The New Hampshire Gazette or Exeter Morning Chronicle. It was sufficiently patriotic in tone, of course, for nothing else would have been tolerated. He was discreet enough to gain the confidence of the leading men in the popular movement, so that he was at length employed in the delicate and confidential business of printing the bills of credit for the State.
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It was not long before counterfeits were discovered, of these, and of the similar paper currency of other States, and suspicion arose, from various circumstances, that Fowle was concerned in issning the spurious bills. The Committee of Safety at once ordered him to be committed to the jail in Exeter. He had the effrontery then to propose to the committee that in case they would screen him from punishment, he would confess what he knew in reference to the offence. If he had done this from principle, in order that justice might be vindicated, it would have been pardon- able, if not commendable, but his subsequent condnet forbids such a construction of his motives. The committee took him at his word, and he made disclosures of his furnishing the types to one or more tories, from which to print the fraudulent paper money. In return for his revelations the authorities were to allow him his liberty on bail. Whether it was that no one cared to be his surety is not known, but he remained in jail until he took "leg bail," and escaped to the British lines. This was about the first of August, 1777. The Committee of Safety wrote to the committee in Boston to ask their aid in arresting him ; but he was beyond their reach.
In 1778 the Legislature of the State proscribed him with many other loyalists who had fled, and ordered his property confiscated ; but probably he had little left to confiscate, if his complaint after- wards made of the pillaging of his effects had any foundation in fact.
He did not make his appearance again in Exeter for a number of years, nor until peace was established. He was then a pen- sioner, as was said, of the English government as a loyalist who had suffered loss of property for his principles. He married the widow of his brother Zechariah Fowle, and apparently kept a small shop for the sale of English goods in the town. An adver- tisement of his in The American Herald of Liberty, August 13, 1793, requests all indebted to him for newspapers, advertisements, blanks, etc., in the years 1776 and 1777, to make immediate pay- ment ; and notifies those persons who " plundered him of his print- ing office, books of account, papers, book-shop, etc., in 1777, to make satisfaction, or they will be called upon before the Court of the United States." After living in Exeter a few years, he re- moved to Brentwood, and there died in 1802.
There is a tradition that the "forms," from which the unauthor- ized bills of credit were printed in 1777, were some years after- wards found, concealed under a barn. They were probably some
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of those which Fowle acknowledged that he furnished to the tories of the time, who took off impressions from them, to which they forged the signatures. It was one of the methods of injuring and discrediting the government in the Revolutionary War, as is well known, to counterfeit its currency.
Robert Fowle kept up the publication of his newspaper until his arrest in 1777. The number for January 7, in that year, con- tained an account of Washington's victory at Trenton, and a notice by Joseph Stacy, jail keeper, of the escape of three prisoners " lately brought from New York as enemies to American liberty."
He was succeeded in the printing business in Exeter by his brother Zechariah. The latter must have had something of an establishment, for he continued to issue a newspaper, and in 1780 put forth an edition of the laws of the State in a folio volume of one hundred and eighty pages, with various continuations. Zech- ariah was an undoubted whig, and does not appear to have lost the confidence of his party by the defection of his brother. How long he continued his paper is uncertain ; but certainly into 1781, and not improbably a couple of years longer.
It had the same title as the paper contemporaneously issued at Portsmouth, The New Hampshire Gazette. The Exeter journal, from the beginning, exhibited no publisher's name, and was suffi- ciently like its Portsmouth namesake to be mistaken for it except for the imprint at the bottom of the last page- "printed at Exeter."
The political tone of this gazette may be gathered from one or two specimens of its contents. In the number for May 28, 1781, is this item of military intelligence :
"FISHKILL, May 17. A party of ours under Colonel Green were surprised by the enemy about sunrise. Major Flagg was murdered in his bed ; the colonel badly wounded. They attempted to carry him off, but finding he could not march so fast as their fears obliged them, they inhumanly murdered him. Blush, Britain, at the horrid relation !"
In a subsequent number, which contained an account of General Arnold's expedition in Virginia, were these lines, which are more remarkable for their force than for poetical grace :
Oh Benedict, thy name recorded shall stand
On shame's black roll and stink through all the land, In memory fixed so deep that time in vain
Shall strive to wipe those records from the brain.
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Zechariah Fowle died near the close of the war.
A newspaper is said to have been established in Exeter in June, 1784, and to have been discontinued in the succeeding December. Its title was The Exeter Chronicle, and its publishers were John Melcher and George J. Osborne. They were inhabitants of Ports- mouth, but whether either of them lived in Exeter while this short lived venture lasted, is not known.
The next printer who is known to have set up an office in the town was Henry Ranlet. Ile began business in 1785, and about July in that year commenced the publication of a weekly paper called The American Herald of Liberty, which was continued under different names, and by various publishers until 1797. One remark may be made respecting all these early journals, that they are uniformly destitute of local intelligence, and are usually made up of articles extracted from other papers, of a few political essays, and of advertisements, which last are the most interesting of all their contents.
Ranlet was a more skilful printer than either of his predecessors, and the list of his publications is remarkable in number and in variety. Besides his newspaper he printed many books, partly on his own account and partly for publishers in Boston and Worces- ter, Massachusetts, and in Portsmouth. He was one of the earliest of country printers to supply his office with the types for musical characters, and issued as many as ten or twelve volumes of collec- tions of vocal and instrumental music. IIe closed his industrious and respectable life in 1807.
On the principle, perhaps, that "competition is the soul of business," another printing office was opened about the year 1790 in Exeter by Jolm Lamson, who had been a partner of Ranlet in 1787. Mr. Lamson took for his associate Thomas Odiorne, a son of Dea. Thomas Odiorne, and a graduate from Dartmouth College in 1791. Hle possessed literary taste and ability but had no prac- tical acquaintance with the business of a printer. Their connec- tion was of short duration. Mr. Odiorne's name appears alone in the imprint of a few volumes, in point of typography very taste- fully executed for the time. Ile was an author of two or three poetical works, one of which, entitled The Progress of Refinement, was published in Exeter.
THE FIRST NEW TESTAMENT PRINTED IN THE STATE.
In 1794 William Stearns and Samuel Winslow brought out a few publications in the town. In 1796 Mr. Stearns printed and
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partially bound an edition of two thousand copies of the New Testament, the first ever issued in New Hampshire. New Ipswich has claimed the honor of having the first press in the State to put forth any part of the Scriptures, but Dover had preceded it by an edition in 1803, and Exeter was seven years in advance of that. Nearly the whole edition was unfortunately consumed by a fire in the printing office, so that it is almost impossible to find a copy at this day.
The American Herald of Liberty, which was begun by Henry Ranlet, and underwent repeated changes of title, to The New Hampshire Gazette in 1791; The New Hampshire Gazetteer in 1792 ; The Weekly Visitor or Exeter Gazette in 1795, and The Herald of Liberty or Exeter Gazette in 1796, was published succes- sively by the printers already named, Lamson, Lamson & Odiorne, Samuel Winslow and Stearns & Winslow.
SAMPLES OF EARLY JOURNALISM.
One or two extracts from the paper may be amusing. The first is an advertisement of a lost mare :
Perdited or furated on an inauspicious nocturnal hour subse- quent to the day lately authoritatively devoted to humiliation and penitence from the fœnilian dome of the hyposcriptoratid, a leu- cophœated quadruped, of the jumentean order, equestrian genus, feminine gender, capitally fuscated, asterically marked in cinciput, in stature according to equisonic admeasurement fourteen and a half clenched fists, in the quindecimal year of existence, tollutates with celerity, succussates with agility a course concitated, is elegantly graceful, and all in the superlative degree. Whoever from the preceding iconism, by percontation, deambulation, per- scuitation or otherwise, shall give intelligence of the nonpareil, and will apport or communicate the same to me, shall become recip- rocal of a remuneration adequate to the emolument from
JOHN HOPKINSON.
April 18, 1788.
This effusion must probably have been the production of some mischievous student of Dr. Phillips's new academy, as Mr. Hop- kinson was a worthy tradesman, who was about as likely to have written one of Cicero's orations as to have produced such a farrago of turgid bombast.
Another passage from the paper of February 22, 1788, was in relation to the convention then sitting to ratify the proposed Federal Constitution.
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Yesterday the honorable Convention concluded their debates on the several sections of the Constitution, and it is supposed it will be canvassed upon general principles previous to the all important question. In their debates has been the greatest candor, a desire for information on the important subject appears to have been the object of the members composing that honorable body, and from their desire to promote the great interest of the community, we hope the most salutary determinations.
The all important moment is at hand When we the fate of millions must decide, Freedom and peace will soon pervade the land, Or Anarch stretch his horrid pinions wide.
From this extract it is not difficult to infer the political leaning of the paper.
The journal, entitled The Freeman's Oracle or New Hampshire Advertiser, was commenced in the town about August 1, 1786, presumably by Lamson and Ranlet who conducted it in 1788. It bore the imprint of John Lamson alone in 1789, and did not sur- vive that year.
In 1797 Henry Ranlet established a paper entitled The Political Banquet and Farmer's Feast. The Exeter Federal Miscellany was established about December 1, 1798, and the former paper was probably merged in the latter, which, thus fortified, was certainly continued to October, 1799, and perhaps longer.
No complete files of any of these early Exeter journals, which were all weekly publications, are known to exist, and it is from a few scattering copies that the foregoing information has been chiefly derived. It will be seen, however, that from 1774, or earlier, when Robert L. Fowle first set up his press in Exeter, to the end of the century, the town was probably always supplied with one or more printers, and for nearly all the time with a like number of newspapers.
As has been stated, Mr. Ranlet lived and continued his printing business until 1807. During the last part of his life he had as a partner, Charles Norris, a practical printer, who kept up the busi- ness after Mr. Ranlet's death until 1832. A part of that time he had partners. John Sawyer was one, and Ephraim C. Beals another ; and Mr. Norris was for some time connected with the publishing firm of E. Little & Co. of Newburyport, Massachusetts, for which he did a considerable amount of printing. The chef d'œuvre of his press was Hoole's translation of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, published in 1819 in two octavo volumes. It is a really beautiful specimen of Exeter typography.
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It is not known that the town could boast a newspaper between 1800 and 1810, but on May 21, of the latter year, Ephraim C. Beals began the publication of The Constitutionalist, a weekly journal of fair dimensions. In February, 1811, Mr. Beals trans- ferred the paper to Charles Norris & Co., and at the expiration of the first year it came to a stop, probably for lack of support ; but Mr. Beals recommenced it June 23, 1812, and it survived, with two other changes of proprietors, till June, 1814. It has been said that James Thom, a young lawyer, afterwards of Derry, had the editorial charge of the paper, but it is pretty evident that he could have given little time to it, for in respect to original matter and local news, it was but scarcely in advance of its predecessors of the last century. In March, 1813, Joseph G. Folsom became its publisher and editor, but gave it up in the following June on account of ill health, when Nathaniel Boardman took it up and carried it to its end. The period of the war of 1812 was charac- terized by great bitterness of political feeling and by very un- pleasant personalities in journalism, and The Constitutionalist was not entirely free from them.
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