USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Haverhill > History of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire > Part 17
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The school buildings were at first hardly up to the standard of "the little red schoolhouse." They certainly lacked paint, either red or other color. In 1787 the town voted to build four schoolhouses, and the
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HISTORY OF HAVERHILL
sum of £100 was appropriated to make the vote effective. Each district was to have the proportion of the money to which it was entitled by its valuation.
It was further voted that "scholars must attend school in their own district." The sum raised was insufficient to build the houses and at a special town meeting held January 10, it was voted to raise £60 pay- able in wheat at 5s a bushel to finish the schoolhouses, and at the annual meeting in 1789, it was voted to raise £50 more for the same purpose, payable in wheat at 6s and Indian corn at 3s. These schoolhouses would be considered crude affairs today, and were crude then, but they would compare favorably with those in other northern New Hampshire towns. Such as they were they answered the purpose until 1805, when, at the annual town meeting it was "voted to raise $1,000 to build school- houses in the different school districts to be divided between the different districts in proportion to money raised by the town." Had the money been divided equally, it would have given the town four houses costing $250 each. A beggarly sum it seems, and yet nearly half a century later, that amount was deemed sufficient to build a good schoolhouse.
The first schoolhouse in district Number Thirteen, the Woodsville district, was built in 1847. It was the average schoolhouse in respect to architecture, furnishings and conveniences. It was used as a schoolhouse until 1872, when the new and better building was erected to accommodate the increasing number of pupils. Even then it was not torn down. It was transformed into a dwelling house, and is still standing on its original site at the foot of the hill on South Court Street, one of the better class of tenements. At a meeting of the voters of district Number Thirteen January 29, 1848, it was "Voted to accept of the schoolhouse built by John L. Woods with twenty-one dollars reduction from the two hundred and fifteen dollars, which the committee recommend be allowed for defects, making one hundred and ninety-four dollars that the district are to pay for the house." It was also "voted to raise two hundred and fifty-five dollars for the purpose of purchasing the schoolhouse built by J. L. Woods, Esq., and fitting it up and furnishing stove, out buildings and other apparatus and fixings for the same and location."
Two hundred and fifty dollars was not so small a sum for building a schoolhouse one hundred years ago as might at first seem. Architec- turally these houses were pretty much the same throughout the state, and remained the same for a half century or more. Who of the older genera- tion of today does not remember that schoolhouse-the successor of the log building of the eighteenth century? It was located as near the geographical centre of the district as the highways would permit. It was usually a square building-sometimes, however, oblong. You entered the one door through a vestibule (entry) sometimes flanked by a wood
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HISTORY OF HAVERHILL
shed. Facing you was the teacher's desk on a small raised platform about four feet square, and in front of it was a seat intended to accommodate three or four of the alphabet scholars. On either side next to the wall ran a long plank seat, with two or three (as the case might be) rows of desks, also made of spruce or pine plank, with shelf underneath, and raised some six or eight inches from the floor. On level with the floor and facing the centre of the room was another row of desks with plank seats, and these were fronted with seats without desks, to be used by the smaller scholars, or for recitation purposes. There was the same arrangement of seats on each side. There was a boys' side and a girls' side. The boys' side was next to the road, because the boys were regarded as having less curiosity to look out of the windows at passers by than the girls, and the windows, small with their 7 by 9 panes of glass, were placed so high there was little temptation for either sex to look out. The desks were intended for two pupils each, but when the school was crowded three or four could be accommodated at the wall desks, by using all the seat space, and taking turns at the desks. These had been made plain, but on the boy's side, for boys had jackknives, they soon became anything but plain. They were ornamented with "fly traps," initials, carvings (no one ever knew who did the ornamentation and carving). In the earlier days the door was in one corner, so to give room for the big fireplace at the end fronting the throne of schoolmaster, or schoolma'am, but later the centre of the room was occupied by the big box stove. In the winter the big boys and girls froze on the wall seats, and the little folks on the front seats roasted.
The pupils in winter, which was the important school term, ranged in age all the way from four years to twenty, but the basis of the course of study for all was "Readin', Ritin' and Rithmetic." There were side courses in "jography" and grammar with its parsing. The boys on alternate Saturdays "spoke pieces" and both boys and girls wrote com- positions. Spelling was embraced under the head of reading and had perhaps more careful attention-but "Readin', Ritin' and Rithmetic," was the basis of instruction. Nothing was neglected for this. The reading classes and spelling classes came into the centre of the floor and stood in line for recitation. If there was a crack between the floor boards, and there usually was, this was the mark on which they stood in line; if there was none there was a chalk mark, and boys and girls when forming in line were required to "toe the mark." At the end of the room on either side the door were the blackboards, veritable blackboards, pine or spruce boards painted black, and these were in constant use by the arith- metic classes. Now and then a schoolhouse boasted an outline map or two, and once in a while there was a schoolmaster of mechanical acquire- ments who fashioned blocks by which he explained cube root to the more
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advanced scholars. As for ventilation, there was usually plenty fur- nished by illfitting doors and windows, if not by cracks through the walls of the house. Sanitation was of nature's provision; modern microbes and germs had not been invented.
Who, also, of the older generation does not remember the school "kept" in that schoolhouse? There were two terms a year, a summer term kept by a schoolma'am, and a winter term by a master, as in such cases it was felt necessary to have some one who "kept order." This "keeping order" was regarded as one of the first essentials. The master was first of all to have the ability to soundly "thrash" the big unruly boys or any combina- tion of them, if such "thrashing" was necessary to keep order. Seats were not assigned. They were pre-empted. The boy who first got his books on a certain desk on the first Monday of school had established his claim to seat and desk. There were early arrivals on that Monday morning, and entrances were effected through windows where the door was locked. The school was its own janitor. The girls alternated in sweeping the floor, and in the winter time the boys by turn kindled the fire and attended to it during the day.
At the annual district school meeting it was decided whether the teacher should board round or his board should be hired at some one place. In the latter event the board was frequently set up at auction and bid off by lowest bidder. The writer remembers his first experience as school- master: he had been bid off for seventy-five cents a week, and his remem- brance of that boarding place are among the pleasantest of a lifetime. His salary for the three months' school was thirteen dollars per month and board, a total of thirty-nine dollars. The next winter he boarded round. It was a Haverhill country school. His board at the different families of the district was timed in several cases by "killing hogs." He has still vivid remembrances of fresh pork, sausage, "souse" and scraps.
Recitation periods were not lengthy. There was time each forenoon and afternoon for exercises in reading and spelling by the entire school, divided into classes according to age and proficiency. Arithmetic, geography, grammar, perhaps United States history, with a brief period for writing in the copy book occupied the rest of the time. The morning session opened at nine o'clock with reading by those able to read one verse alternately from the New Testament, and if he was "a professor" and understood to be pious, prayer by the teacher. The issue of the Bible in schools had not been raised. The pupils were almost exclusively of Yankee Protestant stock.
There was not a prescribed course of study and text-books were few. Even as late as 1831 text-books were not numerous. George Woodward, Cummings Sanborn and David Blaisdell, 3d, superintending committee, issued the following order as late as December 7, 1831:
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List of text-books authorized by the school committee: no others permitted. New Tes- tament, Webster's Spelling Book, Easy Lessons, Webster's School Dictionary, Colburn's Arithmetic and Colburn's Sequel, Murray's Grammar, Political Class Book, Good- rich's Math, Brun's Geography, Historical Reader, Goodrich's History of the United States.
This list, "no others permitted," gives an idea of the studies pursued as late as 1831 in the district schools. And Haverhill was in advance of other towns .*
As early as 1800 the sum of $333 was appropriated for the four district schools including the amount required by law. In 1810 this amount was increased to $500; in 1820, to $600; in 1830, to $700; in 1840, to $820; in 1880, $1,730 with $25 additional for support of Teacher's Institute in Western Judicial District. Year by year these appropriations were increased. In 1890 the sum of $4,000 was raised and appropriated; in 1900, $4,500. Previous to 1810, the supervision of the schools, in addi- tion to that of the prudential committee of each district, was assigned to the selectmen. In this latter year the town at its annual meeting chose as "committee in addition to the selectmen to visit schools," Ezra Bartlett, John Smith and Moses Campbell. Such committee was chosen annually till 1815, when the selectmen were relieved of responsi- bility in visiting schools, and a committee for such work was chosen consisting of Joseph Bell, Esq., Rev. Grant Powers, Ephraim Kingsbury, Stephen P. Webster and John Kimball. This was the first superintending committee, composed of the town's leading citizens, men of liberal educa-
* Lists of text-books previous to the publication of this authorized list are difficult to find, but some of the books which did service have survived their hard usage, and are still in existence as curiosities. There was "the New England Primer improved for the more easy attaining of the true reading of English to which is added the Assembly's and Mr. Cotton's catechism." This was published in Massachusetts and had for a frontis- piece a portrait of "John Hancock, Esq., late President of Congress," and also of John Rogers, burning in the flames at the stake with his wife and nine small children, one at the breast looking on. There was an illustrated alphabet begining with, "In Adam's fall we sinned all," and then the catechism, in which the children were periodically instructed by the minister. For readers the older pupils used the "American Preceptor" and the "Columbian Orator." Daboll's Arithmetic antedated Dillworth's Schoolmasters' Assistant just as that antedated Adams' Arithmetic. The text-book par excellence, however, was "the American Spelling Book, by Noah Webster, Jun, Esquire." The title page of the ninth edition of this remarkable book, published in 1794, further de- scribes it as "Containing an easy standard of pronunciation, being the first part of a grammatical institute of the English language, to which is now first added an appendix containing a moral catechism and a federal catechism with many corrections and im- provements by the author." A thorough knowledge of this little book from cover to cover, with its classic stories of "the old man who found a rude boy in one of his apple trees stealing apples," the milk maid, the cat and the rat, etc., amounted to a pretty liberal education. Its one blemish was the awful woodcut of the immortal Noah as a frontispiece, which the publishers were petitioned to omit on the ground that it frightened the children.
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tion. Thenceforward, for a period of seventy years until the district system was abolished, the town has cach year had its superintending school committee. The list of names of those who have filled this office is a. distinguished one, evidencing the interest of the town in its schools. On this list, besides those already mentioned, are found such names as Stephen R. Page, Moses Porter, John Nelson, George Little, Andrew Mack, Samuel Cartland, Jacob S. Clark, William Ladd, Josiah F. Wilson, David Sloan, John Angier, Archibald Fleming, David Burroughs, Samuel Delano, Nathan B. Felton, Hiram Morgan, Eben Eastman, Charles R. Morrison, George S. Towle, Samuel Adams, Phineas Spalding, Chas. A. Dounning, Daniel F. Merrill, Chas. H. Chase, H. H. Tenney, L. W. Prescott, George F. Putnam, Harvey Knight.
In 1885 the district system of school organization was abolished, and the town was made a single district, with the exception of Woodsville, which had previously been created into a district by itself, a part of Bath having been united with it. Some of the old schoolhouses have been abandoned. New schoolhouses have been erected at East Haver- hill, Pike, and North Haverhill, and the schoolhouses which are still used for school purposes in the former Number Six, Ten, Fifteen and Ladd Street districts, are either new or have been modernized to meet up-to-date conditions. Districts numbered One and Seventeen at the Corner have been united, and by a contract with the trustees of Haver- hill Academy, a single school with three departments, high, grammar and primary, has been established in the commodious new brick building, still bearing the name of Haverhill Academy, erected on a lot adjoining the old.
In 1872 the old $255 schoolhouse in Woodsville was replaced by a new two story building with rooms for primary and grammar grades, and for the high school grade later established. In 1901 this was replaced by the large and commodious building, now used for primary and grammar grades, which was erected at a cost of upwards of $20,000. In 1913 in order to meet the increasing needs of the high school, and provide room for the primary and grammar grades, the fine new high school building, with all modern improvements and appliances now standing on King's Plain, was erected at a cost of nearly $30,000. It meets the requirements of a school which ranks with the best in the state.
Haverhill takes a just pride in its schools of today. It makes liberal appropriations for their support. In conjunction with Bath it employs an efficient superintendent who devotes his entire time to supervision. It has two high schools, from one of which graduates are admitted to the New England colleges (except Yale and Harvard) on certificate, and care is exercised in selection of teachers to secure only those of known efficiency, of normal training or its equivalent. It may well remember, however,
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with grateful appreciation, its old time district school. Some things were accomplished and well accomplished. Not so much was attempted as at present, but the few things attempted were pretty thoroughly done. The foundations of education were laid. Obedience to authority was main- tained and enforced. Sound morals and the homely virtues were incul- cated. Good citizens were trained and developed by the somewhat hap- hazard courses (if they might be so called) of instruction. The district schoolhouses were also used for other purposes. Religious meetings were held in them, and more than one great religious awakening in the town had its beginning at some meeting held in some one of the district school- houses. The annual district school meetings were often occasions of lively interest. These were duly warned with all the formality attendant on the warning of the annual town meeting, and all matters pertaining to the schools were discussed and acted upon.
The choice of a "Prudential Committee" was the important matter, and contests over his election were frequent and sometimes bitter. It was a distinct honor not lightly esteemed nor thoughtlessly conferred. Unless otherwise ordered by the voters, the prudential committee en- gaged teachers, arranged for their board, provided for the wood, had the care and oversight of the schoolhouse. Sometimes a committeeman was guilty of employing a daughter, a niece, or some other relative as teacher; sometimes he boarded the teacher in his own home or in the home of a relative or some particular friend, and fixed the compensation; sometimes it was thought he got a personal "rake off" from the wood he purchased of a neighbor. There was temptation for graft and nepotism besetting the prudential committee. Sometimes politics entered into district affairs. A Whig committee would not readily be forgiven for hiring the son or daughter of a Democrat as teacher or for boarding the teacher in a Demo- cratic family, and it hardly need be said that Democrats were no less violently partisan than their Whig neighbors. Blood and politics in school district matters were thicker than water.
It is to be regretted that the records of these school districts have not been more carefully preserved. An effort was made after the districts were abolished to collect them and deposit them in the office of the town clerk, but this met with little success. The records for a single year in two of the districts are fair illustrations of those for other years in other districts and are not without interest.
At the annual district meeting in Number Thirteen, March 29, 1845, held in the store of John L. Woods, Alba Hall was elected moderator and prudential committee, and B. S. Bard, clerk. There were evidently sus- picions concerning the management of affairs, for first of all it was "voted that all the business done by the committee for the district for the year shall be handed in to the clerk and he shall record it."
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HISTORY OF HAVERHILL
Voted that the mistress shall board round with the schollers.
Voted to join with the district on the other side of the river (Bath), for a summer school.
Voted that the committee confer with the committee on the other side of the river about organizing the districts together.
Voted that committee procure wood for the ensuing winter.
Voted to instruct the committee to hire the same mistress that kept the school in this place last summer.
Committeeman Hall, thus instructed, made the following report:
Paid out. Repairs on schoolhouse: 8 lights glass and nails, 48; 1 door ketch, 12; 8 lbs.
nails, 48; 1 day's work by Mr. King, 75; one day's work by Mr. Whitcher, 75; } day by Mr. Sanborn, 33; door handle, bolts and screws, 52; work of Koster Annis, 25; Mr. Hall, 1} days work, 1.00; door hinges and latch, 88; boards, 83; total ... $6.39 Wood
5.15
Paid for summer school. 21.83
Paid Master. 47.25
Paid Moses Abbott, Jr., for stove 4.67
Paid M. Abbott, for board
8.82
$94.11
Amount of money received in both districts
93.95
Balance due committee
$0.16
There is no record that Mr. Hall ever received the 16 cents he was out of pocket. This may have been the price of the honor conferred. But he may have been in on the wood deal, or Moses Abbott, who had received $13.49 of the district money, may have considered him.
The present Ladd Street schoolhouse was not built as were the others of the town by a committee appointed for the purpose by the district, but it was erected on the site of the old meeting house by certain prominent Ladd Street citizens as a private enterprise, the district being given cer- tain rights in the building in consideration of a certain specified sum. This was the agreement:
We, the undersigned, agree to build a two story house, about 36 by 28 feet on the ground, and to furnish District Number Two with a schoolroom on the lower floor, the same to be finished in as good a manner as the schoolroom in District Number One; the outside of the building and the lower story to be finished; also to put in a belfrey and hang the bell on the same; we further agree to underpin said house with good stone, and place a good door stone at the door, said house to be finished by the middle of June, 1849. The above agreement is in consideration that the district pay us three hundred and fifty dollars.
Signed
HENRY MERRILL, J. H. WOODWARD, JAMES H. PEARSON.
The upper room is to be used for public meetings or lectures at the disposal of the district.
HISTORY OF HAVERHILL
145
The building was finished according to agreement, and was occupied for school purposes during the school year 1849-50. The historic meeting house bell of which the Congregational church, after its purchase of the brick meeting house at Haverhill Corner, had tried in vain to get posses- sion, and which had been kept in concealment by the Ladd Street people for years, was brought out of its hiding place and hung in the belfry.
It appears that the building was under different rules and regulations than those pertaining to the ordinary district schoolhouse, since there were printed and framed a set of by-laws governing its control. The report of Lyman Buck, prudential committee, made to the annual school district meeting, March 27, 1850, gives at least the outlines of a picture which represents educational conditions in the Ladd Street district during this first year of the school service of the bell.
SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 2 IN ACCOUNT WITH LYMAN BUCK, DR.
1849
Aug. 2
For paying for printing by-laws and frame
$1.25
Sept. 7
Paid for insurance policy .
3.49
22
for rent for stove, and broom, 1.19-25
1.44
27
for stove and pipe, wire and hooks
15.13
Oct. 3
S. F. Hook for three chairs
1.26
20
Mrs. Ward for 8 weeks' teaching and board .
21.34
Nov. 17
for 80 feet of boards .
.90
23
Mrs. Woods for four weeks' teaching and board
12.67
1850
Jan. 11
for Shaker broom.
.34
26
66 J. B. S. Chandler for 8 weeks' teaching
36.00
Mar. 8
66 Mr. Emery for 6 wks' teaching and board 14 wks'
48.00
11
66 J. H. Pearsons for wood 4 1-2 months.
12.00
1849
CREDIT
Aug. 26
Rec'd from Charles Smith former committee
$7.53
Sept. 7
66 of the selectmen on order.
37.00
27
66 for old stove sold at Bradford. 3.79
1850
Jan. 11
town order to pay for shed, stove and pipe 39.50
Feb. 2
town order for all due District No. 2.
100.37
$188.19
Which leaves a balance due from your committee of $7.69 after charging nothing for getting the stove and pipe, and setting them up, and for washing the schoolhouse out, and cleaning it out twice. I, therefore, move that there is nothing allowed our com- mittee for cleaning up our schoolhouse for the paltry $1.50 allowed last year.
The committeeman evidently had a feeling that school districts as well as republics, were ungrateful.
11
66 George Piersons for building woodshed
24.37
$180.50
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HISTORY OF HAVERHILL
An interesting glimpse into the affairs of the district at this period is obtained from the warrant posted by Mr. Buck, warning the District Number Two school meeting in March, 1850:
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[L. S.]
To the Legal Voters of School District No. 2 in the Town of Haverhill:
You are hereby notified to meet at the schoolhouse in said district on Wednesday the 27th day of March inst., at 7 o'clock in the afternoon for the transaction of the following business, viz .:
1st To choose a moderator to preside in said meeting.
2d To choose a clerk, prudential committee and other necessary officers for the ensuing year.
3d To see if the district will have a summer school.
.4th To see if the district will have the teachers board round, and if not, see if they will set the board at auction to the lowest bidder.
5th To see if the district will set the wood for the winter school up at auction to the lowest bidder.
6th To see if the district will consent to have the upper part of the schoolhouse con- trolled by J. H. Woodward or any other person, contrary to the by-laws of said district.
7th To transact any other business thought proper, when met.
Given under my hand and seal at said Haverhill this 11th day of March, 1850.
LYMAN BUCK,
Prudential Committee for the District.
It is to be regretted that no record of the proceedings of this first meeting in the new schoolhouse has been preserved. It would be inter- esting to know whether the teachers "boarded round" or were "struck off to the lowest bidder." There was evidently trouble also concerning that upper room. The builders of the schoolhouse, and the district authorities were at odds. There is no record of how the difference was settled.
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