USA > New Hampshire > State builders; an illustrated historical and biographical record of the state of New Hampshire at the beginning of the twentieth century > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
Fortunately we have quite an accurate picture pre- served to us of a typical Scotch-Irish schoolmaster in the
66
STATE BUILDERS
person of "Master Kirby," who had taught school in Portsmouth, and who afterwards settled at Barnstead .* "He was middle-aged, thickset, rather short; his hat, three-cornered, buttoned. His shoes were of heavy leather, high cut, and a large sized button of steel on the instep. His coat was rather of the long-jacket style with massive pockets outside, and a standing collar. His breeches buckled snug at the knee, were of corduroy, his stockings long and inclined to the snuff color. His vest was of vast proportions, buttoned snug at the neck, and made of black and white wool. Snugly ensconced was his 'bull's eye' under its righthand fold. His three-cornered hat much of the time covered the glistening baldness of his pate while his frosted locks gathered and tied in the rear hung in a graceful queue, ornamenting the collar of his coat upon his, spacious round shoulders. His pleasant and graceful bearing bespoke the truthfulness of his early training, and his dialect indicated a nationality of which he was always proud."
The first structures used for schools were made of logs and were extremely crude affairs. The only ap- paratus necessary were a fireplace for warmth, hewn benches for the children, and a rough table for the master. A little later, when sawmills became plentiful, framed buildings with their rude covering of boards and shingles began to replace the log schoolhouse.
A most interesting picture of this type of schoolhouse is given in the History of Chester, N. H.t "The house was fifteen by sixteen feet, six feet stud. The outside boarding was 'feather-edged'; the walls on the inside were ceiled; a loose floor overhead; the door opened into the room and was furnished with a wooden latch and string. There were at first three windows of nine panes each, but afterwards another was added. At first there were on a part of three sides, writing benches, composed
* Town History of Barnstead. ยก Benjamin Chase.
67
STATE BUILDERS
of planks some fifteen or eighteen inches wide, one edge supported against the walls of the house, the other by legs inserted in auger-holes. For seats, slabs with legs were used. The writers, of course, sat with their backs to the teacher.
"Inside of the writers' seats were smaller ones for the younger urchins. The 'Master' had a chair and a pine table in the center, and 'Master Russell' swayed a scepter in the form of a hickory switch long enough to reach every scholar in the house. There was a brick chimney, with a wooden mantel-piece in one corner of the house, which 'so far counteracted the laws of nature that the smoke came down into the house, instead of rising. Green wood was used, which was out in the snow until wanted, so that it took a considerable part of the forenoon before the house was warm, the scholars rubbing their eyes meanwhile on account of the smoke. By this time the mantel-piece was on fire, and some one must get snow and quench it."
Another picture is painted of a schoolhouse in Littleton of a later period .* "The desks, if we examine them, will have, hollowed out upon their upper side, coarse images of Indian fights, canal boats, tomahawks, fox and geese and checker boards, miniature river systems, and many a cut and hack, made in the mere exuberance of youthful spirits, without any apparent design. A look at the walls reveals to us the stucco work of spit-balls and paper quids, fired at flies or imaginary targets, by mischievous boys, and places, too, bare of plaster and whitewash, where some ball or ink bottle has struck in the absence of the teacher."
In some towns where the families were widely scat- tered and large, and families in those days were almost always large, the schoolmaster and the school would move from one section to another. An interesting account of a
* Town History of Littleton.
68
STATE BUILDERS
school of this kind is found in Lancaster .* "There were at least twenty children in this district of school age, and they lived nearly two miles apart. The school would commence in a room at Coffin Moore's, where there were twelve children, but some of them were away. Reading, writing and arithmetic were taught. The school would continue at' Moore's two or three weeks, or what was his proportion of the time, determined by the number of pu- pils, when it would be announced that the school would move. The time having arrived for moving, the larger boys would take the benches (which were made of slabs, with sticks set in auger-holes for legs) upon their sleds, and go to J. W. Brackett's, where there were ten children. A room would be vacated and the benches moved in. A table on which to write would be borrowed, or rudely constructed of pine boards, and the school opened again. The teacher boarded with the family until their propor- tion of the time was filled out. Then the school would make another move to J. B. Week's and from there to Mr. Bucknam's, from whence it next would go to Abiel Lovejoy's and round out its terms." These mov- ing schools were common to all towns before school- houses were erected.
Beside teaching the pupils to improve their minds, the teachers were supposed by precept and example to teach "manners" and good behavior. It is said that Master Abraham Perkins as he approached the schoolhouse dressed in his broad-tailed coat, velvet breeches with sil- ver buckles at the knee, and with a large ivory-headed cane in his hand, always saluted the children by grace- fully removing his three-cornered cocked hat on entering the schoolroom. It was proper also for the pupils as he approached to form in two lines from the schoolroom door, the girls on one side and the boys on the other, at- ranged according to their ages. First came the salute by
* Town History of Lancaster.
69
STATE BUILDERS
Master Perkins, the three-cornered hat being held in his hand as he marched in review between the lines; the boys' caps were doffed in a twinkling and the girls made deep courtesies, as he passed. The children were counter- marched into the schoolhouse behind him. About nine o'clock in the morning the school began. First the small children read from the New England Primer and recited the catechism, which it contained. Then the larger pupils were given the Psalter and the Bible from which some read glibly and fluently, while others drawled and stum- bled through the passages in a manner wonderful to hear.
In some instances the more advanced pupils were al- lowed to bring from home any reader or book which they might chance to possess. These older pupils sat upon the benches in the back part of the room and read around one after another; the teacher, meantime, pretended to listen, but, having no book, the exercise was tiresome in the extreme and the criticisms usually lacking. An ac- count of this kind of exercise is given by Miss Rankin of Littleton : "The monotony of such a dull exercise often threw our master into a profound slumber, and I remem- ber, one time, I, and another mischievous girl, tried to see how hard we could punch our sleeping pedagogue without awaking him. He was so moderate in returning to consciousness that we had ample' time to return to our books with the most intense application, leaving him in entire ignorance as to where the ones were who would presume to disturb his pleasant dreams."
The reading was followed by arithmetic taught by the teacher orally or by rote, as it was called. Usually the rules were written out on pieces of birch bark or on scraps of paper if any pupil was so fortunate as to possess them, and then memorized. After the arithmetic came recess, and it is needless to say that the decorum of the boys on
70
STATE BUILDERS
their entrance to school was not maintained on their exit at recess time.
The sports of those early times, indulged in at recess and at the noon intermission, were not so very different from those of the children of to-day. As one of the early chroniclers has put it: "They had 'pizen gool,' or goal, tag, snap the whip, high-spy, 'eny, meny, mony, mi'; the larger boys 'rasseled,' at arms length, side holts and backs, and lifted at stiff heels. At a later day when school kept in autumn or in winter they snowballed, slid down hill or skated on the glare ice."
After recess came the writing lesson, for which it was the duty of the teacher not only to "set the copy" in the writing books, but also to make and mend the pens for the pupils' use. These pens were made of quills plucked from the wings of geese, and considerable skill and expe- rience were needful to make a serviceable article. To make or mend a score or so of pens each day was some- thing of a task. Occasionally pens were made from quills which had been boiled in oil. They were much superior to the common pens and were called "Dutch quills." The latter were not commonly used since they must be brought from Boston or Newburyport.
After the writing lesson came the spelling which was entirely oral and was usually conducted by choosing sides and spelling down. The best speller in the school was a noted personage, and in choosing sides he was always the first to be called. Sometimes school districts would unite for a spelling match and great glory awaited the boy or girl who came off victor and brought honor to his or her district.
The spelling of words was always done by syllable; each syllable was spelled, pronounced, then the next syl- lable was spelled, pronounced, then both were pronounced together, the same method being followed throughout the word. When a word like Constantinople was spelled in
7I
STATE BUILDERS
this way it took considerable time and not a little breath.
Frequent mention is found of singing schools con- ducted by some master of the art, and usually held in the evening in a schoolhouse centrally located. These sing- ing schools were largely attended by the young men and women of the entire township, and to escort the young maids to and from the singing school was not the least of its attractions. One system of singing in vogue at the time was invented by Mr. Tufts, minister of the church in Newbury. His book was published in 1712 and con- tained twenty-eight tunes with rules for singing the same. His "system" was to print on the staff the first letters of the Italian syllables instead of notes, thus d would stand for do, r for re, m for mi, etc. It is said that this method became very popular. At any rate, whatever scheme was used was much better than singing by rote, as the people usually did, whereby "the melodies underwent many transformations." Rev. Mr. Walters, evidently a man of some humor and with not a little knowledge of music, hands down to us the following account of chorus sing- ing in the early times : "Singing sounds like five hundred different tunes roared out at the same time. The singers often are two words apart, producing noises so hideous and disorderly as is bad beyond expression. The notes are prolonged so that I myself have twice in one note paused to take breath."
The rules of behavior were very accurately laid down and woe betide the youth who thoughtlessly or recklessly disobeyed them. The ways of punishment were exceed- ingly varied and ingenious; even the ordinary "black strap" had its variations as will be shown later. Indeed much of the school time was consumed not to say wasted in violent exercise, participated in both by the teacher and pupil. Among the milder forms of punishment was "sit- ting on nothing" or "on the top end of an old-fashioned elm bark seat chair, turned down." Again the pupil
72
STATE BUILDERS
would be compelled to hold out horizontally a heavy book. Stooping down to hold a nail or peg in the floor, "with an occasional smart rap on the rear," to keep the culprit from bending his knees, standing in the corner and sitting with the girls were also very mild forms of punishment.
Master Hogg, one of the earliest teachers in Sutton, employed a unique form of punishment which he called "horseing," and an appropriate term it was. The modus operandi was as follows: As soon as a boy was caught misbehaving he was promptly called into the floor. It was usually not long before two other youngsters were ready to keep number one company. The requisite num- ber now having been obtained, the "circus" began. The first offender was made to get down on his hands and knees, number two must mount on his back, while a third culprit was compelled to whip them soundly around the room. This punishment was made perfectly fair, since the boys were obliged to "swap" places until each had taken his turn at "whipping once and being whipped twice."
It was not all fun for the teachers in those early schools. Often the larger boys would combine forces, boldly advance upon the master, and if successful in their onslaught, they would carry him forth from the school- house and boldly pitch him into a snowdrift or duck him in some nearby creek. It required a man with some nerve to take a school where his predecessors had been severally and in turn ejected in this manner. John Gillett on com- ing to a school of this kind in one of the New Hampshire towns started the morning services after the pupils had assembled by striding back and forth through the school- room several times; then, turning suddenly, he said with a voice which made the windows rattle, "Boys, if you don't behave I'll lick you, then if you don't behave I will follow you home and lick your parents."
73
STATE BUILDERS
It is told also of Master Richard Adams, who taught the Sugar Hill district in Weare, that he had in his school as many as twenty strapping boys, each one of whom was over six feet tall. One day, at a preconcerted signal, they all arose and marched in single file around the room. As the foremost boy passed the fireplace, he seized a burning branch from the hearth and shouted to his followers, "Shoulder firelock!" But at that point Master Adams took a hand in the affair and ordered "Ground firelock! consarn ye." At the same instant he gave the leader a blow which stretched him at full length on the floor. It is said that no better ordered school was ever taught in that district than the one taught by Master Adams.
Some of the punishments seemed needlessly cruel and unnecessary, but it must be remembered that corporal punishment was part of the spirit of the times. The parents knew that they had received thrashings when they went to school, and it seemed to them in some indefinable way a necessary though painful part of the child's educa- tion. Doubtless the wisdom of Solomon was often quoted in relation to the need of not sparing the rod. A certain Master Thurston, who taught for many years in Bos- cawen, was a noted disciplinarian, and when in those days a master was noted for "discipline" you may be sure that he deserved it. It is related that Master Thurston had as one of his instruments a black leather strap, made in two pieces with sheet lead stitched between them. On one end of this strap he had punched four holes and on the other five. His mode of procedure was this: Hold- ing the strap in full view of the trembling youngster, he would ask, "Which will you have, four holes or five?" If the boy said four the master would reply, "For fear of making a mistake I will give you both." It was a current remark in West Salisbury, where Thurston taught several terms, "that the surrounding farms never would have
74
STATE BUILDERS
been cleared of birches if Master Thurston had not been employed so long as a teacher."
McDuffee in his "History of Rochester" speaks of a one-armed schoolmaster, a veteran of the Revolution, who was a noted wielder of the birch and rod; the strength of his lost arm seeming to supplement the muscle of the one remaining. His name, Tanner, seemed pecu- liarly appropriate; the boys, indeed, deeming it the most fitting thing about him. His successor, Master Orne, was said to have been remarkable, in fact unique, in the way in which he dealt out punishment. "He flogged singly, and by classes, and by the whole school; just as officers review their soldiers, by squads, by companies, by battalions and by regiments." It was of no use for the boys to rebel, they obtained little sympathy at home. The parents considered that it was what they had received when they went to school, "and what was good enough for them was good enough for the children." It is strange how history repeats itself even in educational matters.
There is preserved among the writings of Master Jacob N. Knapp, who taught school more than one hundred years ago, an accurate picture of the school life of that time. The account runs as follows: "In the winter of my 17th year, I received an invitation to teach school for three months in Loudon, near Concord, N. H. A school- master's wages were at that time $6 a month and board. My school consisted of about 40 pupils. It was composed of both sexes and all ages. Most of the children under 10 years of age wore leather aprons, reaching from their chins to their ankles. These aprons, after being worn a little time, became striped and shining with bean porridge, which in winter made the principal food of the children. Many of the little girls took snuff; it was the fashion.
"In my school I had often used signals instead of words. The exercises in reading and spelling for the day
75
STATE BUILDERS
were about to commence. I, as usual, gave with the ferule one tap upon the table. The first class came out from their desks on to the open floor, and stood in a line. On receiving a slight sign, the head pupil read; then the next, and so on to the last. At receiving a bow from their teacher, each one bowed or courtesied and returned noise- lessly to his or her desk. Two raps upon the table called up the second class, who were exercised and dismissed in the same manner. Three raps called up the third class. This division closed the exercises. The school was dis- missed.
"The people there and then considered it a privilege to board the schoolmaster. To accommodate them, I boarded in 13 different families, and thus became inti- mately acquainted with every individual in the district. The price of board was 4 shillings and 6 pence a week. Lived well; fat beef and pork, lambs and poultry, in their seasons; butter, honey and drop cakes abounded; coffee, tea and cream were liberally supplied."
As seen from Master Knapp's account a schoolmaster's wages were about six dollars a month. Sometimes they ran as low as four dollars per month, and in some in- stances the master was not paid in money at all, but drew his salary in so many bushels of grain, wheat or rye, as the case might be. The town of Bath voted one year to raise sixty bushels of wheat for the support of the school. In fact this item of raising grain to be used for school purposes is frequently met with in town records. The use of grain for money at a time when specie was very scarce and when the country was overrun with paper money, whose value was almost nothing, is not surprising. Good grain could always be exchanged for the necessities of life and its value as a medium of exchange was more or less fixed.
The two following receipts not only show instances of this kind of payment, but also indicate the relative value
76
STATE BUILDERS
placed upon the master's teaching as compared with that of the marm's teaching.
March 21, 1792.
Then my son Robert Hogg, received seventeen bushels of Rie from Simon Kezar of Sutton which was due to me for teaching schooling two months in Sutton.
Per me. Robert Hogg. Methuen, Feb. 1, 1791.
Received of Jacob Mastin and Hezekiah Parker six bushels of Rye, it being in full for my keeping school for them and others last fall six weeks.
Lydia Parker.
It must not be thought that this was all the money the teacher lived upon during the year. The schools were generally so arranged in the different neighborhoods that they would begin one after another. The master could thus travel from one district to the next and be pretty constantly supplied with a school.
In addition to the funds raised directly for the support of the schools there was usually a little revenue from the "town lot." In all grants of township made by the Masonian Proprietors, by Massachusetts and by John Wentworth II, one lot or share, generally about one hundred acres, of the land, was set aside for the use of schools. This was usually done also by other governors. Frequent mention is made of this school lot or lots in different town records; in some instances it was voted to lease the land and to use the money for the support of schools. Other towns appropriated the land for public purposes and occasionally the lot was sold. The town of Rochester, March 12, 1749, "Voted that the selectmen of this town let out the school lot to those that will give the most for it for the present year. And the rent to be combarted to the towns youce."
77
.
STATE BUILDERS
Besides the methods above indicated for raising school money, in the very earliest schools it was the custom "that every man should bring two feet of wood for each scholar that he sent to school," and "that every man should chop his own wood that he brings to the school- house." Later, however, this custom changed somewhat, and the task of furnishing the school firewood was gen- erally set up at auction and struck off to the lowest bidder. It was sometimes bid in by a man who had a quantity of cheap wood which he wished to get rid of and who ac- cordingly determined to dispose of it to the schools for the boys to work up. The amount was not stipulated, the agreement usually being that as much wood would be hauled as was necessary. A certain Abner Hoit was fur- nishing brown ash, and poor at that, to a school in the central part of the state, much to the disgust of the boys. Finally, when there were but three more days to the close of school, Abner drew a cord of ash and said that it must last the term out. The large boys determined not to be dictated to as to the quantity of wood even if they were obliged to accept the quality, and cut and burned the entire cord in one day. The pitch fried out of the pine knots in the ceiling, but at sundown not a stick of wood remained, and Hoit was obliged to haul another load.
In the same neighborhood lived a certain Moses Mudgett, an easy-going individual, who found it less troublesome to borrow wood from the schoolhouse pile, already chopped by the boys, than to chop his own wood. The larger boys soon suspected who was taking such an interest in their wood pile, and they determined to fix the old gentleman. Accordingly they bored holes in a few of the larger sticks, filled them with powder and drove in a tightly fitting wooden plug. This scheme worked to perfection. Moses got some of the loaded sticks that very night and put them on his fire under a
78
STATE BUILDERS
boiling pot. When the explosion came it is said that "the pot shot up through the great chimney flue into the clear sky and landed in the field over behind the barn." The lesson was thoroughly taught and the schoolhouse wood was thereafter untouched.
The burning of such quantities of wood during the term naturally caused an accumulation of ashes. These ashes were not then used for fertilizer, but were consid- ered of value by the housewives for making soft soap and also in the manufacture of potash. It was a long estab- lished custom in many of the New Hampshire schools for the big boys who had worked up the wood to have the ashes. These, sorrowful to state, were sold to buy rum with which to celebrate the last day of school. When we consider that it was customary for boys to attend school until they were twenty-two or twenty-three years old and oftentimes older, this custom does not seem so surprising, particularly as the use of New England rum was so common. The way in which the use of "spirits" was looked upon is seen in the following anecdote.
It seems that one day while "Good Mother Winslow" was visiting a country school in Northfield, through some accident, the fore stick, back log and all came rolling down out of the fireplace onto the broad hearth. The room, instantly filled with smoke, and before matters could be "set, to rights" again, there being no shovel and tongs, pupils and all were nearly suffocated. Mother Winslow, so the story goes, with great indignation ex- claimed, "It were better to sell the ashes for shovel and tongs than to buy rum for the scholars." She was silenced at once by a voter present, who replied, "Let 'um have their rum-let 'um have it. It'll do them as much good as salt does sheep once in a while." And so the ashes did not go for shovel and tongs.
The district school as it existed in our forefathers' time differed but little from many of the country schools
79
STATE BUILDERS
in existence to-day. The "master," however, has been displaced and the master's daughter reigns in his stead.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.