USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > New Ipswich > The history of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, 1735-1914, with genealogical records of the principal families > Part 7
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Voted to Divide the Town into Distrects for the Benefit of Schooling our Children.
Voted to abide in Distrects during the Towns pleasure.
Voted that the West part of the Town be a Distrect for a School according to their Request (viz) to have their proportion of the money Raised in Town for that use according to their pay with appropriating the money wholly to the use of a School.
Voted that the Northeast part of the Town be a Distrect for a School Beginning at Dea". Ephraim Adams's to mr. Smith's mr. Francis Appleton and to m'. Bakers to the Northeast part of the Town under the same Scituation with the first Distrect.
Voted that the East Side of the River be a Distrect for a School (Exclusive of Capt. Hoar) to the East side of said Town under the same Scituation with the first Distrect leaving it to the Selectmen
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History of New Ipswich
wheather m'. Horsley's pasture be annext to them or Joyn to the South Distrect.
Voted that a Distrect be formed on the Country Road from Capt. Hoar's on to m'. Farnsworth with familys adjoyning said Road under the same Scituation with the first Distrect.
Voted that the South East part of the Town be a Distrect from Mr. Wilkins to Sam1. Foster's to m'. Breed's and all to ye East under the same Regulations with the first.
Voted that the South West part of the Town be a Distrect for a School taking m. Zechariah Adams Tho. Spaulding & Joseph Parker and so to the South west corner of the Town, and to the East to the Famelys above mentioned Leving it to the Select men wheather they shall not have some help of the Towns money to make them Equal with other Distrects in proportion to their Children
Voted that each Distrect shall Choose a man to take the Names of the men in Each Distrect an Cary the list of Names to the Select men.
Voted that the Select men give of to the men so choose by the Distrects the proportionable part of money to Each Distrect That is Voted by the Town for the use of the School.
The second of the votes given above concerning the new departure seems to indicate a feeling of uncertainty in rela- tion to its wisdom and consequent permanence, although it was expected to continue without further action as long as it should prove satisfactory. But no provision for the needed buildings was made at that time, and an article in the warrant for the annual meeting two months later, "To see if the Town Raise money to build School Houses in the Several Districts in said Town according to their particular pay," was dis- missed without action. But at the next annual meeting the schools received especial attention, as shown by the number of votes relating to different included matters.
Voted to Raise forty Pounds lawful Money to be laid out in Schooling.
Voted to Employ an English School Master nine months this year. Voted to Raise money to Build School-Houses in the Several Dis- trects in this Town.
Voted not to alter the Distrects.
Voted to Raise Twenty Pounds more for Schooling.
Voted to divide the money among the Several Squadrons according to their pay.
Voted that Each Squadron draw their proportion of the money Raised to Build the School-Houses according to their pay.
And after these was passed the vote which called out first the protest of Mr. Champney and others.
But the action at this meeting was more liberal than the general desire for schools would sustain, and at a meeting
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The First School-houses
the following September it was "Voted that Twenty Pounds that was Raised for Schooling be used for Defraying the Town Charges."
The tax lists show that the sum raised for building school- houses in accordance with the vote on that matter was £80, a sum that it would seem could hardly have been sufficient for even the simplest buildings, but no further action concern- ing the subject appears during a period of eighteen years, at the end of which time, in 1789, it was "Voted to raise three hundred pounds for the purpose of Building and repairing School Houses in New Ipswich," but three months later the action was modified by a vote that "the Selectmen shall not assess the Town for the three hundred pounds voted to build and repair School Houses till the last of Sept. next to give those who are delinquents opportunity to pay their propor- tion. And in case each district do not make it known to the Selectmen that sª delinquents have paid their proportion s'd Selectmen are to proceed to make s' assessment." The exact purport of this vote is rather obscure, but it had delayed the assessment, and for some reason no subsequent assess- ment of that money is to be found.
At the annual meeting in 1800 it was "Voted to raise £630 to build school houses," but here again the sum is not in- cluded in the recorded assessments of the year. It seems probable that it was determined to leave the decision in re- spect to building to the districts separately, as it had already been voted that the expenditure of the assessed money should be left. The records of the "Southwest District" show that this district had just completed a new school-house.
The districts formed in 1770 with so much hesitation and uncertainty, with no expressed sanction of law, and with exceedingly indefinite powers, were a necessity of the condi- tions of the time, and a part of the great movement in all parts of the state by which the district school system came into existence, to be recognized by the state and given defined duties and methods of performing them only after a consider- able period of years.
The six first districts, from which eight others were in due time developed, were destined to more than a century of vigorous life ; and if it prove true that present conditions, which have made a diminution of their number necessary, also demand a complete reversion to the earlier methods, it is
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History of New Ipswich
evident that the greatest care is needed to retain for the scholars in the larger and far better equipped schools the sturdy self-reliant tone which has been characteristic of the New Hampshire country boys.
The boundaries of the six original districts were not very closely defined in the creative vote, and it seems probable that at first each citizen was allowed to choose with which dis- trict he would connect himself, and in many cases when ad- joining districts had their schools at somewhat differing times, the children not too far from the dividing line attended in both districts. In fact, this arrangement was sometimes made in order to allow such mutual helpfulness, with a resultant increase of the scholars attending each school such that a well-known New Ipswich teacher of eighty years or more ago, who bore the names of two early settlers in the town from whom he was descended, Reuben Kidder Gould, said that he had taught in every district of his time, and he had hardly ever had less than forty scholars in any school, the number often rising to fifty or sixty.
An examination of scattered records giving the names of certain residents of some school district leads to a somewhat more definite location of the district bounds than can be de- termined by the initial record alone.
Apparently the "West District" did not greatly vary from the district which in the days of the greatest number of dis- tricts was termed the "North District," or officially was No. 7, except by including the later No. 8, which was not yet sufficiently settled to receive separate consideration. The "North East District" seems to have been very nearly identi- cal with the later "Wilson District," or No. 2. The East District was the later No. 3, or the "Wheeler Tavern Dis- trict," with the houses on the road past the site of the present Country Club house afterward included in District No. 11. The "Middle District" was No. 1, with an extension to meet the "East District" a little east of the bridge at Bank Village. The "South East District" included No. 4, (the "Gibson District,") and all of No. 5, (Smithville,) except the part on Page Hill. The "South West District" included the remaining part of No. 5, the whole of No. 6, (the "Tenney District,") and the few families beyond Binney Hill in the later No. 9.
The first addition to the original six was the "North West District," which in some unexplained manner received £2
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District Divisions
10s. 6d. of the £30 raised in 1770 for use in 1771, but then disappeared for six years, at the end of which it again ap- peared and remained as No. 9. In 1782 the Smithville Dis- trict was formed by a vote that "there be another School District near Thomas Spalding's." The residence of Mr. Spalding was the first on the road running westerly from Smithville by the house long owned by Timothy Fox and his descendants. The district was known as the "New District" until 1795, when its recorded name becomes the "Mill Dis- trict." In 1786 it was "Voted to set off James Preston, Thad- deus Taylor, Peter Baker, and Asa Brown in a school dis- trict," and the "Little South West District" afterwards be- coming the "Southwest corner District" was formed, later being No. 9, and forming a Union district by uniting with the adjacent district of Rindge. District No. 10, known some- times as the "Carr District" and sometimes as the "District over the mountain," was formed in 1820 by a committee authorized by vote of the town to make needed changes of that character. The erection of the cotton factory, and the subsequent development of the mills early in the nineteenth century, necessarily was accompanied with a considerable in- crease of inhabitants in that portion of the town and a result- ing call for a new district. This reasonable request was ignored or refused for several years, but in 1824 District No. 11 was formed on recommendation of a competent com- mittee of investigation, and this constantly increasing district was divided in 1840 by the formation of District No. 12, about the High Bridge. After a somewhat continued struggle District No. 1 was divided in 1842, District No. 13, containing the part of the district about the Congregational church and along the street from the church to the foot of Meeting House Hill, being cut off from the southern portion, and District No. 14, lying about Kidder Mountain and the Saw Mill Brook, from the northern portion. This last district, however, was situated upon two roads meeting but a short distance from the school-house of No. 1, and after three years of vain at- tempt to agree upon a site for a school-house, in 1845 it was returned to its former relations.
There is considerable uncertainty in respect to the loca- tions of the early school-houses. The former history says that at the time of its publication there were no traditions of any such buildings of an earlier date than 1771, when £80
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History of New Ipswich
were voted for their erection, the schools prior to that date having been kept in private houses, the earliest in the resi- dence of Reuben Kidder, which was probably the most com- modious dwelling of that day. Tradition gives the name of William Shattuck as its teacher.
Evidently the normal position for the building of the "Mid- dle District" was designated in the first vote for a school nine years earlier, "as near the meeting-house as a house can be provided," and the former history locates it a short distance to the northwest of that early temple, and says that it later became a carpenter's shop. Probably that building met all the needs of the district until the erection of the house which the same authority places "in the orchard opposite the north- east corner of the old burying-ground," adding that "after the road to the turnpike was built, it was removed down the hill, and placed at the corner of Mr. Hill's garden." This road to the turnpike was built in 1802, and the new location of the school-house after its removal soon after that date seems to have been the corner diagonally opposite to the present Baptist church, and only a few rods south of the brick building which succeeded it in 1829, and was converted into a blacksmith shop after the erection in 1857 of the present house upon the hill.
No records or traditions disclose with certainty the posi- tions of the early school-houses in Districts Nos. 2 and 3; but the situation of the present and past highways in those districts makes the conclusion almost unavoidable that the only positions for the general convenience of the district must have been very near those of the buildings in use during recent years; a conclusion also in harmony with some inci- dental references to those school-houses in early records re- lating to the roads.
The school-house in District No. 4 was preceded by one about half a mile south of the "Gibson Four Corners" on the road to Ashburnham, but no more definite information con- cerning its location can be secured.
A school-house which was probably the first in District No. 5, although it was possibly preceded by one at some point more in accordance with the vote creating the district "near Thomas Spaulding's," stood very near the millpond on the south side of the bridge, practically on the spot now occu- pied by the store and Smithville postoffice, and served the
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School-house Locations
district until 1838, when the present house was erected at a cost slightly exceeding $400. According to tradition, this structure, which for a time was considered the model school- house of the town, had birth in the motion of a citizen of the district that "we build a white house with green blinds and a pretty one," which was duly adopted by the district.
The original school-house in District No. 6 stood a few rods west of the house long occupied by different members of the Chandler family, situated about a quarter-mile west of the South burying-yard. This was succeeded, probably in the last years of the eighteenth century, by a building half a mile farther west near the point where the long-disused road to Ashburnham over Nutting Hill in that town branches from the Rindge road which passes over Binney Hill. The third house, built in 1838 on the spot occupied by the second at a cost slightly less than $200, became a dwelling after the clos- ing of the school in that district, and was destroyed by fire a few years ago.
It is not certain where the first school was held in the district afterward No. 7. It is reported to have been in the first house of "Davis Village" on the left hand of one ap- proaching from the "Hodgkins Four Corners," now the resi- dence of William E. Davis, but whether a part of that building was built for that purpose, or it was a case of continuance of the previous conditions when all the schools were kept in dwelling-houses, tradition is silent.
An early school-house whose foundations are perhaps even yet visible was located on a road now discontinued, but for- merly extending westward from the termination of the road branching northward from the turnpike about a quarter-mile east of the site of the old "Peppermint Tavern," and crossing Flat Mountain nearly half a mile north of the turnpike, and rejoining that road a few rods west of the house of Aaron Brown and his son Hermon, the school being situated where the two roads were so near together that the late Rev. John S. Brown related his recollection of plainly hearing from his home the blows of the rod applied by a sturdy school- ma'am to the back of a delinquent lad, whose cries of pain and promises of amendment added to the awe of the little fellow, as yet too young to go where such methods of instruc- tion were still in full vigor. Probably it was after the sepa- ration of the region beyond the summit, and the formation
6
65
History of New Ipswich
of District No. 8, that the No. 7 school-house, now in existence but used as a henhouse, was built near the house long occu- pied by George W. Wheeler, and at present by his son George S.
*
(At this break in the manuscript Prof. Chandler evidently intended to insert descriptions of other school-houses, but as it is now difficult to learn those facts and the location of each is plainly marked on the map of the town, and as most of the structures were plain and unpre- tentious, a description of each one is omitted .- S. F. L.)
In 1896 the town voted "To have the Selectmen sell No. 6 and 7 school-houses and convert the No. 13 school-house into a storehouse for road machines and other tools."
In 1899 the town voted "to give No. 8 school-house to the inhabitants of Wilder Village, so-called, if they would move it, provided the town could use it for school purposes if they would."
A review of the appropriations made by the town for the maintenance of its schools, despite the proverbial lack of gen- eral interest in a presentation of columns of figures, is found to speak more clearly than other methods concerning the town's fidelity to the interests of the successive rising gene- rations. It exhibits a steady rise in amount, or at least a rise broken only by occasional brief displays of economy, sometimes evidently demanded by existing conditions, as in 1775, when the necessities of preparation for the coming strug- gle with England caused the town to take for such purposes three-fourths of the highway appropriation and one-half of that previously granted for schools, or as during a portion of the Civil War, when the school money was diminished twenty per cent. Omitting such cases and an occasional increase for one or two years, probably equally explainable if the facts were now known, the appropriations have increased as fol- lows :
The £20 of 1768 and the £40 of 1771 before mentioned were increased to £50 in 1773 and £60 in 1775, this last being reduced to £30 a few weeks later, as has been said. The nominal appropriations through the earlier years of the Revo- lution greatly increased despite the demands for military ex- penses, on account of the depreciation of the lawful currency, the grant for schools in 1780 being £5000. But since the
66
School Appropriations
price allowed for work on the highways in payment of taxes was $40 per day, the aspect of those figures is changed. In 1781 there was a reversion to silver money and the school appropriation was £60. The schools of 1783 had £70, of 1784 £100, of 1787 £120, which dropped through the £110 of 1788 to £100 in 1789 and the succeeding six years; it rose to £125 in 1796 and £150 in 1797, at which grade, changing to its equivalent $500 in 1801, it remained during eight years. Although in 1806 and the succeeding two years it temporarily rose to $700, that permanent elevation was not attained until 1825. The year 1833 gave $800, which rose through inter- mediate allowances of $840 and $850 to $900 in 1841, and $1000 in 1845.
After rising and falling, in six years apparently $1500 was adopted as a minimum appropriation in 1851; the grant has not fallen below that sum since that date save in the three years of the Civil War before mentioned. The prosperous years of 1868 and 1869 saw a rise to $1800 and $2000 grants, the last-named remaining permanent for seventeen years with the exception of two years at $1900, and one at $2500. The year 1886, however, gave only $1500, 1887 $1800, 1888 $2000. Since that time the appropriation has varied about equally between $1500 and $1800; until 1907 again set the figures at $2000, and 1908 broke the record by voting for $2250.
A comparison of these later sums with the earlier one raises a mental query concerning the way in which those smaller sums met the supposed needs of the schools, and an examination of some of the old district records may go far to solve the problem. The report of the "Trustee" of the "South West District" reported the expenses of the year 1798. There had been but a single term of school, which was kept by a "master" at three dollars per week, and with a term nine weeks in length instruction for the year required $27, besides payment for the master's board, which called for $9.97 more. The twelve cords of wood consumed during those nine weeks in the huge fireplace occupying one corner of the school-room was probably cut enough by the boys of the school to allow it to be placed upon the fire, but nevertheless $9.69 more of the school money was used before the fuel reached the school-house. Repairs to the building cost $4.84 more, and the entire expenditure was $51.50. In later years there were nearly always two terms even in the smaller dis-
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History of New Ipswich
tricts, but the summer school usually called for only $2 per week, equally divided between the "mistress" and the one who at the school meeting had "bid off" her board. As the term in the smaller district was usually only seven or eight weeks in length, there would be nearly or quite the sum of $40 remaining for the winter term, which with wood at little over one dollar per cord, and teacher's board requiring from seven to nine shillings, that is from $1.1623 to $1.50 per week, would pay a young man, often only sixteen or eighteen years old, or a more experienced woman for perhaps ten weeks' service.
Even as late as 1850 the necessary expenses were still so moderate that the records of the Smithville District, which at that time had sixty names on its school roll in the winter and three-fourths as many in the summer, and employed a "master" and "mistress" of long and successful experience, show the possibility of providing for six or seven months' schooling with the one hundred and fifty dollars which was the amount usually received from the town.
From the days when the schools were entirely under the control of the selectmen, subject only to the vote of the town, as fully as were all other town interests, to the conditions of the twentieth century, is a long course passing in its progress through a period analogous in some respects to the times of "States' Rights" agitation. The school districts of 1770 could hardly be called civic entities in any sense whatever. They were simply geographical divisions of the town made for the convenience of the scholars, but entirely under the control of the central magnates, the selectmen. Although the vote of that year directed the choice of a man by each district to receive the money assigned for its use, it is evident that for a time this was not done, and the money was placed in the hands of some one chosen by the selectmen as their agent for expending the money, or as a "trustee," this name con- tinuing after he was chosen by the district, as is shown in the old district records made after the districts had assumed civic personality. But the time of this assumption is uncer- tain. The term "prudential committee" first appears in the town records in 1828, when it is voted that they be chosen by the districts, and District No. 1 employed that term in the following October; but the new phrase, probably origi- nated by the Legislature in making formal recognition of
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District Rights
the district system, did not reach District No. 6 until six years later. With the district's step into full life came a marked dislike of any outside supervision, manifested in occasional attempts to disregard all town authority. This "district rights" feeling was shown by the insertion of articles in the town warrant like the following considered about 1840: "To see if the town will dispense with any part of the work of the Superintending School Committee, so far as relates to examination or inspection," which suggests entire ignorance of any state control of school activities. Probably this diffi- culty was recognized later, for in 1854 the following action of the town was recorded: "Voted to accept the following resolution, Whereas the laws relative to the Superintending School Committee are unjust in their inception, and arbitrary in their enactment, inasmuch as they deprive the people of their right of controlling their own schools, therefore, Re- solved that the Representatives of this Town be requested to use their influence to procure such an amendment of School laws as shall restore the District their rights which have been unjustly taken from them." The records give nothing further concerning this action which seems so inexplicable in these days of the centralization of power; but some of the older citizens of the town remember that only a few weeks before this action there had been very serious trouble in one of the larger districts of the town, where a considerable majority of its citizens had become dissatisfied with the teacher of their school, and had applied for his dismissal by the superin- tending committee. In reply to the petition an investigation was held before this committee at which both the petitioners and the teacher were represented by legal counsel, and during two or three days witnesses were examined under oath. After due consideration the committee declined to assent to the request, and the petitioners established a private school for their children, who constituted about three-fifths of the school. As the committee at that time consisted of the pastors of three of the four churches of the town, who were known to have differed in their views of the question, and as the divi- sion in the district unfortunately was along church lines, the dissension ran through the town and probably gave the votes required for the passage of the resolution. The representa- tives elected at the meeting which passed this resolution were Hosea Eaton and Jonathan Hall, the latter being the
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