USA > Vermont > Orange County > Newbury > History of Newbury, Vermont, from the discovery of the Coos country to present time > Part 23
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These three churches use a version of the Psalms in meter, at their Sabbath service.
The youngest Presbyterian church in Ryegate is called the "First Presbyterian church," and was organized, says Mr. Samuel Mills, by a commission from Boston Presbytery, November 12, 1875, with fifty-three members. Its membership on January 1, 1900, was 160. Many of this number live in Newbury. Since its organization this society has built a church, vestry and parsonage, costing about $7,000 at South Ryegate. Rev. William Wallace is its fifth and present pastor, installed January 1, 1900. "The Presbyterian form of religious worship is founded on the word of God as expressed in the confession of faith, catechisms, larger and shorter, with the form of church government agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and practiced by the church of Scotland." These four churches have had several hundred members in this town.
We conclude the religious history of Newbury, by presenting a picture of a Sunday in Haverhill Corner, eighty years ago. It was written by Hon. Arthur Livermore, now past ninety years of age, residing in England. Those who remember the times say that with a few changes of names, it would describe a Newbury Sabbath in those days, and have asked for its insertion here.
On Sunday mornings in summer, we were sent to our chambers, each with a tract, to await the hour of preparation for the more serious business of the day, and the familiar hail at the foot of the stairs: "Now boys, you may lay aside your tracts and go into the garden and gather your carraway, and then it will be time to set out for meeting." That sort of nosegay was deemed to be the thing for the holy hour, and to say the truth, it has to this day, the odor of sanctity to my nostrils. We were called to meeting by the sweetest bell ever heard, which old Mr. Cross made to swing in the steeple of the meeting-house on Ladd street, with a strongly religious air, which no other bell ever had, nor could any but the same old man draw forth from that one.
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
success, the preceding year. This James Hicks was, the letter said, well educated in the school of London. How he came to have wandered into this wilderness, we shall never know. He seems to have gone to the Barbadoes, intending to return to England.
There was only one school in town for many years, for the people were poor, and had a hard struggle to get along. We know very little about either schools or text-books. Probably all the instruction was from the Testament, and the New England Primer. These were in every house.
Among the Johnson papers are preserved sundry agreements which relate to early schools in this town.
"NEWBURY, Novr 8th, 1781.
We the subscribers being met for the Purpose of Hiring a schoolmaster, have agreed to give a suitable person Ten Bushels of Wheat per Month, if one cannot be hired for less and found, have chose Thos. Johnson, Capt. John G. Bayley, Wm. Wallace, a Comity to Regulate sd school, and to tax and rate sd district, agreeable to the Number of Scholars that shall be in sd school, and if there is Thirty scholars in sd district, we the Proprietors, agree that no scholars shall be advertised to be taught in sd school, out of the District, the above to be binding for three months only.
ELIHU JOHNSON WILLIAM WALLACE
THOS. JOHNSON JOSEPH CHAMBERLIN
PELETIAH BLISS
BENJAMIN MUZZEY
EBENR WHITE JOHN G. BAYLEY
EPHM BAYLEY
Evidently the desired man would not be paid in wheat, as the following relates to the same school.
NEWBURY, Nov. 15, 1781.
"We the subscribers do here-by promise to pay Samuel Hopkins seven pounds, four shillings, by the 12th day of February next, to be paid in hard money, and hard money only, provided he teach a school three months according to the Directions we have given him of equal date herewith, if not then paid, then Interest till paid. Witness our hands.
THOMAS JOHNSON. JOHN GD BAYLEY. WILLIAM WALLACE."
Mr. Hopkins seems to have done his best, as the paper is endorsed :
"NEWBURY, Feb. 5, 1782.
We the subscribers do hereby acknowledge that the within named Samuel Hopkins has performed his part of this Oblegation, and we are in Duty bound to pay the same.
THOMAS JOHNSON JOHN G. BAYLEY."
The following is of later date, and more precise in specifying the qualifications of the master.
"NEWBURY, Sept. 18, 1786.
We, the subscribers, do cach of us agree to Pay our equal Proportion in Produce for the board and support of a good schoolmaster, Qualificd to teach English, writing and Arithmetic in the midle District school and to find our Proportion of wood at sd school, Provided there is a sufficient number of subscribers, not less than
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Twenty, The Schoolmaster to be immediately agreed with for two or three months.
JOHN BEARD
JACOB BAYLEY, JUN.
EPHM BAYLEY
JOSHUA BAYLEY
FRYE BAYLEY JACOB BAYLEY
JOHN MCLANE
JOHN G. BAYLEY
DUDLEY CARLETON
THOS. JOHNSON
JOSEPH CHAMBERLIN
WILLIAM WALLACE
JACOB TRESSELL JOHN MILLS.
We can read much between the lines of this agreement. The desire to have the children taught the fundamental rules of business, the scarcity of money, but the plentitude of produce, and above all, their earnest desire to do the best they could for their children.
The town was divided into four school districts in 1782, and in 1789 into seven. In 1796 there was dissatisfaction with the master in the Ox-bow district, and Colonels Johnson and Wallace applied to President Wheelock at Hanover, to send them a young man who could teach a satisfactory private school. William B. Bannister was sent, and was so acceptable that he drew away nearly all the pupils from the regular district school, and the master resigned. On October 25, 1796, the district voted that Mr. Bannister's school should be considered the district school, and Rev. Mr. Lambert, Colonel Johnson, and Dr. Kinsman should be a committee to fix a rate and attend to the interests of the school. Mr. Bannister afterward became a prominent citizen of this town. The rate bill of that school is preserved, and the cost was assessed, "one-half on the Grand List, and one-half on the scholar." A similar mode of providing for the expenses was common in many districts in town within twenty years.
In 1801 the General Assembly established a Grammar school in Orange County, and a special town-meeting was held at which Asa Tenney, and William B. Bannister were chosen a committee to meet the county committee, and see upon what terms the school could be established at Newbury. Nothing came of this, as the school was located at Chelsea.
In 1811, the law assessed a tax of one cent on the dollar in support of schools, and the town voted that the tax might be paid in good wheat at one dollar per bushel, good rye at seventy-five cents; and good Indian corn at fifty cents.
In 1818, there were 603 children, between the ages of four and eighteen, in the sixteen districts, as follows: Wells River, 36; Upper Meadow, 23; Ox-bow, 78; Village, 56; Martin, now Kendrick, 18; Rogers' Hill, 43; West Newbury, 43; Brock, 45; Powers district, 22; Grow district, 37; Doe district, 39; Lime Kiln, 20; Jefferson Hill, 28: Wallace Hill district, 28; Boltonville, 29; South Newbury, 73. Before the change to the town system there were twenty-one districts. In some of these, no school had been maintained for years. In 1823, the number of pupils reported was 691, and the following year, 707.
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
In 1825, the citizens seemed to have awakened to some sense of the backward condition of the schools, and the town passed the following resolution, in which the terse and vigorous diction of Rev. Luther Jewett is plainly seen :
"Resolved,-That a committee of seven be appointed by the town, whose duty it shall be to examine the several school districts in town, twice in the season, once near the commencement of each term, and once at the close of the same, and make report at the next March meeting, of the best scholars in each district, and of those who may make the greatest improvement; likewise to make report of each master who should excell in the work of instruction and government of said school, and designate those, if any, whom they may judge deficient in literary accquirements or injudicious or improper mode of governing their schools."
Dr. Calvin Jewett, David Haseltine, A. B. W. Tenney, Ephraim B. Stevens, Alfred Nevins, James Bayley 2ª and Haynes Johnson 2ª were the committee. This excellent resolution was better made than kept.
The school district system began with the settlement of the town, and endured till it was swept away by the acts of the General Assembly which supplanted it by one which placed the schools under a more direct control, and more efficient supervision. Each district was a little independent commonwealth, with certain well defined boundaries, which built and owned its own schoolhouse, raised and collected its own taxes, and on the last Tuesday of March, in each year, the voters settled its momentous concerns with a formality which copied, on a small scale, the proceedings of the annual town-meeting. Each district had its board of officers, school district politics ran high, and the system was the occasion of more local quarrels than anything else in town. Too often the sole qualification of the school committee was his ability to hire a teacher on lower terms than anybody else. Schools have been taught in Newbury, and large schools too, for seventy-five cents a week, and even as low as fifty cents, with board.
Often, and, in early days, usually, the teacher boarded around, going from house to house, here a day and there a week, her sojourn under each roof being regulated by the proportion of pupils furnished from the family, or by the share of the general tax which was paid by the head of the household. The former was called "boarding by the scholar," and the latter "boarding by the Grand List." It was not altogether the worst of systems. The teacher and the pupil were brought close together; the former had the opportunity to estimate more accurately the influences which surrounded the latter, and many a famous teacher owed much of her after success to the occasion for insight and study of her pupils, which was afforded by "boarding around." Nor was the value all to the teacher and the pupil. The advent of a gentle, refined, teacher into a lonely farmhouse, was an event. For such an one the best room was prepared, the house took on an unwonted cheerfulness, and her gentle influence was remembered there for
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years afterward. The teacher was thus brought into closer relations with the pupil and the parents than now. Somewhat of , good passed forever away with the old system.
The first schoolhouses were of logs. The log meeting-house of the first settlers, was, after its disuse for that purpose, and perhaps before, used for a schoolhouse. The last log schoolhouses, on Jefferson hill, and Leighton hill, were burned in 1847. The second generation of schoolhouses were nearly square; at one end was the door, and at the other, the teacher's desk. The rude benches and desks were at the right and left of the teacher, facing the stove, which occupied the middle ground between the teacher's desk and the door. Two such edifices, now falling into decay, still stand on the county road, one near Long pond, and the other in the "Doe neighborhood." The latter was mercilessly ridiculed by Rev. H. N. Burton in his report as superintendent of schools, nearly forty years ago.
"This school is certainly in pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. The terms are short; the numbers few; the pupils tardy and irregular; the wood is usually green and buried in the snow; the schoolhouse old and rickety, stuck in a side-hill, between two roads, among the rocks, in the edge of the woods, over a brook. We add that the scholars and teachers must have been pretty good, or they would have made no progress at all."
The kind of schoolhouse built fifty years ago, is represented by one still standing in the town house district.
The district schoolhouse was the place where were held singing and spelling schools, prayer and class meetings, lawsuits, justice trials, lyceums and lectures. Around these old-time buildings cluster a thousand memories.
We have better schoolhouses, and greater facilities for acquiring a common school education, but more commodious and more healthful school-rooms and all that can be taught therein, will not give the world a better class of men and women than were trained in these rude old schoolhouses in Newbury sixty years ago. It is easy to ridicule them, and the old systems of teaching, but there were other lessons taught than from books. In them were learned the lessons of self-denial, of fortitude, of the value of time, of honesty, of individual responsibility, and out of them came men and women who have been an honor to our town.
The terms of school were usually two, winter and summer, of ten or twelve weeks each, and it was not until about twenty years ago that the back districts had a fall term. The opening of Newbury Seminary was of vast benefit to the schools of this town. It sent a class of trained teachers out among the district schools and furnished a ready means of education for the best scholars. The wages paid teachers were very low. A dollar a week and board, was a common price for the school mistress sixty years ago, and twenty years ago the salary (if such it could be called) had
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
hardly doubled. Winter terms were taught by masters, at twelve or fifteen dollars a month, and board. The master usually held his position of command "by the dynamic reasons of larger bones." Some schools bore a hard name, and disgraceful rows in them were all too common. Others were dominated by a few bad boys, who were upheld by their fathers, of whom teacher and committee stood in fear. These evils passed away with the district system.
The cost of maintaining the schools in Newbury under the old system, cannot be ascertained, for the reason that the districts managed their own financial affairs and raised the taxes necessary for their maintenance, or part of them. It was easy for a few penurious men to combine, and force the district to limit the term of its school to the briefest period which the law would permit, and fix the compensation at the lowest possible price at which a teacher of the most meagre qualifications could be engaged.
The decay and depopulation of more than one neighborhood in this town is the result of a niggardly policy toward its schools. It was a long step forward when the town assumed the care of its school system. Under the old law, a district composed of intelligent people who knew what a school should be, and were determined to have a good school, always had one, while those localities where ignorance and penuriousness ruled, was always burdened with a school whose inefficiency was worse than no school at all.
In 1830, a select school was opened in a building called the "old Porter office," which had been the law office of Daniel Farrand and after him of Benjamin Porter, and which stood near, and a little east of, Henry W. Bailey's house at the Ox-bow. In their day it was customary for country lawyers to have their offices in separate buildings, standing near, but not connected with, their residences. Such may still be seen at Bath Upper Village. This building is now the kitchen part of Silas Leighton's house. This edifice was secured by Hon. Joseph Berry and David Johnson, and fitted up for a school-room. These gentlemen became financially responsible for the success of the school. Their first teacher was Harriet Newcomb from Keene, and her letter of acceptance of their offer to engage her to teach, gives some idea of what was expected of a lady teacher seventy years ago.
KEENE, April 27, 1830.
Joseph Berry Esq., Dear Sir:
On receiving your favor of the 24th I have decided upon leaving Keene sooner than I had at first intended and will take the stage on Friday next. Answering your inquiry as to the text-books which I prefer to use I will mention: "The National Reader," Murray's or Putnam's Grammar, preferring Greenleaf's, Woodbridge's Ancient and Modern Geography, Smith's Arithmetic, Blake's Conversations on Chemistry and Philosophy. I am sorry to say that I do not understand Algebra well enough to teach it, but can teach German and French. *
HARRIET NEWCOMB.
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RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.
It would seem that it was not considered necessary for a young lady to know algebra, as Miss Newcomb came and taught a term of thirteen weeks, from May 3, to July 31, having seventeen pupils who paid twenty-five cents per week, and twelve and one-half cents for use of books. In the fall she taught a second term of twelve weeks, having twenty-eight pupils. She seems to have been succeeded by Miss Charlotte Foxcroft, who taught two terms in 1831, for three dollars per week and board, receiving extra for languages and ornamentals. Her receipts for the two terms were ninety-five dollars, quite a large sum in those days for a woman to earn. She must have been a very popular teacher, as several children were named for her. The names of fifty-nine pupils are preserved, of whom only one is now living in this town. Caroline B. Gibson of Leominster, Mass., was preceptress from September, 1833 to June, 1834.
This school was incorporated in 1830, and kept in operation till the opening of Newbury Seminary, when it was discontinued. In 1843, owing to some dissatisfaction which arose about that time with the management of the Seminary, it was revived under the care of Miss Abigail Williams of Kennebunk, Me. In the fall of 1843, an extension of corporate privileges was granted, and the school was remodelled, with a department for young men, and called "Newbury High School." The session was held in the Congregational vestry, then a new building containing two school-rooms, one of which was in the chamber.
David Johnson was president of the board of trustees and William Atkinson was treasurer. The catalogue for 1844 gives ninety-five names, with an aggregate attendance of 130. Jonathan Tenney was the principal, Nancy C. Johnson, preceptress, Miss Ellen Gregory, teacher of music, painting and drawing, and Edward P. Kimball was assistant. It would seem the causes of dissatis- faction with the Seminary were removed, as the school was discontinued not long after 1844.
CHAPTER XXIX.
NEWBURY SEMINARY.
ITS INCEPTION .- LOCATED AT NEWBURY .- ERECTION OF BUILDING .- ARRANGEMENT OF INTERIOR .- BOARDING-HOUSE .- TRUSTEES .- OPENING .- REV. CHARLES ADAMS .- BISHOP BAKER .- FINANCIAL EMBARASSMENT .- MINISTERS AND THEIR FAMILIES. -TEACHERS .- CLARK HINMAN .- THE RACE QUESTION .- SLAVERY .- F. S. HOYT. -DR. KING .- FEMALE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE .- HIGH WATER MARK .- DR. KING'S ADMINISTRATION .- HENRY S. NOYES .- C. W. CUSHING .- FENNER E. KING. -GEO. C. SMITH .- SILAS E. QUIMBY .- S. F. CHESTER .- NEWBURY BIBLICAL INSTITUTE .- MR. TWOMBLY'S NARRATIVE .- DR. WILLETT .- PRIVATE SOCIETIES .- SUMMING UP .- STEWARDS .- ATTENDANCE .- INSTRUCTORS.
N EWBURY village was, for thirty-four years, the home of a school somewhat remarkable in its way, and now that a period almost equal to that of its existence here has passed since its removal, and those trained within its walls have acted such part, little or great, as they have in the world, it is possible to consider the institution itself, and its place in the educational history of New England, much more accurately than ever before.
The academies in this part of the country which preceded it, were children of the communities in which they were placed. They came slowly into existence to meet, in some measure, the needs of the young people, who were anxious to obtain somewhat more of learning than the meagre teaching of the district schools. Newbury Seminary was the creation of a religious body which selected the village as a convenient place for its denominational school, and by the same organization it was removed.
Along some lines of educational work it was the pioneer, and the ideas which had their unfolding here, were developed by other and richer institutions. Some of its experiments in education have been rejected by the experience of time, but it accomplished a work which seems greater as the years pass. It had its origin as one of the carlicst institutions of learning in a denomination of Christian
T
1
NEWBURY SEMINARY AND METHODIST CHURCH. [FROM NEWBURY SEMINARY SOUVENIR. ]
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NEWBURY SEMINARY.
people, then small in numbers and weak financially, but which is now the largest in the land, and numbers its schools by hundreds. It had no endowment; it was only by the closest economy that it was carried on, but "there were those who loved it," and gave freely of whatever means or talents they had. Its history deserves something more than a chapter in the annals of the town in which it was placed.
At the session of the New Hampshire conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, held at Lyndon, in this state, in 1832, a committee, of which Rev. Solomon Sias was chairman, was appointed to consider the subject of founding and maintaining a literary institution within its borders, which then included the territory now embraced by the Vermont conference. This committee, after due consideration, recommended that a committee of seven be appointed to consider propositions from such towns as should offer inducements, with discretionary power to locate such a school, make contracts, purchase lands, and enter into any necessary arrangements to carry the contemplated object into effect. At the session of conference held at Northfield, N. H., in 1833, this committee reported that among the towns which had made proposals for the location of such a school, Newbury had been selected because of its central location, and local advantages.
The sum of $6,000 had been pledged on condition that the school should be located here, a larger sum than had been offered by any other place. This sum was also pledged on condition that the conference should raise an equal amount, which, by much self-denial on the part of many of its members, was done.
The old Lovewell farm and tavern-stand, then owned by William Bailey, were bought, the purchase including nearly all the present common, most of the land west of the present Sawyer House to the ridge of Mt. Pulaski, south to the present farm of D. Y. Ford, including a part of Musquash Meadow, and some necessary pasture. Proposals for the erection of the present Seminary building were advertised in the Democratic Republican at Haverhill, in March, 1833, by Benjamin R. Hoyt, John W. Hardy, and Timothy Morse, according to a plan which could be seen at Morse & Burnham's store. They called for a brick building, three stories in height, forty feet by seventy on the ground. In reality it falls a few inches short of those dimensions in both length and breadth. The building was begun in the spring of 1833, and the exterior was completed, as it now stands, before cold weather. The brick were made at the yard of Benjamin Atwood, near the grist-mill at South Newbury, and delivered on the spot, it is said, for three dollars per thousand. So little was the science of ventilation then understood, that a height of ten feet, three inches, between floor and ceiling, for the lower floor, nine feet, nine inches, for the second, and eight feet, five inches for the third, was deemed
14
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
amply sufficient space for a school of more than two hundred pupils.
At that time Benjamin Kelley lived on what is now the common, nearly opposite the present residence of James B. Hale. The town bought his place, removed the buildings, and added the land to the portion of the seminary farm which had been set apart for a common. At the same time a deep "gulley" across the common, which had been caused by a terrible storm in 1795, was filled, at an expense of about $700, and the bounds of the common were made about as they now are.
The Seminary building, when completed, contained two large rooms on the ground floor, for the male and female departments, and two or three smaller rooms. The second floor had a large lecture hall, a library room, and a number of small rooms for various purposes. The third floor was divided into a number of study rooms. The entire cost of the building and its simple furniture, was about $4,100. The boarding-house, formerly the old Lovewell tavern, now the "Sawyer House," contained about forty rooms for students, and cost, including the land, and necessary alterations upon the building, not far from $6,500 .* The long wing of that edifice, which now extends in the direction of Mt. Pulaski, was then two stories in height, and stood at right angles to the main, or front part, of the house, extending toward the common.
Newbury Seminary was chartered by the General Assembly of Vermont in 1833, its control being vested in a board of thirteen trustees. This body, says Rev. A. L. Cooper, was a close corporation, electing its own officers and filling its own vacancies, the conference having no immediate control beyond recommending a course to be pursued. Of this body, Timothy Morse was resident agent, and oversaw the construction of the building.
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