USA > Vermont > Caledonia County > Ryegate > History of Ryegate, Vermont, from its settlement by the Scotch-American company of farmers to present time; > Part 18
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Certain specified persons were exempt from toll-physicians, residents whose dwellings lay upon the road, persons on their way to or from church, grist or saw mill, or to do military duty. Later, residents of both towns were exempt from toll.
The charter was for a turnpike from the mouth of Wells River "as far as the house of Deacon Twaddle, in Barnet," and to be not less than 18 feet in width.
William Calioon of Lyndon, Presbury West of St. Jolinsbury, Joseph Armington of Waterford, James Whitelaw of Ryegate, and Thomas John-
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son of Newbury, were the committee appointed to locate the road, which was surveyed by Andrew Lockie. The distance from Newbury line to Barnet line was seven miles, 121 rods, 15 links. The construction of the road began in 1807, near the mouth of Joe's brook in Barnet, and about a mile was constructed in that year. In 1808 the road was completed to the Ryegate line, when a special act of the legislature granted the privilege of taking half toll. Later the road was extended, a few miles at a time, to Wells River. It is understood that about $26,000 was spent on the road at the outset, and, later, alterations costing about $7,000 were made in Ryegate and Barnet. These alterations amounted to nearly seven miles, and the result was to give the region a better road than it had ever known before. Such portions of the roads already existing as could be utilized, were surrendered to the company, and new locations were made where they would be an improvement. Part of the road in Ryegate was built by James Beattie, and the huge wooden plow used in its construction is preserved in the Fairbanks Museum at St. Johnsbury.
Mr. A. J. Finlay gives the location of the turnpike in Ryegate thus: "It was the same as now traveled from Barnet village to the Ryegate line, north of the railroad crossing. It ran over the McIndoe hill by Hazen Burbank's log house, through the Moore farm, by a house owned by -Mr. Moore, but not by the buildings where the Moores now live. It then ran by the McCole's, where Elmer Chamberlin now lives, then by the Pollard's, where Horace Chamberlin lives, then through the Gibson and Beattie farms (the latter now owned by Wm. J. Smith), passing the buildings some distance back from where they are now.
It then passed the Manchester buildings, through the Nelson farm, now owned by Charles M. Wallace, and then by the Henderson buildings on the farm now owned by Martin Gibson. It then passed by the place where the Page's now live, and by the brick house built and used as a tavern by Andrew Warden, where A. A. Miller has long lived; thence to Wells River."
Mr. James Gilfillan says that the first toll gate was on the Beattie farm, later moved to the place now owned by Martin Turner, between McIndoes and Barnet. After a time, and for the last time, it was located just south of Mr. Finlay's house at McIndoes. A small brick house stood there which was occupied by a Scotchman by name of Monteith, who wove stockings and took tolls.
The location of the other toll gatescannot begiven. The rates of toll were changed from time to time, and it is not necessary to follow them.
James Whitelaw was the first clerk and treasurer, and after him Robert Whitelaw held the same offices. Several notices of assessments
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upon the stock of the company are preserved, and later notices of dividends, which show that the enterprise did something more than pay expenses. Taverns were opened along the turnpike by Thomas Nelson and Andrew Warden, and perhaps others.
But turnpikes were never popular, and there was always more or less friction between the towns and the company. Ryegate and Barnet people considered that the road was managed for the benefit of people in the towns above them, while the latter seriously objected to paying tolls, and wanted a road built and maintained by the towns through which it passed. In 1824, on petition, a committee was appointed by the Supreme Court to lay out a new road from Wells River to Barnet line, which would be made and maintained by the town, a free road. Archibald Park was appointed to lay a remonstrance before the court. The towns having either to pay tolls on the turnpike, or build a new road, instructed the selectmen to make the best bargain they could with the turnpike corpor- ation, desiring that Ryegate people should pass the gate free of toll, the town assisting in its maintenance. At the same time the town contrived to evade the building of the new road, and in 1826, Judge Cameron was appointed to appear before the legislature with counsel, and have the Supreme Court report set aside, and the selectmen made a compromise with the directors of the turnpike. The legislature authorized the pur- chase by the town of shares in the turnpike stock, and thus secured a voice in its management, and the freedom of the road to Ryegate people.
Some years later, a long and costly suit by the town of Barnet, to recover the cost of building about a mile of highway, upon which, after its completion, the turnpike company had been allowed to relay its own road, was decided against the town by the Supreme Court, reversing the decision of the lower courts. This tended to further increase the unpopularity of the turnpike.
Under an act of the legislature of 1839, John Armington and 321 others petitioned the Supreme Court, and a committee was appointed to lay out a public road through Ryegate and Barnet to Wells River, along the line of the turnpike, and the committee awarded the sum of $4,000, to be paid the company, as the value of its franchise. Of this $76.00 was to be paid by Newbury, $2,094 by Ryegate, and $1,830 by Barnet. Henry Stevens of Barnet, president of the company, brought suit to determine the constitutionality of the law, which, being established, the turnpike company ceased to exist.
The decision of the court expressed the situation in these words: "It cannot escape the observation of any one that the lapse of about half a century since the granting of the franchise must have made a considerable difference in the public worth, and the public claims to a free highway."
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Another venture, which never got far beyond its organization, was the Boston & Montreal Turnpike Co., which was chartered in 1809, whose incorporators were William Chamberlin and Jonathan Elkins, of Peacham, Benjamin Porter, Asa Tenney and William Wallace of New- bury, Asa Porter of Haverhill, Micah Barron of Bradford, and Samuel C. Crafts of Craftsbury. The men behind this scheme were prominent business men, all the way from Boston to Montreal, who were interested in opening a stage line between these two cities, and the development of the intervening country. Several interesting letters respecting the road, the resources of the northern part of the state and the part of Canada between Montreal and Richford, are among the Johnson and Whitelaw papers. The survey line of the proposed road, by General Whitelaw, beginning at David Johnson's store at Newbury, and ending at Canada Line in Berkshire, now preserved at Montpelier, is valuable as giving the precise residence of many persons at that time in the northern part of the state, as well as showing the location of the Hazen Road, from which it only varies in short sections. The entire distance was 73 miles, and some of the intervening data are worth preserving. The distances are computed "from the corner at Mr. Clough's house" (where Mrs. Erastus Baldwin now lives) in Wells River village, and nine miles and a fraction brings it to Barnet line, "just beyond Hauhilan's Brook," 1034 miles "to the corner near Peter Buchanan's," 14 miles to Peacham Corner " where the road from Chelsea to Danville crosses," 20 miles to Cabot line, 281/2 to Lamoille river in Hardwick, 37 to Craftsbury Common, 54 "to Hazen's Notch at the top in Westfield," from which 15 miles brought the road to Missisquoi river.
But troubles which preceded the breaking out of the war of 1812, the deaths of several who were prominent in the enterprise, together with several successive "bad years," caused its abandonment. In September, 1810, the town was indicted by the grand jury for failure to keep the Hazen Road in repair, and the town had to raise a special tax to meet the cost of the repairs ordered by the committee. In 1821, an act of the legislature declared the road from Wells River through the center of Ryegate, (the Hazen Road), to be part of a "Market Road" from Canada, and in 1824, on petition of some inhabitants of towns north of it, a committee was appointed by the court to alter the road in certain places, and assess one-half the cost upon the town.
Before the Passumpsic Turnpike Company passed out of existence people had for several years discussed the project of building a railroad up the Connecticut and Passumpsic valleys to Canada, and a charter was granted Nov. 10, 1835, for a railroad from Massachusetts line in the town of Vernon to Canada line in the town of Derby. No work was ever
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HISTORY OF RYEGATE, VERMONT.
done under that charter, which became void. A second charter was granted in 1843, under the name of "The Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers Railroad," and the corporation was organized at Wells River, Jan. 15, 1846, with Erastus Fairbanks of St. Johnsbury as president. The road was completed for business to Wells River, Nov. 6, 1848, and with its opening a new era began for Ryegate and all the north country. The old and slow methods of travel, transportation, and the trans- mission of intelligence had passed. New York and Boston, only reached before by long and tedious journeys, were now only a day's ride away. The telegraph which soon followed brought tidings from far distant cities.
The change which had come was not perceived at once. It took people much time to adjust themselves to modern ways; meanwhile the change went on. The first locomotive whistle heard in the town was the signal for a new era, and changes, not always for the better, set in.
Work began on the railroad above Wells River, Dec. 17, 1849, trains began to run to Mclndoes, Oct. 7, 1850, and the road was completed to St. Johnsbury on the 23rd of November in that year.
The present Montpelier and Wells River Railroad was chartered in 1867, work was begun upon it in the summer of 1871, and it was com- pleted to Montpelier in 1873. The subsequent history of the railroad is not a part of the annals of the town.
CHAPTER XVI.
EDUCATION.
PUBLIC C SCHOOLS IN SCOTLAND .- SCHOOLMASTERS .- THE COMMON SCHOOL SYSTEM IN NEW ENGLAND .- EARLY TEACHERS IN RYEGATE .- MR. MILLER'S EXPERIENCE,-OTHER FACTORS IN EDUCATION .- LOCATION OF SCHOOL-HOUSES. STATISTICS .- COLLEGE GRADUATES WHO WERE NATIVES OF RYEGATE.
F OR the beginning of education in Ryegate we must look far beyond the town itself, and inquire concerning the origin and development of the public school system in Scotland, the manner in which that system was conducted, and the relation of the schools to the religious history of the country.
The first settlers of Ryegate were men of superior intelligence, as were the class from which they came in Scotland. As evidence of this the editor of this volume may say that in the course of its preparation he has read scores of letters written on both sides of the Atlantic between 1772 and 1815, by many persons, and has rarely found a misspelled word or an ungrammatical sentence. They were able to express them- selves clearly and concisely on any subject. In this respect they were superior to the first settlers of the towns around them which were settled from the older towns in New England. It does not follow from this that they were, intellectually, their superiors, but that their earlier advantages had been greater. It must be remembered, also, that the public institutions of Scotland were long and firmly established, while in New England, at the time Ryegate was settled, the country was new, the people were engaged in subduing the wilderness, and had just emerged from a long and costly war.
The school system of Scotland may be said to have begun with the introduction of Presbyterianism into that country, and schools were established in many parishes before the end of the 16th century. But it was not till nearly one hundred years later that a school system, sup-
NOTE. The authorities for the local part of this chapter are Mr. Miller's notes and published articles, the town and district school records, statistics col- lected by Mr. Gilfillan, and personal information.
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HISTORY OF RYEGATE, VERMONT.
ported by taxation, was made general throughout the country. In the autumn of 1696 the Estates of Scotland passed the "Act for the Settling of Schools."
"It was statuted and ordained," says Macaulay, "that every parish "in the realm should provide a commodious school house, and should "pay a moderate stipend to a schoolmaster. The effect could not be "immediately felt. But before one generation had passed away it began "to be evident that the common people of Scotland were superior in "intelligence to the common people of any other country in Europe. To "whatever land the Scotchman might wander, to whatever calling he "might betake himself, in America or in India, the advantages which he "derived from his early training, raised him above his competitors. If he "was taken into a ware-house as a porter, lie soon became a foreman. " If he enlisted in the army, he soon became a sergeant. Scotland, mnean- "while, in spite of the barrenness of her soil and the severity of her "climate, made such progress in agriculture, in manufactures, in com- "merce, in letters, in all that constitutes civilization, as the Old World "had never equalled, and as even the New World has scarcely surpassed."
Very much of this progress must be attributed to the high character and attainments of the schoolmasters in Scotland in the 18th century. They were, generally, graduates from the universities, who made teach- ing a life work, and spent their entire lives, from youth to old age, in instructing the boys of a single parish, teaching the urchins their letters, and in the course of time, thoroughly fitting the most promising for the university. Next to the minister, the schoolmaster was the principal man in the parish. Very likely he would be qualified to "take the pulpit " in the minister's absence. He was almost certain to be an elder in the congregation, and, if he held a musical gift, the precentor, a man of great authority in the churches of Scotland. Allan Ramsay thus speaks of one-
"The letter-gae of haly rhyme, He sat at the board's head, Aud a' he did was thocht a crime, To contradict indeed."
But their stipends were meagre. Even as late as 1813, the salary of the schoolmaster at Inchinnan was only £16,13s, 4d, or, including fees and rent, £40 a year. Their attainments were extensive, and many a one of them understood Latin and Greek as well as his mother tongue. They were impatient of dullness or idleness, and the progress of the pupil along the paths of knowledge was apt to be hastened by inducements of a very substantial character.
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EDUCATION.
Letters are preserved in Ryegate and Barnet which some of the first settlers received from their old masters in Scotland, which evince an intense interest in their welfare, and a hope that they "kept up their studies." There were a few men in both towns who, despite all the privations of pioneer life, kept up their acquaintance with the classics.
In the New England colonies the common school system is older than that of Scotland. In 1634 the delegates of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed their ever memorable resolution-"To the End that " Religion and Morality be not buried in the Grave of our Fathers, it is "hereby ordered that when the Lord hath increased any Plantation to " the Number of Twenty Families they shall hire a Master and set up a "School, and when the Number is increased to Forty Families they shall "set up a Grammar School." "The result was," says Green, the English historian, "that in New England alone, of all the.countries in the world, every man and woman could read and write." That this was generally the case is indisputable. But in the struggle for existence, in which most of the people of New England were then engaged, there must have been many who had never been able to secure even this beginning of education.
It is certain also that the children of the colonists who were born or reared in Ryegate had to be content with fewer attainments than their fathers.
Mr. Miller says that the first public school in this town was kept by Jonathan Powers of Newbury, in General Whitelaw's house, but does not give the date. Mr. Powers was a son of the Newbury minister, graduated at Dartmouth in 1790, and died while minister at Penobscot, Maine. It will be evident that with people scattered all the way from the Gray farm to Connecticut river, in small clearings connected by rude paths among the woods, it must have been hard to get children together. That a school was kept at all, is evidence of the desire of the people to do the best they could by their children.
Who were the immediate successors of Mr. Powers we do not know, but the few actions of the town referring to schools, show that some- thing was done. But beyond such teaching as the parents could give at home, very little could have been done in the way of instruction for the first years.
Mr. Mason says that in 1798, Mr. William Boyle, a learned Scotch- man, came to Ryegate, and taught school with great success, and also says that later this gentleman opened a school for the benefit of young men who intended to teach school, and that all his pupils became excellent teachers, This would seem to have been one of the first attempts at normal education in Vermont.
But who was this Mr. Boyle? I find no mention of him elsewhere.
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HISTORY OF RYEGATE, VERMONT.
But in letters written to Gen. Whitelaw, twelve years later by Rev. Wil- liam Forsythe, while preaching in Nova Scotia, he adverts with pleasure to the accounts which had reached him of the success of his former pupils here. As Mr. Forsythe certainly taught school while preaching here in 1798, and afterward became a very successful teacher in Nova Scotia, it seems plain that Mr. Mason, writing sixty years afterward, was not correctly informed as to the name.
A man who did such solid work should not have been forgotten here. A letter written by Robert Hyslop of New York City to Gen. Whitelaw in March, 1798, speaks of Mr. Forsythe as a native of Dumfries, and educated at Glasgow University. He would have been a young man in Dumfries during the last years of Robert Burns.
It is very hard to obtain all the particulars which we would like to have regarding schools so long ago, and even Mr. Miller, writing thirty years since, confessed his inability to obtain all he desired to know con- cerning them. The discovery of some letters and records not known to him gives us a few facts. It is certain that the Ryegate schools were as good as those of any town in this vicinity a century ago. The people provided only what they were able to pay for, and they certainly received more than their money's worth.
Schoolmasters were invariably employed as teachers, both summer and winter, until about 1802. "People did not think," says Mr. Miller, "that a woman could teach school any more than she could mow or chop wood." But about that time Abigail Whitelaw succeeded in per- suading the committee to let her try her hand at teaching, much against their conviction. But she settled the question beyond all future cavil, and after that school mistresses were generally employed in summer.
A small manuscript volume containing the procedings of school meet- ings in the " Middle district," from 1809 to 1847, whose successive clerks were James Dunsyre, John Page, William Gray and George Cowles, con- veys much information about the schools of that period.
The middle district seems to have had about the same territory as at present, but was a little larger, embracing part of what is now called the Hall district. In the year 1810, there were 108 scholars between the ages of 4 and 18.
The summer school for 1810 began about the middle of May, and was taught four months of six days in each week for $16, by Abigail Chamberlin. The board was "according to the scholar." There seems to have been about 60 pupils. The winter following was taught by John Gibson for $14 per month. It was voted-"That every person that sends to School shall for every Scholar they send find one-half a cord of good wood ready cut for the fire."
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There does not appear to have been any Superintendent or other official chosen by the town, but in Dec., 1811, it was voted that Messrs. Andrew Millar, Rev. Wm. Gibson and John Cameron should be a com- mittee to visit the school and examine the scholars.
In the summer of 1812, Ann Wallace, who became Mrs. Wm. Brock of Newbury, taught the school for the same wages. In the summer of 1813, the same teacher taught the school at an advance of fifty cents over her former salary. In 1814, John Page-called Lame John-taught the summer school for $10 per month, boarding himself. He was the schoolmaster for several years, and his meager salary was not always paid in cash, but partly in grain or other produce. For the winter term of 1822-3 the teacher's board was bid off by John Hall for 7/6 ($1.20) per week.
In 1829 the district voted to build a new schoolhouse of brick on the site of the old one, and voted to raise $300 for the purpose, $125 to be paid in cash, and the balance in grain. The house was built in the next year. It is probable that the schools were conducted and paid in all the districts in town at about the same rate. From 1815 to 1830, the teachers board was set up at auction, and bid off for about 87 cents per week, the teacher to receive that amount if he boarded himself.
The schoolmasters of those days certainly earned their pay. The school at the Corner was the largest in town, and in winter often 100 pupils were crowded into the schoolroom. How the master could keep order, or, keeping order have time for anything else, we fail to compre- hend. The want of uniformity in text-books then, and for half a century later, was a great disadvantage. Books were few and hard to get; pupils brought to school such books as they had, and the master grouped into classes those who had the same books. Mr. Goodwin says that there were always several kinds of arithmetics, with classes in each, and the same with other books. Often there was only one pupil who had a particular reading book or geography, and the master had to find time to hear him recite his lesson singly. One afternoon of each week was devoted to instruction in penmanship, in which more than half the mas- ter's time was taken up in mending the pens of the pupils. Steel pens were not in those days, all writing was done with the quill, and it was indispensable that the master should be skilled in their preparation. He might be weak in arithmetic, all at sea in geography, blundering in gram- mar and yet be forgiven, but inability to make a good pen stamped him a failure. It is now almost a lost art, yet nothing can surpass a well made quill pen for elegant handwriting.
Mr. Miller's first experience as a schoolmaster at South Ryegate in the winter of 1844-'5 was, probably, little different from that of any
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HISTORY OF RYEGATE, VERMONT.
other master in those days, and for half a century before. He taught three months of 26 days each for $10 per month, boarding with his pupils in proportion as each family sent, the fuel being furnished in the same manner. "There were 35 pupils. I had six young men among my schol- ars larger than myself, and three about my size. I had no fewer than twelve different reading classes, from the highest down to those just learning to read. One boy's reading book was Huntington's Geography, another read from the 'History of Coos.' There were three different kinds of spelling books in use, two kinds of arithmetics, and three kinds of geographies. I boarded at thirteen different places and found them all good ones. There was a farmer in that neighborhood who had scales, a pair of balances with five stones for weighits. On those scales I weighed 179 lbs., while Fairbanks scales declined to allow me quite 160 lbs."
The district records which we have cited show that just a century ago, in the summer of 1810, the district voted "to recommend to the school committee to hire a woman for four months to keep school the ensuing summer, beginning about the middle of May." As we have seen her wages were $16 for the whole term.
Mr. Miller mentions by name several young men who were successful teachers in the "middle district," and adds that so far as he knew all of them were successful in after life. We should suppose that any young man who could teach 100 children and young people in one of the small, rude, unventilated schoolhouses of that day, would succeed in almost any- thing. John Page, commonly called "Lame John," taught that school several years with marked success. He was one of Mr. Forsythe's pupils. Mr. Page began to teach about 1800, and was still at his post when Merrill Goodwin, who has died while this chapter was undergoing its final revision, was old enough to go to school, about 1825. He went on crutches, and sometimes used them for the castigation of refractory pu- pils. Another master, long remembered, was Alfred Stevens, afterward a D. D., and for more than forty years the honored pastor of the Congre- gational church at Westminster West.
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