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Schoolhouses.
Where the first schoolhouse stood is not known; but it was probably near the meeting-house, at the
West End.
The second was built according to the following order of the town, Oct. 5, 1730: “Voted to build a new schoolhouse, twenty-four feet long, twenty feet wide, and ten feet stud, on town's land, by the meeting-house.”
It was near
Marble Brook, on the north-west corner of the lot, upon the border of the road.
The third schoolhouse stood very near the street, on land now owned by Samuel Train,
Esq., about ten feet east of the house he now occupies; and, when that mansion-house was first repaired, the schoolhouse was moved, and now makes part of the rear of said dwelling.
The fourth schoolhouse stood as ordered by the following vote: March 11, 1771, “voted to build the schoolhouse upon the land behind the meeting-house, on the north-west corner of the land.”
This spot is three or four rods northwest of the present meeting-house of the first parish.
The building-committee were “Benjamin Hall,
Captain Thomas Brooks, and
Mr. Willis Hall.”
These houses, above noticed, were of wood; but the town, May 5, 1795, voted to build a brick schoolhouse behind the meeting-house.
They agreed to give
William Woodbridge two hundred and twenty pounds, and the old schoolhouse, to build it. This was the fifth house built by the town.
It consisted of one large room, sufficient for sixty or seventy pupils: it was arranged after the newest models, and furnished with green blinds, hung at their tops!
The arrangement within was simple.
The master's desk was on a raised platform, in one corner.
Undivided seats ran lengthwise through the whole extent of the room.
The oldest pupils sat with their backs to the windows, and their desks before them.
The younger pupils sat below them, with their backs against the desks of their seniors, and their own desks before them.
The smallest children sat below these last, leaning their backs against the desks of their seniors, but having no desks before them.
The above arrangement occupied one side of the room; and the other side was exactly like it. Thus the three rows of boys on the north side faced the three rows of girls on the
