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Somerville Historical Society, 1906.
English Latin Greek French Italian Spanish ElmerHewittCapenBy DavidL.Maulsby
ElmerHewittCapen was born at Stoughton, April5, 1838.
He died at Tufts College, March22, 1905.
He received his preparatory education at Pierce Academy, Middleborough, and at the Green Mountain Institute, Woodstock, Vt. He entered Tufts in 1856, and was graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1860.
During the year 1859-60Mr.Capen served in the Massachusetts legislature.
He studied law with ThomasS.Harlow, of Boston, and at the Harvard Law School, but although admitted to the bar in 1864, he never practiced.
Instead, he studied theology with the Rev.A.St.JohnChambre, and in 1864 began to preach.
From 1865 till 1869 he was pastor of the IndependentChristian church in Gloucester.
The next year, partly on account of his wife's health, he removed to St. Paul, Minn., to take charge of the Universalist church there.
In 1870 he was called to the First Universalist church in Providence, R. I. Here he remained for five years, meanwhile securing the erection of a fine church building.
In 1875 he was summoned to the presidency of Tufts College, a position he held until his death.
Besides his administrative duties, he taught ethics, political science, and international law, until the establishment within the last few years of college departments including these subjects.
His course in ancient law was continued into the year of his death.
He also supplied the college pulpit.
PresidentCapen was twice married: in 1866 to MissLetitiaHowardMussey, of New London, Conn., who died in 1872; and in 1877 to MissMaryLincolnEdwards, of Brookline.
His widow and three children survive him: SamuelPaulCapen,
RuthPaulCapen, and RosamondEdwardsCapen.
PresidentCapen's honorary degrees are: A. M., received in 1877 from Tufts; D. D., 1879, from Lombard University; and Ll.D., 1899, from Buchtel College.
The offices he has held include, besides the presidency of Tufts College, the presidency of the New England Commission on Admission Examinations, from its establishment until its last meeting (1886-1903); membership on the board of trustees of the UniversalistGeneral Convention, from 1877 to 1895; membership on the State Board of Education since 1889, involving the chairmanship of the board of visitors of the Normal School at Salem and that at Fitchburg, and of the building committees of both institutions.
He served as president of the New England Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, and of the lately-founded (1904?) Auxiliary Educational League.
He was, also, since 1871, one of the trustees of Dean Academy.
During the existence of the Massachusetts Law and Order League (1886-1900), he served as its president.
Although never holding any local political office, Dr.Capen was chairman of the ward 4 delegation in the Somerville mayoralty convention in 1895, and led the revolt which resulted in the nomination of AlbionA.Perry. Dr.Capen was also elected a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1888, but did not serve.
He was president of the Mystic Valley Club for five years; a charter member in his college days of the Theta Delta Chi Fraternity; an organization member ofthe Delta Chapter of Massachusetts, Phi Beta Kappa; and a director recently of the Bingham Hospital for Incurables.
Besides, he held membership in the Twentieth Century Club, the University Club, the Boston Club, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and the SomervilleHistorical Society.
PresidentCapen's publications include the article on The Philosophy of Universalism, in The Latest Word of Universalism; the article on The Atonement, in the Universalist section of the Columbian Congress; the article on Universalism in Hertzog's Religious Cyclopaedia; and the articles on Universalism and Tufts College in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
More recent publications are a volume of Occasional Addresses, and a revised edition of the denominational service book, called Gloria Patri.
A few words are insufficient to summarize this lifetime of service.
Dr.Capen's public spirit is indicated in his pursuance of a vast round of public duties outside the requirements of his college presidency.
As a college president, he was eager to lead in the educational progress of his time.
It is in accord with his spirit that Tufts was the firstNew England college to substitute modern languages for Greek as an admission requirement, to omit Greek as a requirement for the A. B. degree, and to grant the degree on the completion of a definite amount of work rather than of a definite number of years of residence.
The growth of the college to university proportions is a further tribute to his liberality and sagacity.
As an administrator, PresidentCapen believed in allowing faculty and students alike the largest possible freedom.
He was the reverse of a martinet in government, while exacting manliness and respect from the student body.
As an orator, he was eloquent and strong.
As a man, he was considerate and magnanimous, a friend to all in distress, quick to perceive the good qualities of his associates, and to put them to use. In private he loved his family life, and was a man of warm friendships.
Now that he is gone, we shall appreciate him better.
We shall continue to miss him, while recognizing the beneficence of his departure at the height of his power and in the flower of his usefulness.
The flora of SomervilleBy LouiseA.Vinal
A city of 70,000 inhabitants, bounded on two sides by still larger cities, offers an unpromising field of research to the most enthusiastic botanist.
But the interests of this society are largely in the days that are gone, and for this half-hour we will try and picture the vegetation of Somerville from the arrival of the first colonists to the time when the encroachments of the rapidly-growing city drove from its limits all but the most common of its native plants.
The first mention of the vegetation of that particular part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which since 1842 has been known as Somerville was made by the surveying party that left Salem shortly after the arrival of Endicott and his colonists.
They traveled through an uncouth wilderness until they reached Mishawum, now Charlestown, and they reported that they found it was a neck of land generally full of stately timber, as was the main.And ThomasGraves, who came over as engineer of the Charlestown colony the next year, wrote home that It is very beautiful in open lands mixed with goodly woods, and again open plaines, in some places five hundred acres, some places more, some lesse, not much troublesome for to cleere for the plough to goe in, no place barren but on the tops of the hills.He also says: The grass and weeds grow up to, a man's face in the lowlands.And the Rev. Mr.Higginson, writing of the settlements on Charles river, speaks of the abundance of grass that groweth everywhere, both very thick, very long, and very high in divers places.
From these simple statements, it is not difficult to imagine the aspect of our city at that time.
On the north, broad marshes extended along the Mystic river, from the Medford line to Charlestown Neck, the marsh grasses green and beautiful in their pristine freshness.
On the south, Miller's river, or Willis creek, as it was first called, a broad inlet from the sea, reached beyond Union square, probably as far as where the bleachery now stands; and from there to Charlestown Neck was another extent of salt marsh.
And again on the west was a narrower strip of land that felt the influence of salt water where Alewife brook divides Somerville from Cambridge and Arlington.
Numerous brooks flowed through valleys between the many hills, watering large meadows, without any tree or shrub to hinder the scythe.
The hills of Somerville are drumlins, and were doubtless covered with the hardwood trees that thrive best on such dry, glacial soil—oak, chestnut, maple, beech, and birch.
The little valleys and the swamps, the tracts of sand and clay offered conditions favorable to the growth of many different kinds of trees, of which pine, according to, Higginson, was the most plentiful of all wood and the most useful to the colonists.Altogether, these formed a primeval forest whose extent and variety and solemn grandeur excited the wonder and the admiration of the newly-arrived Englishmen.
But the needs of the colonists made great inroads upon these mighty forests.
The building of houses, and ships, and wharves, the constant demand for firewood, and the sending great quantities of timber back to England in the ships that brought out supplies to the colonists, coopers and cleavers of timber being sent out by the company in London to prepare it for shipping, soon made an appreciable difference in the character of the main, and from various items recorded in the first decade after the settling of Charlestown, we must infer that the proportion of cleared and grass land was great in Somerville.
In the list of the inhabitants of Charlestown in 1633 appears the name of NicholasStowers, herdsman, whose duties were to drive the herd forth to their food in the main every morning, and bring them into town every evening.If the main had been an uncouth wilderness, like the country farther back, or even an unbroken forest, the poor cows and goats would have suffered as much from the lack of proper food as did their owners in the first hard year after their arrival.
But we have abundant testimony in the early records that the cattle did thrive marvelously well.
Still more conclusive is the fact that in 1637 a large tract of land lying between the Winter Hill road, now Broadway, and Cambridge was divided into rights of pasturage, and after this the main was called the common.
But the destruction of the forest was so great that it was early necessary to take steps to prevent the needless waste of trees, and in 1636 it was voted in town meeting that a fine of 5 shillings be imposed for every tree felled and not cut up.But several years later, when oneWilloughby was building a ship, the town, to encourage the enterprise, gave him liberty to take timber from the common, without being obliged to cut up the tops of the trees.
And so, the primeval forest was cut away, a second growth succeeding, to fall in its turn before the woodman's axe, and the cleared land slowly increased in extent until the Revolution.
During the siege of Boston, when the colonial troops were encamped for nine months on the Somerville hills, the demand for firewood was great, and the last of the forest trees disappeared.
The devastation wrought in Somerville during the siege is plainly set forth in a letter by Rev.WilliamEmerson, written in the late summer of 1775.
He says: Who would have thought, twelve months past, that all Cambridge and Charlestown would be covered over with American camps, and cut up into forts and intrenchments, and all the lands, fields, orchards laid common,—horses and cattle feeding in the choicest mowing land, whole fields of corn eaten down to the ground, and large parks of well-regulated locusts cut down for firewood and other public uses.GeneralGreen, who commanded the troops on Prospect Hill, wrote December31, 1775: We have suffered prodigiously for want of wood.
Many regiments have been obliged to eat their provisions raw for want of fuel to cook them, and notwithstanding we have burnt up all the fences and cut down all the trees for a mile around the camp, our sufferings have been inconceivable.And the following winter, when the Hessians were prisoners of war on Winter Hill, they used for firewood the last of the walnut trees, which gave the original name of Walnut Hill to what is now College Hill.
Fruit trees and ornamental trees were also sacrificed to keep the poorly-clad soldiers from freezing, and the forests never again regained possession of the thoroughly denuded country.
But the kindly forces of nature work unceasingly, and soon the swamps and waste places, the roadsides and pasture walls were gladdened by the presence of those trees that could thrive under the new conditions.
And this is the growth that abounded when the farming district of Charlestown in 1842 was made into the town of Somerville.
The juniper, which grows equally well on dry hills or in deep swamps, and the white birch, which flourishes in the poorest soil, grew freely everywhere; and these, with the elm, the typical New England tree that grows wherever a rich, moist soil receives the wind-blown seeds, were the most common trees.
A tract of salt marsh still remained on
Washington street, where Lincoln field now is, and from there, through Concord and Oak streets, to Prospect street and the Cambridge line, was a lonesome tract of swampy land covered with low trees and bushes.
On Prospect street, which was first called Pine street, was a large grove of pine trees, the last of which were cut down only a few years ago. Polly's Swamp was the largest tract of wild land extending along the valley north of Central street, toward Walnut Hill.
Here all swamp-loving trees and shrubs were found, bound together by horse briar and brambles, so as to be almost impenetrable in many places.
The birches and junipers grew far up onto the north slope of Spring Hill, the whole wild and extensive enough to furnish good gunning for small game.
Along the line of the Revolutionary forts on Prospect and Central Hills to Winter Hill were many old gnarled button-pear trees.
These seldom grow spontaneously in Massachusetts, and it was popularly believed that they came from the seeds of pears eaten by the soldiers when quartered on these hills.
Rand's woods, on
Elm street, below the Powder House, was the only grove of any extent on high land, and this was composed principally of evergreens, pitch and white pines, and junipers, with a few maples and oaks.
But the number of forest trees in the new town was really very small.
Probably not a walnut, chestnut, hemlock, or spruce was growing wild at that time, plentiful as they must have been here originally, and in the opinion of FrankHenderson, Thomas Young, and other old residents, there were more trees in Somerville when it celebrated its semi-centennial in 1892 than there were in 1842.
But everywhere was a profusion of those shrubs and low bushes that make so much of the beauty and variety of New England vegetation.
From the spice-bush in April to the weird witch-hazel of November was a succession of fair flowers and bright berries, and our country lanes were picturesque, if our hills were barren and our pastures bare of trees.
In those years bushels of blueberries and huckleberries were picked every summer in the pastures round
Oak and Springfield streets, cranberries grew abundantly in the meadows where the American Tube Works now stand, and everywhere was a wealth of wild roses, which the children gathered by the basketful, to be distilled into rose-water.
One old resident of East Somerville remembers that the cardinal flower grew luxuriantly on the banks of the old canal, where it passed near her home on Mystic avenue, and HenryMunroe, a native of Somerville, and for many years a teacher of botany in the Chicago, high schools, writes that in all his botanical trips, east and west, he has seldom seen a more beautiful sight than the bed of the old canal on Ten Hills Farm, when in early spring it was white as a snowdrift with the starry blossoms of the blood-root.
And here I would like to read a few verses from a song written by Mrs.NancyT.Munroe, whose house on
Walnut street was the firstone built on the west slope of Prospect Hill.
Walnut street was one of the original rangeways laid out in 1680.
It was very steep and narrow, and this song was written in 1851 or '52, when the county commissioners ordered that it should be widened and the grade made easier, thus changing the country hillside lane into a town road.
No description I could write would give so graphic a picture of the wildness and beauty of our narrow roads at that time:—
A farewell song to the lane. A song for the lane,The green old lane,That led from the hillTo the level plain.O gentle muse, ere it fade from sight,One feeble song to its praise indite.The green old lane,It towered so high,The trees at the topSeemed to touch the sky.On the moss-grown wallAt either sideThe vines grew wildIn native pride.The wild rose blossomed,The locust tree,With its graceful foliage,Was fair to see.A brook crossed the laneNear the drooping willow,Two planks formed a bridgeO'er this placid billow.A hawthorn grewIn that green old lane,Just midway it stoodTween the hill and the plain.A moss-grown stone 'neath its shadow lay,And children played there many a day.Alas!
alas! for the green old lane!I never shall look on it thus again.The wants of the people the town must meet,The pleasant lane must be made a street.They came with the axe, the plough, and spade,And heavy stones on the brook they laid.The willow branches they lopped away,And the hawthorn fell ere close of day.They ploughed up the vines all covered with berries,They cut down the tree all filled with cherries.My heart grows sadAt the beauty gone,But the work of improvementMust still go on.We must give up romanceFor the good of the town,And the dear old laneMust be leveled down.So a sad farewell to the green old laneThat led from the hill to the level plain.
In 1859HenryH.Babcock was elected principal of the High School.
He was a skilled botanist, a zealous collector, and knew the wild flowers of the neighborhood of Boston in their native haunts.
Under his enthusiastic teaching, the meadows and swamps and hidden nooks of Somerville were explored as never before, and what floral treasures still lingered within the limits of the fast-growing town were brought to the little botany room in the old High School building.
Here many a happy and profitable hour was spent after the school session was ended in puzzling over perplexing specimens, and in learning of that divine law which links the smallest fern with the mightiest tree of the forest, and without which any scientific classification would be impossible.
When Mr.Babcock left the High School, MissMaryD.Davis had charge of the botany classes, and her great interest in and enthusiasm for her favorite science made her a worthy successor of her former teacher.
EdwardEverettEdgerley, of the class of ‘63, was the most zealous collector in those days, and if his herbarium was available for reference, it would give the most complete list ever made of the wild flowers of Somerville in the early sixties,
The most distinctive feature of the Somerville flora at that time was that of the salt marshes along the Mystic river and the mill-pond on the north and east boundaries of the town.
Most of the plants growing there were of more interest to the botanist than to the lover of wild flowers, the seashore golden-rod, perhaps the most brilliant of the golden-rods, and the marsh rosemary or sea-lavender being the only ones whose blossoms would attract attention from the ordinary passer-by.
But the glaux, the atriplex, and the salicornias, mere weeds as they would be called, possessed an equal charm for one whose eye and mind were trained to appreciate every detail of the insignificant flower or the curiously-constructed seed.
Perhaps the greatest number of species was found in Polly's Swamp, many water-loving plants growing there.
But the Ten Hills Farm district was the favorite haunt of the spring flowers, columbine and bloodroot, violets and early saxifrage growing without stint, while the shad bush and the wild cherry blossoms were greatly prized.
In the little strip of Palfry's Swamp that was left within the Somerville limits were a number of choice plants not found elsewhere.
Among them may be mentioned the swamp azalea, the wild sensitive plant, the meadow beauty, and the dodder, and the High School scholars of to-day would be obliged to tramp many a long mile before they could find four such interesting flowers in our locality.
Gilman's field, as the large vacant lot on
Walnut street, north of the Lowell railroad, was called, was another favorite tramping ground, its rocky ledges and boggy hollows revealing very diverse varieties of plants.
There were the wild currant and gooseberry, the elder, button bush, the sweet pepper bush, and wild roses without stint, while equally interesting were the wild oats, the ground-nut, and the orchid that grew most abundantly in Somerville the spiranthes ce<*>nua.
But <*> letter day in our botanical calendar was when the fringed gentian was found here, where New Pearl street now crosses Walnut, and it seemed an act of graceful condescension for a flower sung by Bryant, Whittier, and Emerson to grace the wayside of our prosaic town.
The ferns grew freely in many parts of the town, but the favorite haunt of this interesting family was the south bank of the Lowell railroad, east of the Sycamore-street bridge, where the railroad is cut through a ledge of slate-stone.
All the common ferns grew along the brook at the foot of the banking, but the real treasures were found in the crevices of the ledge above.
Rand's woods, already mentioned, always repaid us for a visit, the low cornel and the lady's slipper being the choicest flowers growing here.
But the rear of Mr.Holland's farm, back of where the elevated railroad car houses now stand, furnished us with more interesting specimens than any other spot in West Somerville.
Here Alewife brook separated the farm from Cambridge, and in the spring were found many water-loving plants, among others, the pitcher plant, that most curious of all New England wild flowers; the marsh marigold, the arrowhead, the forget-me-not, and the buck bean, perhaps the choicest and most beautiful wild flower then growing in Somerville, in spite of its commonplace name; and ColonelHigginson doubtless thought he lavished high praise on this dainty flower when he said it possessed a certain garden-like elegance.
In all long-settled countries there is always a large class of plants that become naturalized and are as common, and often much more tenacious of life, than the original occupants of the soil.
Many of these plants possess blossoms of real beauty, but they also include most of the common weeds, chickweed, mayweed, and pigweed, burdock and thistles, pursley and sorrel, which follow the plough in all temperate regions as surely as do the planted crops.
A number of these naturalized plants are natives of the Western states or of tropical America, but many more came originally from Europe, and were introduced in various ways.
A few were brought over by the first colonists to give a little touch of home to, their dreary abodes in a far-away land.
The sweet briar and the barberry bush are of this number, and were among the firstEnglish plants to, become naturalized in their adopted country.
The mints, tansy, and plantain were evidently brought over on account of their medicinal value, and the wild mustard and carrot, ornamental as they now are to fields and waysides, are escapes from our forefathers' vegetable gardens.
Other interesting plants of this class which are still occasionally found in our city are the alsike, that pretty pink clover which originated in Sweden, where it is considered one of the most valuable of forage plants; the brilliant cone-flower, or black-eyed Susan, a native of our Western prairies, and unknown in New Englandfifty years ago; the mullein, the bladder campion, and the sky-blue succory, which Dr.Bigelow, who appreciated every charm of the flowers he so faithfully described, called an elegant plant.
As for the field daisy, the buttercup, and the dandelion, they hold a much warmer place in our affections than do many of the choice native species.
JamesRussellLowell sings of the dandelion:— Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.Thou art more dear to, meThan all the prouder summer blooms may be.My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee.
But the wild flowers have disappeared more rapidly and more completely than did the forests 250 years ago, and to-day it would be more difficult to coax back within our city limits the orchids and gentians and ferns, the meadow beauty and the pitcher plant of forty years ago, than to start a forest of oaks, beeches, and hickories.
Charlestown schools without the Peninsula Revolutionary period. FrankMortimerHawes
(Continued.)
In closing our account of this period, it remains to speak of the Alewife Brook and the Gardner Row schools, both at the upper end of Charlestown.
After 1790, when the four schools were designated by numbers, these were known as No. 3 and No. 4.,
As we have before stated, the Alewife Brook district probably comprised that part of our city which lies west of
College avenue. It extended well up into, Arlington, and took in that part of Menotomy which belonged to Charlestown.
The Gardner Row district extended along by the Mystic ponds as far as old Woburn line.
Like the Milk Row school, the affairs of these districts were managed, for the most part, by a local committeeman, who was usually selected at the annual town meeting in May.
The selectmen were supposed to, have control of all school affairs, and at times, when dissatisfaction arose, mostly from economical reasons, no, local officer would be appointed to, relieve them.
In 1754, when our account begins, NathanielFrancis and JosephPhipps were representing these two districts.
The former had been elected as early as 1744, and served, with some interruptions, for seven years. The last mention we find of him is May5, 1755, when it was agreed that his account for wood, etc., for the school without the Neck, amounting to £ 2 6s 4d, be allowed.
This gentleman belonged to a family that gained more prominence on the Cambridge side of the line than in Charlestown; Paige and Wyman both speak of him. He died September2, 1764, aged seventy-one, and was buried in West Cambridge
Mr.Phipps served continuously from 1751 to 1757.
He was a descendant of SolomonPhipps, an early settler of Charlestown, and in previous chapters we have given the family due prominence.
According to Wyman, he was the father of Frances, who became the wife of TimothyTrumbull, master of the town school in 1680-2. Mr.Phipps died June27, 1795, aged seventy-two.
May12, 1755, Mr.Phipps received an order for £ 5 4s 9d, 1.
m., for Mr.JabezWhittemore keeping the school [Gardner Row?] without the Neck the year past.Doubtless this is the Jabez Whittemore who, in 1756was approbated as inn-holder at his house without the Neck, where his father lived.
Mr.Francis's place on the board was filled by HenryPutnam, who, according to Wyman, was a new-comer from Danvers, and of the Israel Putnam stock.
He continued in office for the next ten years, being elected for the last time: in 1764.
During this decade he distributed for his district £ 8 3s of the town's money yearly.
Wyman is doubtless in error when he says Mr.Putnam was teaching without the Neck in 1760.
During these same ten yearsMr.Phipps had been followed, in turn, by JamesFosdick, CaptainJohnHancock, and JosephLamson, the first of whom served for the year 1757-8, the second from 1758 to 1760, and the third for the remaining five years, when, along with Mr.Putnam, he disappeared from the board.
Among many entries at this time, perhaps the most interesting is the following: April3, 1758. Agreed to allow JamesFosdick as one of the committee without the Neck for schoolmaster, benches, firewood, and house rent amounting to £ 6 lawful money, being his proportion.In 1760 these two schools were receiving about the same amount of the town's money, a little more than £ 7 each.
The Milk Row school was receiving, through Mr.Kent, £ 10 6s.
We have not thought it necessary to give an extended reference to these gentlemen.
Wyman devotes several pages to the Fosdicks.
JamesFosdick (1716-1784) was prominent in town affairs, and left a good estate.
In his inventory we read of a mansion house, two shops, three acres or more, near Prospect Hill, etc. We have had occasion in a previous article to speak of a Mr.Hancock who was teaching in 1724 in the Stoneham precinct.
According to Wyman, that was the Rev.JohnHancock, later of Braintree, and father of GovernorHancock. This CaptainHancock (1699-1776) was of the same Lexington branch and a cousin of the governor's father.
May14, 1765, WalterRussell and IsaacMallet were elected to the board, the former for the Alewife Brook school, the latter for the one at Gardner Row. Mr.Mallet served three years, and was succeeded, May, 1768, by JohnLamson, who continued in office for five years. In 1773Mr.Fosdick was serving in his place, but that year it was decided to do away with a local committee, and it was voted that the selectmen manage the school without the Neck, and proportion the money among the inhabitants as they shall judge equitable.
Lamson is another good old Charlestown name.
JosephLamson (1728-1789) and JohnLamson (1732-1759), according to Wyman, were cousins.
The same authority makes the erroneous statement that the former was schoolmaster outside the Neck in 1769 and 1772.
All the gentlemen thus far named in this paper served with SamuelKent during his long and faithful term of nineteen years in the Milk Row district.
WalterRussell's name occurs on the town books in connection with school matters, excepting the years 1771 and 1772, for thirteen years from the time of his first election.
In 1778 he was succeeded by his brother, PhilemonRussell.
LieutenantSamuelCutter was serving in 1771 and 1772, and again in 1781 and 1782.
This gentleman (see CutterGenealogy, p. 54), a man of prominence in the Menotomy district, was the grandfather of Edward and FitchCutter, whose names figure on the early records of Somerville.
The name of Mallet is precious to Somerville for its associations with the old Mill, or Powder House.
MissCarr, in her excellent monograph on the family (HistoricLeaves, Vol.
II., p. 10), has been led into an error concerning the above-mentioned IsaacMallet by her authorities, Frothingham and Wyman.
In saying that he taught school at the Neck in 1767, they make two, mistakes.
In the first place, there was no school at the Neck in those days, and, secondly, the record distinctly says, under date of April6, 1767, that IsaacMallet received £ 8 10s 4d as his proportion of the school money (for the district which he was representing as committeeman). If further proof of this and similar misstatements be necessary, we need but consider that Mr.Mallet was forty years of age at this time, a man of means and influence, and was holding various town offices of importance.
The writer believes he is correct in affirming that, as a general thing, male teachers in these outlying districts at this time, as well as long afterwards, were young men, many of them graduates or students of the college near by, who were but feeling their way before the real battle of life was to begin.
The above-named WalterRussell, son of Joseph, whom we have mentioned (Vol.
III., p. 18) as teaching school in 1724, not only served on the committee, but was, a worthy follower of his father in wielding the ferule.
The first date we are sure of is May2, 1774, when he received an order for his amount for keeping part of the school without the Neck, £ 8, and his associate at the Gardner Row school, DanielReed, under same date, received £ 5 6s 8d as his amount for keeping another part of the school.January26, 1776, EdwardGardner is allowed the same sum for keeping this school, and WalterRussell£ 8 6s for keeping the one at Alewife Brook.
These dates prove to us that these schools were not closed, at least for any length of time, during the excitement which prevailed after the battle of Bunker Hill, when old Charlestown lay in ashes.
DanielReed was the representative of a family that for several generations lived at the upper end of Charlestown, near the ponds.
He was, perhaps, the son or grandson of Daniel and Mary (Converse) Reed; the son was born February19, 1732.
In February, 1778, WalterRussell was acting as town clerk, a position which he did not hold long, as, May20, 1779, we read that SamuelSwan was serving in that capacity.
The last time we find Mr.Russell's name associated with school affairs was in 1780 (already referred to as the year of greatly-inflated values), when the district under his management received £ 317 8s 6d of the £ 6,400 appropriated for schools!
WalterRussell, son of Joseph and Mary (Robbins) Russell, was born January24, 1737, and died at the early age of fortyfive, March5, 1782.
For his second wife, the mother of his children, he married HannahAdams (HistoricLeaves, Vol.
III., p. 89). Dr.Paige, the historian of Cambridge, says that JosephRussell, the father, lived on the north side of the main road in Menotomy, on the first estate west from the river (Alewife brook), but in 1730 exchanged estates with CaptainSamuelWhittemore, and removed into the borders of Charlestown, now Somerville, where his home was on the road leading to Winter Hill.
The ancient homestead of this branch of the Russell family was destroyed by fire not many years ago. Its site, on the easterly corner of
North street and Broadway, is marked by a well and an old pump, which is still standing.
About the time Edward Gardner was teaching in his home district, others of his name renewed a family interest in the school by accepting positions on the school board.
As early as 1738 (Vol.
III., p. 16), HenryGardner was a member of the local committee outside the Neck, and for five consecutive years previous to May, 1753, was serving his district.
October10, 1776, SamuelGardner was serving in this capacity, and his name is found upon the records every year, I believe, up to 1782.
In August, 1779, PhilemonRussell received £ 18, and June, 1780, EdwardGardner, £ 14 19s 6d (probably for teaching in their respective districts, as SamuelGardner and AmosWarren were on the school board at the time). EdwardGardner in 1782, and as late as 1786, served on the committee, and Mr.Russell's name occurs in the same connection, year by year, to the end of the period which we are considering.
Another teacher, in one or the other of these districts, was JamesGardner, who received, through Collector Hawkins, pay for his services, August, 1786.
We have mentioned the name of AmosWarren.
He was serving in 1779, and again in 1784. August2, 1784, AmosWarren and SamuelGardner are allowed to keep tavern.
We are justified in concluding that, previous to 1786, there was no public school building in these two districts.
Several references to private quarters that were hired for school purposes are found upon the town records.
December6, 1784. Voted that the school at the upper end of the town be placed at Mr.SamuelSwan's, he to board the master at six shillings per week, and find a room for the school.
Voted to give SamuelGardnerfive shillings a week to board RuthJones to December, 1785 (see HistoricLeaves, Vol.
III., p. 68).
December14, 1785. The school kept at PhebeRussell's received £ 8 8s.
May4, 1785. Voted to give Coll.
N.Hawkins for school kept at JohnSwan's £ 10 16s.
In the warrant (February28, 1785) for the coming town meeting, we find the following: To know the minds of the town, what they will do with regard to two petitions presented by the people at the upper end of the town requesting that one or two schoolhouses may be built there.March7 it was voted that two schools be built agreeably to, this petition.
The committee appointed for this purpose were Mr.SamuelGardiner, Mr.WilliamWhittemore, Coll.
NathanielHawkins, Lieut.SamuelCutter, and Mr.SethWyman.These gentlemen seem to have attended promptly to their duty, for May1, 1786, it was voted to allow CaptainCordis's account for building the schoolhouses without the Neck, £ 80. The following NovemberMessrs.Whittemore and PhilemonRussell were empowered to lay a floor, make seats, and lay a hearth at the Russell's school.
We believe this was the first time in the history of Charlestown that a school building was designated, although unofficially, by the name of a person or family.
A few references to these schools, though trifling, may not be out of place.
June3, 1788, Mr.Russell receives an order for work at the school, £ 2 9s 10d, and SethWyman for wood, £ 1 12s. In OctoberMr.Whittemore's bill for work at the school amounted to £ 3 5s 6d. April4, 1791, Mr.Russell's bill for cutting and carting wood to the school No.. 3 and repairs amounts to £ 2 19s. The next April, for furnishing three and one-half cords of wood to their respective schools, Mr.Russell receives £ 3 9s, and Mr.Wyman£ 4 4s. This makes the price of wood (delivered), in the time of our first president, from five to six dollarsper cord.
January5, 1789: Voted that the school money for the past year be divided according to the taxes, and that NathanielHawkins, SamuelSwan, Esq., and PhilemonRussell be a committee to make division accordingly.
BenjaminHurd, Jr., & SethWyman were added to this committee.
October19, 1789. Voted that Coll.
Hawkins, PhilemonRussell, and SethWyman provide masters for the schools outside the Neck.
PhilemonRussell, youngest son of Joseph, and brother of WalterRussell, was born August1, 1740, and married June28, 1764, ElizabethWyman, who survived her husband many years, and died in 1825.
The many references we have made to his name show that he was active in town affairs, and particularly interested in the schools.
We shall have occasion to refer to him and his son, PhilemonR.Russell, in our next period.
He was licensed as a victualler, was employed by the town as a surveyor, and lived in the house which stood on the spot where his grandson, LeviRussell, erected a more modern structure, which is now owned by the city of Somerville. Mr.Russell died in 1797.
His will, dated May27, was probated June7 of that year.
Our notes on the name of Gardner are exceedingly meagre for a family of so much prominence.
It seems to have started in Woburn.
RichardGardner, of that town, and his son Henry were the grandfather and father, respectively, of Henry (1698-1763), who lived at the upper end of Charlestown.
His brother was the Rev.JohnGardner, of Stowe.
By his wife Lucy, daughter of JohnFowle, he had five sons, Edward, Samuel, John, Henry, and James.
EdwardGardner, born in CharlestownMarch, 1739, married MehitableBlodgett, of Lexington, and died January23, 1806.
It was he whose name figures in these pages.
His brotherSamuel, born 1741, died at the age of fifty.
He, also, as we have attempted to show, rendered valuable service to his section of the town.
James, the youngest son of HenryGardner, according to the family genealogist, graduated from Harvard College, and was long located at Lynn as a physician, where he died in 1831.
By way of recapitulation, we add the following table, which is a continuation of the one on page 16, Vol.
III. The larger sum was the whole amount appropriated for schools; the less sum the amount devoted to schools beyond the Neck.
Committee of management for the schools outside the Neck:—
May, 1790, ‘91, same committee; £ 150, exclusive of the income of the school fund.
May14, 1792, the selectmen, RichardDevens, SamuelDexter, PhilemonRussell, SethWyman; £ 225, including the school fund.
Apportioned February, 1793, for the year preceding, Milk Row, £ 41; Alewife Brook, £ 20; Gardner Row, £ 20.
The old Royall house, MedfordBy CharlesD.Elliot
The celebration of the 275th anniversary of the founding of Medford brought with it the organization of a society for the purchase and restoration of the ancient Royall mansion, now the headquarters of the Medford Daughters of the Revolution; its four and one-third acres having been lotted and placed on sale by its owner.
The old house was built some two centuries ago. IsaacRoyall, a merchant from Antigua, afterwards bought it, probably about 1737, and remodeled it after an English mansion in Antigua, from whence he brought with him twenty-seven slaves, whose old brick quarters, with its huge fireplace, is probably the last existing vestige of slavery in Massachusetts.
ColonelIsaacRoyall, Jr., son of the merchant, was a Loyal-1st, and at the breaking out of the Revolution went to England, leaving for disposal by his agents, among other chattels, his slaves Stephen, George, Hagar, Mira, Betsey, and Nancy, probably among the last owned or kept in these parts.
ColonelRoyall endowed Harvard College with 2,000 acres of land, founding thereby the Royall professorship of law, which was the beginning of the present Harvard Law School.
This ancient Royall estate was once part of GovernorWinthrop's Ten Hills Farm, and was then part of Charlestown.
In the Revolution the old mansion was for a time the headquarters of GeneralCharlesLee, who afterwards moved to the old Oliver Tufts house; while Lee had the Royall mansion, it was facetiously named Hobgoblin Hall.
It is a relic all are interested in preserving, and it is believed and hoped that this society will succeed in purchasing and restoring this historic place, which was during the last century considered one of the grandest mansions in Massachusetts.
Officers of Somervillehistorical Society.
1905-1906
PresidentFrankM.HawesFirstVice-PresidentLeviL.HawesSecondVice-PresidentJamesF.WhitneyThirdVice-PresidentJohnF.AyerTreasurerSethMasonRecording SecretaryMrs.WilliamB.HolmesCorresponding SecretaryFlorenceE.CarrLibrarian and CuratorAlfredM.Cutler
Personal Experience of a Union Veteran By LeviLindleyHawes
About oneAugust in 1862, as I sat in my tent at Fort Jackson, La., making out a Post Return—or perhaps writing to the girl I left behind me—I was interrupted by the quiet entrance of the commandant.
Ye gods!
what do I see?I exclaimed, as the lieutenant-colonel stood before me in full evening (or night) dress.
I thought you were asleep hours ago.I have been asleep, he replied, but when I awoke and saw a light in your tent, I said to myself, this witching hour of night is a proper time for me to ask Levi what prompted or induced him to enter the service.
You, an only son, left a delightful, happy home,—I simply left the state of Maine.
Why did you enlist in the military service?After an hour's friendly chat, I think the colonel retired in the firm conviction that I had a valid reason for connecting myself as sergeant in company I, Thirteenth Maine Regiment Infantry.
With varied phraseology this pertinent question has been fired at me scores of times.
In this connection permit me to read extracts from two letters written in September, 1861.
(Extract.) Bangor, Me., September7, 1861.
My dear Levi: You seem to think it is your duty to go into the army, and by what you write I judge that you have decided to go. Well, go, if you think you can endure the exposure and hardships of camp life; and may God bless you in all your endeavors to serve our country, and give you health, strength, and ability equal to your calling.
If you do enter your country's service, attach yourself to a cavalry squadron, by all means.
I send you a paper to call your attention to the notice of a company which is to be recruited in Maine; and you will see that it is more advantageous to enlist here than in Massachusetts.
If you wish to obtain a situation in this company, you had better apply at once.
Let the store go.
Please write very soon, if you do not come home, for I shall feel anxious to hear how you succeed in enlisting.
Mother.
(Extract.) Boston, September10, 1861.
My dear Mother: Your letter of the 7th inst. received this noon has filled my heart with joy. A thousand thanks for such words as these—words both of consent and blessing.
I surely have no desire to bathe my hands in my brother's blood, but when he madly threatens to destroy, not only me, but also the entire family—having used every other means to dissuade him from his cruel purpose in vain—shall I fail or refuse to bring forward the last and most potent argument—the sword—in self—defence?
God forbid. If I perish, let it be said that I died in the faithful discharge of my duty.
Duty is my war-cry; but having unsheathed my sword, I shall throw away the scabbard; and when my duty is completely done, I will bury the sword.
It does seem to me that it is my duty to offer my services to my country; and, God helping me, I will never disgrace my more than Spartan mother.
My whole soul cries go.You say go.And does not the providence of God indicate that it is my duty to rally for the strife?
Oh, the terrible, the thrice terrible necessity!
But it must be met.
Yours affectionately,
Levi. But there is a long gap between this period and the beginning of my history.
In 1833two notable events occurred.
First, the Anti-Slavery Society was born.
Then, according to the record—which I have been assured is absolutely correct—a boy was born in the town of Union, Me., Lincoln county (now Knox), adjoining Hope, adjoining Liberty, and in process of time this boy necessarily became, in the main, a hopeful union, Lincoln, liberty-loving, American citizen.
On that April day, when a gun-carriage went rumbling past my store, corner
Beacon and Tremont streets, bearing the bodies of Ladd and Whitney, killed in Baltimore, I recorded a vow. As soon thereafter as possible, I turned the key on my mercantile business, and on the twenty-first day of October, 1861, my name was writ large on the enlistment roll; and from that date my time and means were devoted to the business of inducing men to enlist in the Thirteenth Maine Regiment, which was to be attached to GeneralButler's division for special service,—until the regiment was mustered into the United States service at the arsenal in Augusta,—December31, 1861.
Here we lived in tents half buried in snow, often drilling in snow knee deep, with the mercury at or below zero, till February18, 1862, at which date we dug ourselves out of several feet of snow and ice and took train for Boston.
About midnight we found ourselves in the Cradle of Liberty, where, it was supposed, we were to be rocked to sleep, but I don't remember to have seen a single sleeping soldier that night.
On the twentieth a battalion of the regiment (four companies) (ColonelDow and MajorHesseltine) was marched to Long wharf and down between decks of the good steamshipMississippi, in which for many days and nights we were literally rocked to sleep.
(The six companies of the regiment, Lieutenant-ColonelRust commanding, sailed from New York.) The next day our voyage began, and before it ended the boys experienced all the charms of life on the ocean wave, and a home on the rolling deep.As we rolled and pitched on the passage to Fort Monroe, many a luckless soldier went skating down the icy deck till the lee bulwarks ordered a peremptory halt.
The order to halt was not always obeyed with such alacrity.
At Fort Monroe we received GeneralButler and staff.
We had previously discovered that the Thirty-first Massachusetts Regiment was stowed somewhere down forward.
At on the twenty-fifth, the engines began to throb, and shortly the capes were left astern.
Our final (?) departure was taken, and Ship Island was announced as our destination.
About on the twenty-sixth I was standing in the lee of the pilot house, greatly interested in the tumbling of a ragged sea. Suddenly, through the gloom, I thought I saw white water on our starboard bow, and I said to the sergeant who stood near me, We are in the midst of breakers, and putting my hands to my mouth, sailor fashion, I shouted, Breakers!Looking through the pilot house window, I saw the quartermaster throwing his wheel to starboard.
Had he not started his wheel when he did, these lines would not have been written; for it was a moment later that the captain from the fore rigging bawled first, Hard a-port, then, Hard astar-board.As the ship came about she fell into the trough of the sea, and for a short time, which seemed an age, she was practically on her beam ends.
The sergeant vanished as if by magic.
Man overboard trembled on my lips, but I checked myself, realizing the futility of raising an alarm at that juncture.
Wiping the brine from my eyes with my sleeve, I discovered something in the lee scuppers.
Edging down carefully I seized it; whereupon a voice called out as well as it could through a Lit of the Atlantic Ocean that had taken refuge in his mouth, That's my hair.God bless you, sergeant, I said, are you hurt?No, he said, but I am nearly drowned.Well, now go below, I said, and be a good boy.He went.
An hour later we had a full grown gale bellowing after us, and I remained on deck to watch the splendid behavior of the ship and to listen to the full chorus which seemed to be performing for my special benefit.
A gale at sea always sends me to the key of G. Finally, chilled to the marrow, I had to yield to the blast and go below.
As I stepped down between decks, behold a whole menagerie in full voice.
Every conceivable sound proceeded from hundreds of sick and scared soldiers.
Hanging my dripping clothes where I hoped they would dry over night, I flung myself into the bunk already occupied by four somewhat demoralized sergeants, thus adding one more specimen to the floating show.The motion of the ship soon lulled me into a sixteen-knot sleep, from which I was aroused by a motion not of the ship, and a hoarse whisper in my ear: Turn out, you are wanted in the cabin.
The skylight is stove in and the cabin is flooded, and the water is up nearly to the grating in the boiler room.
It is , and the devil to pay generally.
The occasion didn't seem to demand an elaborate toilet, so in the pitchy night I quickly groped my way to the cabin, and as I stepped from the companion-way into the swirling suds that swished half way up the bulkhead, the scene struck me as indescribably funny.
Officers sat about the table looking as though they had lost their best friend.
Saluting, I said (unwisely, no doubt), Gentlemen, this looks very much like a fashionable watering-place.Whereupon one with somewhat of cant in his tone said, This is no time for frivolity or jesting.
Looking at the chevron on my sleeve, I made no audible reply, but to the bucket bearers I said, sotto voce, They are in for how long?Well, we will bail them out, anyway, at which a broad smile broke out and went echoing down the cabin; and then we all turned to, each one steering his own bucket.
An hour or so later I saw my frivolous friend making for the stairs.
After you, sir, rose to my lips, and halted there, while I preceded him up the winding stairs, letting my bucket, as the ship rolled, steer itself.
As I reached the deck the orderly looked in my bucket and asked, Where is your water?In the chaplain's starboard boot—will explain later, I replied.
At sea, accidents sometimes occur in pairs or in sets.
When I returned to the cabin I found a dapper little lieutenant issuing orders—forgetting that he was not commander-in-chief of the army and navy.
I stood at attention, and was about to quote a passage from an ancient volume, for I knew something was going to happen.
Just then a sea struck the ship under the counter, lifted her endwise, and dropped her so suddenly that the would-be commander sat down, in his best clothes, in the not over-clean water.
I turned my head to wipe away tears—or was it the dirty water he had splashed in my face?—and then sympathetically remarked, You have dropped something, sir.He disappeared so quickly that I failed to get more than a mental photograph of the young son of Mars, and the water closed over a stern reality.
At , after four hours bailing, we were relieved and treated to a breakfast fit for the gods.
As I presented my tin cup and plate to the black knight at the galley, he poured half a pint of coffee into my cup and deposited one boiled potato in the centre of my ten-inch plate—sans salt, sans pepper, sans everything.
I declare, on the honor of a soldier, that I never before saw a boiled potato look so, utterly lonesome.
I think that I made a remark to that effect at the time, for the darkey seemed amused, and when I told him to keep his black hand out of my new tin plate he opened his mouth to such an extent that his ears were in eclipse.
My breakfast disposed of, I went on deck and deposited myself in a huge coil of six-inch hawser on the after part of the quarter-deck, where for hours—and alone—I watched the mighty combers which, as yet, had not tumbled aboard to any great damage.
Suddenly the door of the after house flew open, and out shot my captain.
Righting himself, he said, Sergeant, you must not sit there, it is dangerous.
The field gun lashed to the rail near where you are sitting was washed overboard last night.I thanked him for his kind warning, adding that I was not a loaded field piece, and I didn't purpose to go off after that fashion.
Meanwhile, I was watching a tremendous comber making toward the starboard quarter.
Pointing in that direction, I said, Captain, that fellow means mischief, and you had better seek shelter.He took the hint.
As the lawless comber with a thundering roar broke over the deck, I instinctively seized the topmost flakes of the coil with both hands.
After the tons of the North Atlantic had left the deck and gone back to its own, I found myself jammed into that coil doubled up like a jack-knife with feet and hands sticking through different parts of the mass of nearly wrecked cordage.
I knew something had happened, but which was Hawes and which was hawser I was too badly twisted and tangled to determine.
What would my mother think of me now?I soliloquized.
By dint of vigorous kicking, wriggling, clawing, and sundry other manoeuvres I shuffled that hempen coil, and finding that I was not Hawes de combat, nor my zeal dampened (but with some loss of dignity as a soldier), I went in search of less tight-fitting and clinging garments.
Of the 1,500 soldiers aboard, not a soul of them knew anything of the circus I had had.
The next morning came in with a cloudless sky, the ship on an even keel, on a glassy sea. As I went forward I looked over the rail and noticed that the water had a peculiar color.
To SergeantSimmons, who was to be my guest at the galley, I said: We are in shoal water, and looking ahead, added, and we are shoaling fast.
We shall be aground in less than five minutes. However, let us make sure of our potatoes.As we went below I heard the gong sound in the engine room, and at that instant the ship came to a full stop, but without a perceptible jar, on Frying-Pan Shoals—and within the five minutes specified.
Adequately to describe our experience during the eleven hours we were stranded on the worst coast of the United States would take more time than this occasion affords or your patience would allow.
I have been on the rocks off an inhospitable coast of South America, and on a lee shore elsewhere, but perhaps this was the most trying situation of all, because in this case infinitely more was involved.
Although the situation seemed desperate I never lost courage for a moment.
From my diary I have written out somewhat in detail an account of our experience on Frying-Pan Shoals; but to-night I can give you only a glimpse of what stared us in the face on that twenty-eighth day of February, 1862.
Of course I had but a superficial knowledge of our surroundings, but the school had been opened and I was in the mood to put myself in training.
To my amazement I found that the port anchor had been let go, notwithstanding the fact that that end of the ship was already stuck fast in the mud. As GeneralButler came on deck he asked the captain, What's that?pointing to the flag, Union down, in the port fore rigging.
Flag of distress, said the skipper.
Can you display it nowhere else?asked the general.
Yes, at the mizzen peak, replied the skipper.
Half-mast it at the mizzen peak, Union up, forever!roared the general.
Then a signal gun was fired, but this was immediately muzzled, for Fort Macon and horsemen were in plain sight from our deck.
All the troops were immediately ordered to go below.
I recognized the wisdom of the order, but I concluded that it didn't include me. So I ranged alongside the ship's quartermaster, who at once adopted me as his assistant; and it proved to be the longest watch on deck that I ever experienced,—from , till about
It was soon discovered that the good ship had resented the indignity of dropping the anchor under her forefoot by rolling over onto it and forcing a fluke through her iron bow. At this hour we had only fourteen feet of water forward, while the ship drew about eighteen feet, and the tide was falling.
But as the water fell outside it continued to rise in the forward compartment, till the Thirty-first Massachusetts boys had the choice of being drowned in an iron kettle or vacating their quarters.
No deaths by drowning were reported.
Doubtless GeneralButler comprehended the gravity of the situation, but he was outwardly cool and collected during the entire day, and actively in command.
To arouse the ship from her siesta various expedients were resorted to. Orders were issued to jettison some of the heavier cargo.
Among the first things I noticed going overboard were mosquito netting and camp and garrison equipage.
In this connection the acting quartermaster of the expedition cut a sorry figure.
Seated on the booby hatch, with his mouth full of oaths, flourishing a revolver and threatening to shoot, this officer was supposed to be executing orders.
While I had no connection with his squad I was a witness of what was being done on that part of the ship.
Finally a barrel got jammed in the hatch.
The air was blue with oaths, and I noticed some of the men edging away from the flourishing pistol.
I could stand the pressure no longer.
Seizing a capstan bar I stepped to the hatch and said, Lower a bit, then, canting the barrel, said, Hoist, and the situation was relieved.
To the disgust of the officer some one cried, Bully for the sergeant.Spluttering oaths the officer turned on me, and, pointing his pistol threateningly, demanded if I belonged to that squad.
I looked him square in the face for a moment, and then said, perhaps with more emphasis than my rank would fairly warrant, No, sir, then pointing to his pistol, added, but that is no good.To his credit be it said the pistol-bearer quieted down, and the pistol was not in evidence during the rest of the day. As I turned away my colonel laid his hand on my shoulder, saying, Sergeant, I'm glad to see you here.
That's a miserable fellow.I know I was terribly angry at the wretch; but the kind words of my colonel relieved the tension.
After some hours a steamer was made out coming up the coast.
Her progress was closely watched.
The stars and stripes floated from her peak, but she might be a rebel gun-boat for all that.
As she rounded to at a distance and headed for us a boat was called away with an officer in charge to ascertain the nationality of the ship.
She proved to be the United StatesgunboatMount Vernon, on blockade duty off Cape Fear river.
She had fortunately seen the flash of our gun, but was too far off to hear the report, and immediately started to investigate.
Imagination alone can picture forth our feelings of relief at having a United States gun-boat between us and the rebel fort at the mouth of Cape Fear river—not to mention the rising wind and muttering sea, which would soon reduce the good shipMississippi to a scrap heap unless relieved at flood tide.
CaptainGlisson of the Mt. Vernon shook his head as hawser after hawser parted in his efforts to pull us off. You have, perhaps, one chance in a million, said the captain, to float your ship.To save his own ship he was obliged to haul off to deeper water, for he had touched bottom several times.
Meanwhile our engine was working full steam ahead.
The quartermaster and I were forward charged with heaving the lead.
As a precaution troops were being transferred to the Mt. Vernon, for there was slight expectation of saving our ship.
Just here the quartermaster said, Sergeant, I've got to go aft; look out for falling spars as the ship rolls.When he returned, he said the Maine troops were being sent to the gun-boat, but he had obtained my colonel's consent, and would I remain and take the one chance,— We need you—for, if we don't get off this tide, good-by Mississippi.I simply said I'll stick.A little later he said, I wish you would take the lead again, you have a more sensitive touch.My heart gave a big thump as I felt the lead trail aft just a bit. As with tense nerves I watched the lead-line, the General, apparently thinking I had fallen asleep, or was idling, yelled, Keep that lead a-going.Turning to the quartermaster, I said, with as steady voice as I could command, She forges ahead, sir.Are you sure?he asked.
Sure, I replied.
Then he repeated my report to the quarter-deck, which report brought cheers from every mouth and tears from many eyes.
The boats were recalled, and, on account of the heavy sea, were with great difficulty hoisted aboard.
A few hours later, piloted by the Mt. Vernon, we let go our anchor near the mouth of the Cape Fear river.
The next morning we took a sailing-master from the Mt. Vernon and laid our course for Port Royal (Hilton Head), where we arrived March2 with our forward compartment full of water.
and the ship badly by the head.The next day we hauled around to Seabrook Landing, about eight miles from Hilton Head, and disembarked.
The first night we were quartered in a cotton shed, pole floor, and it is my belief that we suffered more from cold than we ever did in Augusta, and the poles were the knottiest and crokedest that ever grew upright.
Our flesh was torn as well as our clothes.
A wag had For rent pinned to the tail of his coat.
I didn't need a placard, but rather needle and thread and court-plaster.
Our battalion was moved out about half a mile from the landing on the road to Hilton Head, to serve as picket guard.
We pitched our tents in a cotton field; and here I had my first experience as a Southern field-hand, from which duty I was detailed to serve as sergeant of the guard.
Soon the rumor spread through the camp that the rebels were in force between our position and the Savannah river, and I detected a nervousness on the part of some of the guard.
Early in the afternoon the officer of the day said he was sick, and, as all the other officers were on duty at the landing, he would turn over the command of the guard to me. (A year later he acknowledged that he was scared, not sick.)
As the officer of the day disappeared a staff officer dashed into our camp and inquired for SergeantHawes.
Presenting myself, the officer said, The general's compliments, and he orders that you report forthwith at headquarters as a witness before a court of inquiry.It would seem that my first sighting the breakers before spoken of, and also my observing and remarking on the shoaling of the water on Frying-Pan Shoals, had been reported to the general.
Hence my summons.
There was no cross-examination in my case; and when the president said, Thank you, sergeant, that's all, I felt relieved; for I could never tell a story twice alike.
As I left the court I met the ship's quartermaster, who asked me, How near to the breakers were we on the night of the gale?
I have just testified that we were within one ship's length.In my judgment, I said, we were within two ship's length, and I so stated to the court.
Soon after returning to my post I saw the head of a column of troops debouching from the woods about a mile to the front of our position.
I had not been notified of any contemplated movement of troops, but I soon satisfied myself that in the go-as-you-please gait of the advancing troops there was union of action.
The guard took arms.
As the head of the column approached the sentinel challenged.
Strange to say the challenge was ignored by the colonel.
Whereupon I immediately threw my guard across his front and every musket was brought to a ready.
By this time the colonel apparently had a suspicion that I knew my duty, if for the moment he had forgotten his, for he halted his regiment, and then advanced and gave the countersign, apologized for his seeming discourtesy, and asked me to pass his stragglers, who would come later.
Suffice it to say, that when this episode was reported at headquarters the sergeant did not receive a reprimand for any dereliction of duty.
Our picket line extended into a dense oak wood, and as I made the rounds at night I frequently heard the sharp click of the musket as it was brought to a full cock, the sentinel being too scared to challenge, and I was obliged to announce my approach to the challenge of the click.
One of the scared sentinels said afterwards that he guessed I was the only one that night in danger of being shot.
On the ninth of March (a notable day in my calendar) we struck tents and embarked on the steamshipMatanzas, the general deeming it wise to transfer the Thirty-first regiment to our quarters on the Mississippi lest the hastily patched bow should break adrift and endanger the lives of those in the forward compartment.
Our seven days run ashore was a blessing somewhat disguised.
The next morning we hauled around to Hilton Head and anchored to await the Mississippi, which had experienced additional trouble.
At high noon on the thirteenth both shipsbeat to quarters, and we resumed our voyage.
On the seventh from Hilton Head, after suffering the tortures of the damned from both hunger and thirst (from the details of which, good Lord deliver us), a gun-boat hove to across our bow, and ascertaining that ours was a troop ship bound for Ship Island, informed us that we were within five hours sail of our long-sought — for port.
Every soldier gave voice to his feelings, and then piped down to pack knapsacks.
We forgot that our throats were parched and that our stomachs were in a collapsed condition.
(Blessing on the man who invented forgetfulness.)
Four hundred pairs of eyes were shortly on the lookout for Ship Island.
By and by masts appeared, and then the hulls came into view, but not the slightest indication of land.
Vessels only —apparently in mid-ocean.
To see vessels rising apparently out of the water was a novel sight to some of the boys.
But when they discovered the low-lying island almost under our jib-boom their astonishment was complete.
At March20), we dropped anchor within a cable's length of the Mississippi, which had arrived a day or two in advance of us. Our comrades who had sailed from New York had arrived while we were stranded at Hilton Head, and as we came to anchor gave us hearty cheers from the shore, and we returned the greeting with interest, but we had no further communication with them for three days. We had another practical illustration of the fact that doubtful things are very uncertain.
A northerly gale kicked up such an ugly surf that we couldn't land till late in the afternoon of the twenty-second, when we literally staggered ashore.
An officer of a Maine battery captured me and took me to his quarters and gave me a square meal and a good bed, and for twelve solid hours I forgot that I was a soldier.
After an substantial breakfast I reported for duty with my company; and on the whole I was glad that I was alive.
Before I left the ship the captain said to, me that he never before saw so fine a body of men. Why, said he, they have a right to mutiny.
I would consider it a religious duty to lead a mutiny on far less provocation than they have.
They have been in a starving condition for days, and yet not one breach of discipline has come to my knowledge.
Ship Island—chiefly barren sand—is about six miles long, and perhaps half a mile wide at its widest part, and rises only a few feet above the sea. The troops were encamped at the western end of the island.
The extreme eastern end is somewhat more elevated, and at the time of our arrival a growth of pines served for both fuel and timber.
During heavy gales the larger part of the island was actually under water.
On this nearly submerged sand bank the Thirteenth Maine drew for consolation for more than three months. But there was no lack of employment.
To our military duties was added excessive fatigue duty day and night, for all transports discharged their cargo at this rendezvous.
(To be continued.)
Charlestown schools after 1793By FrankMortimerHawes
(Continued.)
Since our reference to SamuelHolbrook, schoolmaster of Charlestown (Vol.
III., p. 68) an interesting article has appeared in the New England Genealogical Register, Vol. 58, p. 308, which informs us that he was born in Boston, 1729, the son of Abiah and Mary (Needham) Holbrook.
His eldest brother, Abiah, Jr., was a distinguished schoolmaster of Boston, from 1741 to his death in 1768 or 1769.
Samuel began to teach in 1745 as his brother's assistant, and in 1750 was receiving a salary of £ 50 as usher of the SouthWriting School.
In 1769 he succeeded his brother as master of this school, at a salary of £ 100. In 1770oneThomasParker complained that MasterHolbbrook had given his son an unreasonable correction, but apparently no action was taken.
In 1776Mr.Holbrook received an extra £ 80 on account of the high cost of living, and in 1777 he was allowed £ 100 for the same reason.
He seems to have continued his work in Boston until 1782.
The Memorial History of Boston says: SamuelHolbrook, the schoolmaster, was Town Clerk of Charlestown, 1783.There must be some mistake in the date of his death, July24, 1784, as the Charlestown records speak of him as late as March5, 1787, when he was still living.
His successor, SamuelPayson, was at the head of the town school in 1788. June1 and November12 of that year he received his quarter's salary, in the last instance £ 27 15s Od. December7, 1792, The committee appointed upon memorial of Mr.Payson, the schoolmaster, have attended and find Mr.Payson has lost £ 50 in consequence of being obliged to sell his warrants for less than their nominal value in order to subsist himself and family.
They report it is just and proper that the town make good the deficiency.Mr.Payson probably continued to serve as town clerk until his resignation from the school, some time in 1800.
SamuelPayson, perhaps a graduate of Harvard College, class of 1782, according to Wyman, was in the census of 1789, and came from Chelsea in 1787.
He married Grace Webb in 1790, and together they reared a family of children.
He became cashier of the Massachusetts Bank, and a trustee of the Charlestown schools in 1802.
During a part of this period GeorgeBartlett appears to have been master of the writing school.
Voted, December6, 1790, that GeorgeBartlett have an order on the treasurer for his bill for ink for the school, 12s 11d. Mr.Bartlett was born October5, 1760, and was a brother of Hon.JosiahBartlett, already mentioned.
He married MaryGorham, and one of their family of eight children, Catharine, became the wife of Rev.JamesWalker, president of Harvard College (Wyman). From 1812 to 1816, inclusive, Mr.Bartlett served on the board of trustees.
December3, 1792, voted that MaryRand have an order on the treasurer for her bill for schooling poor children, £ 1 5s Od. This item preserves the name of one of the female teachers of that period.
We are now arrived at a time when Charlestown school affairs are to take on a more modern aspect.
In accounting for the change, which was a gradual one, we can do no better than to glean from the records.
The immediate cause, it would seem, was a financial one.
May20, 1790. An examination of the poors' bonds and of the school bonds showed there was a deficiency; to make good the principal in the Bonds belonging to the Schools would require £ 488 18s 8d, and it was voted that this be made good so that the will of donors may be complied with.Messrs.JamesRussell, RichardDevens, and ThomasHarrisproposed that a farm in Stoneham, improved by SilasSimonds, and belonging to the town, be appraised and, so far as the sum will go, be taken in part for this deficiency, and that the remainder be taken in real estate or bonds, so that the funds may be kept good.
October4, 1790, a committee of three, JamesRussell, SamuelDexter, and IsaacMallett, was given full power to make transfer of the town's farm at Stoneham, so that the fee may rest in the school forever, as they may see fit.
April4, 1791, Voted to appoint a committee of seven to consider what further provision is best to be made for the public school and report at the May meeting.
The gentlemen appointed were RichardDevens, Esq., SamuelDexter, Esq., CaptainThomasHarris, JohnLarkin, TimothyThompson, Jr., JohnBromfield, and PhilemonRussell.
They beg leave to report it is their opinion that females be admitted into the public school within the Neck for six months of the year, from May to October, inclusive; that their hours of instruction be from 11 to 1 and 4 to 6, from the age of seven or more.
That until nine years they be taught reading and spelling.
That after that age they be also taught writing and arithmetic, and that reading from that time be considered as including propriety as to cadence, accent, emphasis, and pauses, and that a sum not exceeding £ 50 be granted to provide an usher for the six months aforesaid, of which the other schools are to take their due proportion.
That a committee of five be appointed to obtain some suitable person for that purpose, and that in order to promote the best interest of the school and excite a laudable ambition in the scholars, the same committee shall for the year ensuing as often at least as once every quarter visit the school to enquire into the proficiency of the scholars, the instruction and discipline of the school, and to advise with the master respecting the same, and that a committee for similar purposes be annually chosen.Voted that the selectmen be the committee to regulate the schools and provide an usher for the school within the Neck for six months. Later it was voted to add RichardDevens, SamuelDexter, PhilemonRussell, and SethWyman to this committee.
May23, 1791, Voted that CaptainGoodwin alter the schoolhouse to accommodate it for an assistant master.The last named committee was re-appointed in May, 1792.
Evidently there was some doubt as to what constituted the school fund.
Some claimed that the Common was the property of the school, and proposed as an investment that a house and barn be built thereon to rent as a tavern.
A discussion naturally followed, and a committee was appointed to look into the legality of the matter.
Later in the year, in a warrant for a town meeting, we read: To know whether the town will take some measures to place all funds belonging to the schools upon a more advantageous footing than they now are.This is the vote recorded: That Hon.JamesRussell, RichardDevens, Esq., and AaronPutnam, Esq., be a committee on school funds, and to report at an adjourned meeting the amount of said funds and the best means of placing them at interest, and what the probable income from them will be.
In December this committee reported the school fund to be as follows:—
Farm in Stoneham, prized at£ 450.Bonds due from RichardMiller, JonathanChapman, and RichardChapman£ 70. 0.1CaptainNathanAdams, WilliamGrubb, and RichardTrumbull£ 24. 0.CaptainBenjaminFrothingham£20..6Lot of land sold to TimothyWright£ 119. 0.8Received of SamuelSwan, Esq., for a lot of land belonging to JamesKenney, secured by money borrowed of the school fund£ 49. 12.0Farm at Stoneham, deficient£ 38.18. 8A certain pasture in Medford£ 90. 0.0Total£8.12.1
To this may be added the commons which it is proposed to rent; notes due from NicholasHopping, £ 51 16s 5d, and from BenjaminSweetser, £ 26 Os Od, but from these nothing is expected.
The committee is of the opinion that the income from the funds will amount to £ 70 per annum.
They recommend that a committee be appointed to care for this fund.
It was voted to accept this report, and that the same committee be empowered.
In examining the records the writer must have overlooked the following item, which appears in the Charlestown school report for 1873, where a history of the school fund is given: March, 1793, voted to sell the common, and that the proceeds be vested in funds for the use of the school.
March4, 1793, at the town meeting, which adjourned to in the afternoon, it was moved and carried, that seven trustees be chosen to superintend the schools and the school fund.
To the more conservative, and especially to the board of selectmen, this measure may have seemed reactionary in the extreme.
For one hundred and sixty years control of all school matters had been vested in that body.
But this was the year of the French Revolution!
The same day it was voted that a committee of three be appointed to apply to the general court to have trustees incorporated to superintend the school and the school funds, who shall be chosen annually.
The legislature passed the act March27, 1793, and RichardDevens, NathanielGorham, JosiahBartlett, AaronPutnam, JosephHurd, NathanielHawkins, and SethWyman constituted the first board of trustees of the Charlestown free schools.
April18, 1793.
The town treasurer was empowered to deliver to AaronPutnam, Esq., treasurer for the trustees, all the moneys, bonds, notes of hand, etc., being the property of the free schools of Charlestown, that now are or may come into his. the treasurer's, hands.
From this time all proceedings of the Charlestown School Board, up to 1814, were recorded by the secretary in a book, known as VolumeI.Unfortunately, this valuable record is supposed to be lost, certainly it cannot now be consulted.
The selectmen's books furnish us with the annual amounts appropriated for schools, the names of the trustees as they were elected, and a few other items.
Voted May6, 1793, to raise £ 175 for the schools, in addition to the school funds.
May12, 1794.
The proceedings of the trustees of the schools, with a state of their funds, were read in town meeting.
This may be called the first Charlestown school report.
The same day it was voted to raise £ 200 for the schools.
May6, 1795.
The second annual report was presented, and the sum of £ 350 was appropriated for the schools.
But what is of more interest to us, it was also voted to build a schoolhouse in Milk Row, and £ 100 was appropriated, and if there is any surplus it is to be disposed of by the trustees at their discretion.The sum named must be construed as generous in the extreme; but the simplicity of the last clause is almost touching.
The good fathers of the town were to learn that appropriations for schoolhouses never come out with a surplus.
We hear no more of this project until the meeting of May14, 1798, three years later, when it is voted that the trustees exhibit their account for building the schoolhouse in Milk Row to the selectmen, and if they think it right, that they direct the treasurer to pay them what they have expended more than the original grant for that purpose, and direct the assessors to tax the same.
August6, ‘98, voted to approve of Mr.SamuelTufts' bill for building the schoolhouse in Milk Row, and that the assessors be directed to tax the balance, being $241.49, agreeably to a vote of the town in May last.
This would make the whole cost of this school not far from $750, or half as much again as the original estimate.
May1, 1797.
After the proceedings of the trustees and their accounts were read and approved by the citizens at town meeting assembled, it was voted to raise $1,166 for the schools.
Thus the old order of things was passing, and we are to hear of pounds, shillings, and pence no more.
This was the annual appropriation (or more exactly, $1,166.66) until 1801.
The amount gradually increased until May, 1806, when it reached the sum of $3,000. It fell off again in 1808 to $2. 000, but by May14, 1812, again stood at $3,000. May3, 1813, the sum voted for school purposes was $3,500.
The death of GeorgeWashington occurred December14, 1799.
The town records of Charlestown take notice of the event December26.
It was then voted to hold a commemorative service, Tuesday, the thirty-first.
As the school children took part on that sad occasion, it seems fitting to include an account of the day in these annals.
A detachment of artillery near the monument fired minute guns until the procession entered the meeting house, where the exercises were held at . Order of the procession:—
The marshal.
The male children, from seven to fourteen years of age.The public schoolmasters.The young men from fourteen to twenty-five.Three military companies.Military officers.Citizens.KingSolomon's Lodge of Masons.
The assessors, parish-treasurer, and clerk.Trustees of the free schools.The ministers and deacons.Town treasurer and town clerk.Magistrates and representatives.The selectmen.Band of music.
Marshal.
The programme consisted of a dirge on the organ, prayer, a funeral hymn, discourse, funeral ode, the Valedictory of GeorgeWashington, Occasional dirge, blessing.
The entire exercises seem to have been conducted by Rev.JedediahMorse, D. D., who preached from the text: So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died.
His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the Plains of Moabthirty days.
March3, 1800, it was voted that the representative be directed to petition the general court that the Act incorporating the free schools be so far allowed that three of said body shall be a quorum to transact business.
At the May meeting it was voted that four trustees be chosen within and three without the Neck.
Thereafter this seems to have been the established rule.
In August of this year it is voted to build a schoolhouse of brick on or near the spot in which the schoolhouse within the Neck now stands, for the accommodation of schools, town meetings, and other public business, and that all the other school buildings be put in repair.The committee to procure estimates were LemuelCox, GeorgeBartlett, Matthew Bridge, OliverHolden, ThomasHarris.
The town proposes to pay one-third the cost at commencement of the work, one-third when completed, and another third at a distinct period to be agreed upon.Later the trustees are empowered to dispose of the old school building to the best advantage.
May10, 1802.
Voted $100, to repair the schoolhouse near Alewife bridge, and voted the thanks of the town be extended to Mr.ZabdielB.Adams for the present of a lot of land at the Neck for to erect a town school upon; and to thank Mr.DanielRaymond for his present of an ornamental image in the new brick schoolhouse.
We may conclude that the school at Alewife bridge was considerably damaged, probably by fire, for the trustees are given the discretion to repair or to build anew.
May3, 1803, it appears that the expense of building the new schoolhouse in Ward3 near Alewife bridge, in addition to $100 voted last year, was $400.
July15, 1805.
Voted to dig a well at east end of the brick schoolhouse, to contain two pumps.
There were two other wells in town (for fire purposes) at this time.
July3, 1812.
Voted that the trustees have printed and handed to the citizens by the constables for the May meeting all annual statement of their funds, and a correct amount of moneys expended, in future.
This was not an innovation, for there are in existence printed reports signed May, 1801, and May, 1802.
The next that has come down to us is for 1813.
From the Report of 1801:—
Mr.Payson had unexpectedly resigned, and a Mr.Tillotson was engaged on trial.
Unfortunately he fell ill, and the school was supplied by Messrs.Sewall and Rockwood, and afterwards for about the same time, six or seven weeks, by James Pike.
Finally Mr.AshurAdams was engaged.
Mr.Blood was in charge of the reading school for young misses, and also gave instruction in English grammar, geography, and the Latin and Greek languages.
The trustees flatter themselves that these gentlemen will give reasonable satisfaction to the town.
Amount of money received, including $1,000 towards building the new schoolhouse and town hall, $4,124.81. Paid out, $3,--035.10; leaving a balance of $1,089.71, and the trustees are proud to say they owe not a single dollar, to their knowledge.The number of scholars, between the ages of seven and fourteen (both sexes), exclusive of those without the Neck, is 347.
Of these, sixty-six live above the house of CaptainRichardFrothingham.
The trustees recommend building a school at the Neck for them.
This will require another master.
The sum appropriated for the last five years past, where there has been only one master within the Neck, has been $1,666.66. The estimate for the coming year is as follows:—
For two masters, within the Neck$1,091.67Wood50.00For poor children, education and books125.00Rent for room, stove, etc100.00For school No. 2, without the Neck287.00For school No. 3, without the Neck145.00For school No. 4, without the Neck145.00———$1,943.67Deducting income of school fund437.85———Leaves to be provided for$1,505.82
Signed by BenjaminHurd, Jr., Secretary.
On hearing this report the town generously voted $1,650 for schools, not including cost of new schoolhouse.From the Report of 1802:—
There will be required $1,650, in addition to the income from the fund for the following purposes: To support the three schools without the Neck, to maintain two masters the year round within the peninsula; $150 will be needed for supporting a school on or in the neighborhood of the Neck, and $100 for the children of the poor.
The trustees propose that all schools taught by the women, as well as the others, be free schools and supported at the expense of the town; also, that they be under the superintendence of the trustees.
This undertaking will add four or five schools for little children to be taught by women, at an additional expense to the town of $1,000. The lot of land given by Mr.Adams is in a very commodious situation near the Neck, and there are enough scholars in that section to constitute a school, and enough below to fill the two public schools by the meeting-house.
The trustees recommend building on this lot at the Neck, as a gentleman offers to loan for two years a sum sufficient to erect a schoolhouse.
Signed May10, 1802, by BenjaminHurd, Jr., Secretary.
[To be Continued.]
Neighborhood Sketch number 8Washington and Prospect streetsBy JosephH.Clark
I lived at the corner of what is now called
Washington and Prospect streets (then Charlestown) about the year 1838-40, with my parents, Jonathan C. and IreneG.Clark.
Father kept a grocery store in the same building that now stands there, and there was at that time but one other grocery in town—that was JohnnyIreland's at the corner of School street and Somerville avenue, now called, whose principal trade was retailing New England rum, which was a common custom in those days with grocerymen.
I attended school at the building or schoolhouse on
Medford street (Mrs.Whittredge, teacher), and I think there were but two other schoolhouses in town at that time.
I attended church and Sunday school in the hall of the old Engine house, situated corner of Washington and Prospects streets, opposite my house, where I think the first Unitarian societyfirst worshipped.
Next to me, easterly, was the residence of Mr.ClarkBennett, who at that time was prominent in town matters; beyond me, next easterly, was what was called the Yellow Block, in which resided Nathan Fellows, who sold fish out of a wagon; next easterly was Ives till; next, JamesUnderwood.
Opposite my house, on
Washington street, resided JosephClark (no relation of mine); next westerly, WilliamBonner (on the site of Prospect-hill schoolhouse), next westerly, MissElizaBonner, afterward Mrs.AugustusHitchings; next westerly, DavidSanborn.
Adjoining my estate were the residences of BenjaminF.Ricker and John (B.) Giles, on
Somerville avenue. All of my neighbors that I have mentioned lived to a good old age, and have long since departed and joined the silent majority.
At the time I refer to there was no public conveyance to Boston—
Somerville avenue was not completed from Prospect to Medford streets.
Farming, brickmaking, and milk were the principal occupations of the townspeople. Somerville, April26, 1900.Officers of Somervillehistorical Society.
1905-1906
PresidentFrankM.HawesFirstVice-PresidentLeviL.HawesSecondVice-PresidentJamesF.WhitneyThirdVice-PresidentJohnF.AyerTreasurerSethMasonRecording SecretaryMrs.WilliamB.HolmesCorresponding SecretaryFlorenceE.CarrLibrarian and CuratorAlfredM.Cutler
Personal Experience of a Union Veteran By LeviLindleyHawes
(Continued.)
About the middle of AprilGeneralButler learned that Farragut's fleet had crossed the bar and was ready to proceed up the Mississippi.
Six regiments and two batteries were immediately embarked on sailing transports and started for the front.
On the eighteenth—although about sixty miles away—we heard the gentle voice of Porter's fifteen-inch mortars.
Then came the cheering account of Farragut's passing the forts—Jackson and St. Philip—and later the landing of GeneralButler in New Orleans on the first of May.
Other troops were sent forward as transportation could be furnished, till early in May the ThirteenthMaine only was left on the island.
Many are called, but few are chosen, was my comment at the time; and we were the chosen few. Some of the boys regarded this as punishment, but punishment for what?
No adequate answer was forthcoming.
We had been inspected by GeneralButler himself, and very recently by a regular army officer, who pronounced the Thirteenth Mainesecond to no regiment in the department.
Until the forts below New Orleans were captured, Ship Island was the only approach to the city held by Union troops, and it was of the last importance that it should be garrisoned by reliable troops.
Of course we exercised a soldier's prerogative, and grumbled and chafed at our seemingly inglorious assignment; and yet we were performing a most important military duty.
As a relief from the monotony of our service here, we occasionally sent expeditions to the Mississippi shore to afford protection to known Union men against bushwhackers, and to show the rebels generally that we were ever on the alert.
As a matter of fact, we had reason to believe that we were liable to receive a visit from the rebels at any hour, day or night.
July8 brought the pay-master, and orders.
One company was ordered to Fort Pike, on the Rigolets, and one to Fort Macomb, on Pass Chef Menteur, these being the entrances to Lake Pontchartrain. Three companies were ordered to Fort Jackson, and one to Quarantine Station, about five miles above the fort.
A few days later two companies were ordered to Fort St. Philip, leaving two companies, and regimental headquarters, on Ship Island.
These several transfers, you will notice, carried the entire regiment to guard all the water approaches to New Orleans, save the river above the city, and Farragut the Superb was competent to attend to that approach.
According to the repeated statements of the commanding general, the Thirteenth Maine regiment held the posts of honor in the Department of the Gulf.
On the twenty-eighth of AprilColonelDow was promoted to brigadier-general, and Lieutenant-ColonelRust succeeded to the command of the regiment.
Shortly after our arrival on Ship Island, I was detailed in the adjutant's office.
AdjutantSpeed was promoted to captain and assigned to GeneralDow's staff as acting assistant adjutant-general.
Sergeant-MajorWilson was promoted to adjutant, and I was warranted to rattle around in the office vacated by him. And I found it no sinecure, for during the absence of the adjutant on several occasions, the entire duties of the office devolved on me.
When the three companies were transferred to Fort Jackson, I was detailed as acting adjutant of the post.
Later I served in the same capacity at Fort St. Philip and in New Orleans.
The post—Forts Jackson and St. Philip—was commanded, for a short time, by Brigadier-GeneralNealDow.
Here altogether new responsibilities were thrust upon us. Vessels, and crafts of every description, passing up and down the river, were required by department orders to heave to and obtain the permission of the boarding officer before they could proceed to New Orleans or to sea.
The many bayous leading to the rear of Fort Jackson were always a source of anxiety, for this whole section seemed to be cursed by or with guerrillas; and it was our fortune to capture and disperse several gangs of these wretches.
Within a few weeks after our arrival, the Hartford and Brooklyn dropped anchor off the forts.
It was AdmiralFarragut's first and only visit after the capture, and as he remained over night, the garrisons proceeded to burn powder and send up rockets in his honor, and in various other ways demonstrated to the illustrious hero that his name and record were as dear to us as they were to the blue-jackets, and I may add that his visit was a God-send to us. At the next morning the Hartford and Brooklyn went to sea. The echo of our guns fired in salute had hardly died away, when the signal gun brought every soldier to the parapet.
Then a solid shot went whistling across the river, and then another.
Every gun in both forts was trained for business.
At this juncture H. B. M. S. S.Rinaldo rounded to, and with loud protests and threats (!) her commander demanded of the boarding officer by what authority he was fired upon.He was courteously informed by what authority, although he was already informed as regards GeneralButler's orders in general and particular.
The Hartford, flying the admiral's flag, was amenable to this particular order.
Luckily for this irate Englishman, he had level-headed New England men to deal with.
Had we observed strictly the letter of our orders, the Rinaldo would have been knocked into kindling wood.
The commander was kindly earned in regard to his future behavior while passing this outpost and I am sure that the boarding officer indulged in no ambiguous language.
At this time the notable General Order No. 28 had been in force about four months, and had become of almost international importance.
Rebels and their sympathizers, foreign as well as American, were using their utmost endeavors to bury its author under a world of obloquy.
The world now knows that General Order No, 8 was productive of good, and only of good, to allthe people within the limits of the Department of the Gulf.
No soldier ever misconstrued the significance of the order.
I can't believe that any rebel ever did. The order executed itself while GeneralButler remained in the department.
It is my belief that GeneralButler spoke advisedly when he said there were more paroled rebel soldiers in New Orleans than there were Union troops within fifty miles of his headquarters, because he had caused a census to be taken, and was thus enabled to locate every man and woman in the city.
The Thirteenth Maine was put to a cruel test by being placed, in our already weak physical condition, in the malarial swamps of Southern Louisiana, in mid-summer, and kept there for more than a year.
And, alas!
too, too many heroic souls sleep beneath the soil that once echoed to the tread of millions of human slaves.
But we never forgot that we belonged to the Lord's Country—never forgot who we were, and what.
Even when, one foggy night, SentinelSwaney shot the quartermaster's mule because it would not obey his challenge to halt, it was credited to his vigilance.
And when a soldier tumbled off the draw-bridge into the moat among the alligators, it furnished amusement for the entire garrison—his little dog barking in unison.
A few days later the pet dog was gathered in by an alligator.
I apprehend that no troops scanned the orders of their department commander more critically or with more complete satisfaction than did we during all these months when the saintly sinners in New Orleans were devoutly praying for the advent of yellow fever, while we, from the head of the roster to the foot, were prayerfully working to render its approach impossible.
In New Orleans GeneralButler organized a brigade of contrabands, prisoners, and the odds and ends of every nationality, armed with picks, shovels, hoes, brooms, and mule carts.
which, under competent officers, proceeded to remove inches, and in some localities feet, of the accumulation of a century of fever-breeding material from almost the entire surface within the limits of the city.
I do not know that the natives had a vision of a new heaven, but I am sure that there dawned on their Astonished sight a new earth, of which, perhaps, they never had even dreamed.
The streets and alleys of the city had been the theatre of many an upheaval; but I question if New Orleans, as a whole, ever before, or since, got into such a scrape, or had so happy an issue out of a deplorable condition.
Of course the gallant action of our fleet in forcing its way past these forts, and dealing with the rebel crafts above, was a theme on which it was our delight to dwell, and from which we gathered inspiration.
The gunboatVaruna sunk or disabled six of her antagonists before she received her mortal wound; but the gallant CaptainBoggs ran his sinking ship to the bank and tied her to a tree, and saved every soul aboard.
The trucks of the bow gun-carriage were under water when the gun fired its last shot.
When I climbed to her half-submerged deck a few months afterwards, I instinctively took off my cap in salute of the flag that once proudly floated at her peak, but was not hauled down in token of surrender. But the tangible reminder of all the gallant deeds performed in connection with the capture of the forts rendered our inaction more and more irksome.
Then came the rumor—through rebel sources (sources, by the way, through which we received much information of the doings in Washington)—that GeneralBanks had been ordered to relieve GeneralButler.
On Sunday, December14, 1862, GeneralBanks and his fleet of transports passed the forts.
Mobile and Texas, so ran the rumor, are to be annexed at once.We hoped to be included in the annexation business.
But the programme was materially modified.
About three months later I received a letter from GeneralDudley's adjutant-general asking me to come to Baton Rouge immediately, for he and other officers had recommended me to ColonelPaine, of the First Louisiana Regiment, who desired an adjutant familiar with the duties of the office.
By reason of lack of transportation, a week or two passed before I was able to report; and then I found the army all ready to move out towards Port Hudson.
The colonel had been obliged to detail one of his own officers, and it was too late to make any change.
I housed my disappointment and resumed my duties at Fort St. Philip.
July8Port Hudson was annexed, in spite of my nonattendance at the ceremonies, and another chunk of conceit was knocked out of me. Previous to this date, several officers and enlisted men, disgusted at being cooped up in garrison, had sought and obtained promotion and transfer to other regiments.
Let me say here, parenthetically, that at least two brigade commanders—regular army officers—made application to have the Thirteenth Maine Regiment assigned each to his brigade for the Port Hudson campaign.
In August the regiment rallied around the flag in New Orleans, where we performed provost guard duty.
This change of station and re-assembling of the regiment afforded some relief, but it was not the sort of relief we most desired.
And we soon found that, under the existing administration, General Order No. 28, before spoken of, had become less operative.
Officers, and even enlisted men, were subjected to gross insults by the women of the city.
Late one afternoon the orderly at our headquarters hutriedly entered the office, saying, Adjutant, GeneralBanks is on the sidewalk, and he desires to see you.As I presented myself, the general put his arm through mine and invited me to take a walk with him. His walk took us out to
Canal street, and up that fashionable thoroughfare for several blocks, the general meanwhile talking in his easy, familiar fashion-I, wondering what in the world was the object of this promenade.
Suddenly the general halted, dropped my arm, and then said: Adjutant, will you please take the number of this mansion?
As I was riding with some of my officers this afternoon, I was grossly insulted by some women on the balcony of this house.
I will teach these women that they can't insult me or my officers with impunity.
You will place a guard here and allow any one to go in, but no one is to be allowed to come out.Again taking my arm, the general accompanied me to our headquarters on
St. Charles street, talking on subjects entirely disconnected front army affairs.
A suitable guard was immediately placed as ordered.
In due time a court-martial was convened.
A woman was tried and found guilty of the charge preferred and specification, and sentenced to spend her vacation months on Ship Island.
The spirit of General Order No. 28 became operative from that hour.
The virtues of the lightning-rod, as the boys called Order No. 28, were again to be tested.
The fact that our colonel was then on detached service led me to believe that the Thirteenth Maine was destined to remain on duty in New Orleans for an indefinite period.
Lieutenant-ColonelBuck (late captain in our regiment), who had been assigned to the Twentieth Regiment Corps d'afrique, then stationed at Fort Macomb, had, a month or two before, without my knowledge, appointed me captain in his regiment.
Having served so long in the Thirteenth Maine, I had become so strongly attached to it that it seemed almost like disloyalty to withdraw from it. But I thought I saw a prospect of getting into more active service; therefore, with some misgiving, I finally accepted the commission and joined my company at Fort Macomb.
The post commander (Buck) and all the officers of the four companies stationed here were promoted out of the Thirteenth Maine Regiment.
Although we regarded ourselves as would-be fighters, we yet constituted a happy family.
The Twentieth Regiment Corps d'afrique—so re-named by GeneralBanks—was organized by GeneralButler from the First and Second Regiments, Louisiana Native Guards, which left the rebel service and disbanded when the Union troops first occupied the city.
This regiment was composed of free colored men, men of much intelligence, good soldiers, and keen on the scent after smugglers.
Furthermore, the regiment contained many good mechanics.
Courts-martial were unknown in my company.
During more than two years service, I had occasion to discipline but one man—this for lying.
While I was proud of my command, it was a grievous disappointment to be assigned to garrison duty, of which I had had more than enough.
Patrolling the lakes and bayous, day and night, in an open boat, was not ideal yachting.
And when I learned that the Thirteenth Maine was booked for the Red River campaign, I concluded that the government didn't need my services, anyway,—surely not at the front.
However, if we were not at the front, we held the rear with a firm grip; and I never heard of more than two cases of even yellow fever getting by us.
After nearly a year of this sort of service (and by a process of evolution having become known as the Ninety-first Regiment, U. S. C. I.), a corps of schoolmasters was sent down to us to ascertain how much or how little we knew about war. There were twelve of us to appear before this weeding-out committee, as in reality we knew it to be. I catalogued myself as a weed gone to seed.
It took a colonel, major, captain, and lieutenant about one hour to find out how much the eleven officers really chose to know.
Some of them knew they wished to leave the service—and their wishes found favor at headquarters.
I sat in my quarters shivering, although the thermometer registered about 100 in the shade, till the orderly brought the message that the Board would like to see me. My temperature suddenly became normal, and I thought that if it took the Boardsixty minutes to dispose of eleven cases, it could dispose of my case in four minutes; that is to say, I thought I could tell them all I knew in that length of time.
But I woefully miscalculated the staying qualities of those four officers.
As the clock struck eight, the first question was fired at me. When it struck twelve, the president declared the examination closed.
The last half-hour, however, was passed in a delightful talk.
Two propositions were made to me. The colonel proposed that I be recommended for promotion and assigned to staff duty.
The major—a regular army officer—said he would like to have me transferred to the regular service.
I was profoundly grateful for their proposed recommendations, and I frankly told them so. I protested that I was not lacking in ambition; but my ambition was to remain in the volunteer service till the close of the war; that my desire for peace was so intense that I was ready and willing to fight for it. The temptation to yield to their several arguments was great, but I believe that I decided wisely.
Shortly thereafter came orders consolidating the Ninety-first Regiment with the Seventy-fourth Regiment—headquarters at Ship Island.
All surplus officers, including all the field officers of the Ninety-first Regiment, received an honorable discharge.
MajorPike, on assuming command at Fort Macomb, told me that the company to which I had been assigned at Ship Island was under orders to proceed to Mobile Bay, where AdmiralFarragut was making preparations to attack the forts.
Glory! Hallelujah!I shouted.
The astonished major said, What!
are you that anxious to have your head knocked off?Oh, no, not that, I answered, but I have a consuming desire to lead these boys where we can get a wholesome whack at this edge of the diabolical rebellion.
My orders directed me to proceed to Ship Island via New Orleans.
On arriving at the latter place, without stopping to even tighten my belt, I hastened to the office of the quartermaster of transportation to secure passage to my post, explaining the urgency of the request.
By way of answer, the officer said that he had sent every sort of craft that could carry a major-general or a bag of oats to Mobile Bay, and he didn't expect any boat would return within a day or two.But I've got to go, I protested.
Have you got a sailboat, yawl, or pirogue, for I am as much of a sailor as a soldier, and I can manage anything that will float?The quartermaster became interested, thinking, perhaps, that the applicant was a lunatic.
Discovering that there was method in my madness, he courteously said, Captain, call here to-morrow at , and if a boat comes in I will send you to Ship Island forthwith if I have nothing but a bale of hay for freight.I do not know what else the boat carried, but I have a vivid recollection of the fact that she bore me, freighted with anxiety, hope, and expectation, to my destination, just in season to learn that what should have been my company had already gone to Mobile Bay, and I had been assigned to Company K, which was composed in part of the surplus men—odds and ends—of the consolidated regiment,—a company at least one-third larger than any other in the regiment,— and every man at the post, white and black, was an entire stranger to me. I was the victim of a situation and a condition.
I might have said O. K. at the outlook, but I didn't. I said nothing, but went to work. After a few days the colonel did me the honor to call on me and read me a letter from GeneralT.W.Sherman, ordering him to detail an officer to act as ordnance and artillery officer.None of my old officers, he said, have any knowledge of ordnance or heavy artillery.
You, I have been informed, are well up in these branches, and I have instructed the adjutant to make out an order detailing you, with your company, for this service.To have him whose fame as a battery commander was a household word throughout the United States (and the so-called Confederate States of America, as well) for my superior officer caused me to forget my Mobile Bay disappointment.
On my first inspection I found two 100-pounder Parrott guns, and fiveeleven-inchDahlgren guns, all mounted in sand batteries, and all save the Parrotts practically unserviceable.
As for ordnance stores, the post lacked almost everything.
I immediately made out a requisition for such stores as I deemed essential, and referred it to the colonel, who said, The war will be over before your requisition will be filled.On the contrary, I replied, it will be filled by return boat, or Sherman will give me a cursing that will be heard in Washington.
The first steamer from New Orleans brought every article for which I had made requisition—not omitting the garrison gin and gin-sling, which were not brought in bottles.
I guess old TomSherman knows you, was the colonel's comment as the stores were landed on the wharf.
I apprehend he will know me before he is done with me, I replied, for I have a report on the condition of the batteries which I would like to have you sign and transmit to the general by this boat.The report was forwarded.
It came back, with a Shermanese double-shotted letter.
In language that didn't look well as written nor sound heavenly when spoken, the general ordered the colonel to send the fool captain where he belonged, and detail the best officer he had, as he was originally ordered to do. The colonel was somewhat scared.
I was happy.
Please leave the report with me, I said, and I will trump the general's trick.
Since I have been kicked by a government mule, I don't shy at trifles.The second report proved sufficient to bring the inspector-general of the defences of New Orleans down upon me about oneSaturday . Before going to headquarters, the inspector, ColonelSmith, with whom I was well acquainted, called on me, and in his peculiar way informed me of the object of his visit.
You and I, he began, are in the same boat.
The general alleges that you falsely report that the fiveDahlgren gun-carriages are liable to collapse at the first or second discharge of the gun; that the plank gun foundations of the batteries are rotten and unsafe.
The general is mad at you, and he is wrathy with me for saying to him that I knew you personally, and that you were not capable of making a false report.
My reputation as well as yours is involved.
To-morrow morning at we will demonstrate that you know your business.Battery No. 1, near my quarters, was the firstone tested that Sunday . The gun-carriage collapsed utterly at the first discharge.
I have seen enough, said the inspector; if you will allow me, I will spend the rest of the morning in your quarters, while you proceed with your work of destruction.At I reported one gun-carriage demolished at the first discharge; three carriages at the second, and one carriage at the third discharge.You have redeemed your promise; and it is the best Sunday job I have ever seen, was the inspector's comment.
In recognition of my Sunday's work of destruction, GeneralSherman sent to our post the Second Ohio Light Battery.
And I served as ordnance officer till the regiment was mustered out of service.
Although my second tour of duty on Ship Island was of rather a sober character, yet we occasionally had somewhat stirring times.
Armed boat expeditions along the Mississippi shore, and to some of the islands, served to remind us that even our military service was needed still in this waiting-to-be-blest section.
Finally the general before Mobile sent an order for our two 100-pounder Parrott guns.
The colonel told the officer who brought the order that the guns were about a mile from the wharf, and that, for lack of facilities, he could neither dismount them nor transport them to the wharf.
But we must have them.
The general's orders are imperative, insisted the officer.
The colonel sent for me to corroborate his statement.
The two officers chanced to be Americans by brevet, as it were.
After some little discussion, I said, Gentlemen, I am a Yankee, and I beg you will allow me to retire to my quarters and do a bit of thinking.I found my room crowded with officers curious to know what was up. Gentlemen, I said, please ask me no question, but leave me alone for ten minutes.My lieutenant sprang to his feet and said, Boys, get out of here.
The captain's got something in his head.Laughing at tile lieutenant's drollery, they all retired.
In less than ten minutes I had solved the problem—thanks to my habit of seeing things and remembering what I see. I sent a detail of twenty men to the lower end of the island to dig out two old ships' gun-carriages that were nearly buried in the sand.
Another squad went to the magazine for the garrison gin and all the rigging pertaining to it. The third squad was ordered to bring fifty or more boards to the upper batteries, where the entire company would report for duty.
Having adjusted everything to my satisfaction, I dismissed everybody from the battery to man the fall.Some one here made the reassuring remark that my rigging wouldn't sustain the weight of the gun.It must, I replied, as I anxiously noted the stretching of the sling, and the nervousness of the legs and pry-pole of the gin as the weight of the gun began to get in its work.
As the trunnions left their bed, out of the darkness (we were working by night) came the warning, Captain, come out of the battery, or we'll have a funeral.Only one, I said, for I would allow no one in the battery with me. I will admit that I laid my hands very gingerly on the huge gun as I swung it into position to lower it into the trunnion beds of the old ship's gun-carriage placed on the parapet to receive it. All chatter had ceased.
As gently as a sleeping infant would be placed in its crib, this Parrott was lowered to its improvised carriage and eased down the slope of the sand battery and on to the board track on which it was to be transported to the wharf a mile away.
Now a question that had been put to me a hundred times, What are you going to do with those old boards?was answered by the screaking trucks of a resurrected gun-carriage, as a jolly set of boys seized the dragrope and walked away with the gun, while boarders were called away to shift track.
At at night (we began at seven), when I dismissed the company, one of the guns was on the wharf; the other one was resting half way on the road.
At the next morning the two guns, with 100 rounds of ammunition, were on the way to Mobile; and not the slightest accident or hitch had interrupted the work.
And what couldn't be done was thus accomplished, chiefly by less than half a hundred black boys, and during a night as dark as their faces.
That afternoon the engineer officer in charge of the work on the fort called on me and asked me if I was an engineer.
I told him that I was simply an up-and-down, out-and-out Yankee; and that my chief occupation was growling at my ill luck.
Yes, he said, I know you seem to think that you are a misfit here, but, judging from what I saw of your performance last night, I believe that Providence has placed you here; and if you will allow me, I think you had better stop grumbling.I didn't see you at the batteries, I said.
Well, I took special pains that you shouldn't see me, he replied.
But I have come to congratulate you on the handsome manner in which you have undone some of my work.
It took me three weeks to roll one of those guns to the battery.
You have dismounted and shipped the two guns in less than six hours, and the chief part of the work was done by night.
With the facilities I have, by the time I could ship the guns they wouldn't be needed.And yet, the suspicion that I had been guilty of doing anything out of the ordinary hadn't entered my mind.
The rebuke for grumbling, however, I took to heart for use in all the future.
At different times we had received distinguished guests— for safe keeping.
After the capture of Mobile, there were several thousand homeless rebels who sought shelter under our hospitable hospital tents, a large number of which we were able to command for their special benefit.
And I question if they ever before during their term of service fared so sumptuously.
My second lieutenant was commissary of prisoners, and 1 had ample opportunity to observe the manner in which they were entertained.
Indeed, I had the honor of receiving them on their arrival at our post, and escorting them to their Union quarters.
Later I was detailed, with a guard of fifty men and an officer, to conduct about 300 commissioned officers, ranking from colonel to second lieutenant, to New Orleans for exchange.
I am free to confess that this service was infinitely more congenial to me than shooting them would have been.
My sympathy came quickly to the surface when the ranking officer seized my hand, and with quivering lips thanked me for the solicitude I had manifested for their comfort during the night trip to New Orleans; adding that it was a continuation of the uniform kindness and consideration that had been extended to them on the island.
According to a provision in JeffersonDavis' Proclamation, if captured, I would have been reserved for execution.That Proclamation of Jeff.Davis, promulgated on the twenty-third day of December, 1862, is a piece of the most villainous writing that has ever been brought to my notice.
And I believe it to be an historical fact that the author of it died without a country.
By a singular fatality, the close of the War of the Rebellion found me, after many changes of location, on duty on the desolate island where I first landed more than three years before.
But in our department there were still loose and ragged ends of the rebellion that required special attention; and the well-seasonedSeventy-fourth Regiment, U. S. C. I., was one of the regiments retained to perform duties with which it had become familiar, and for which no regiment was better equipped.
Patriotism, loyalty are words which were not flippantly spoken by the men of my command; but by their devotion to duty they exemplified their loyalty and patriotism most happily.
With strangely mixed emotions we read our orders to proceed to New Orleans and prepare for muster-out.The sands of Ship Island were not watered with my tears.
But when, on the twenty-first day of November, 1865, we received our honorable discharge from the service and our final pay, and I had performed my last official duty—distributed about $200 company savings, giving each man his share—and then took each man bv the hand and said a last good-by, something snapped.
Charlestown schools after 1812By FrankMortimerHawes
(Continued.)
Before continuing our account of the Charlestown schools, we wish to speak briefly of some of the earlier trustees who honored their office with years of valuable service.
Charlestown can point with pride to the long list of men who served her so faithfully.
One need but look to the original board of 1793 to see that only her first citizens were considered worthy to be directors of school affairs.
Trustees for 1793 and 1794, RichardDevens, NathanielGorham, JosiahBartlett, AaronPutnam, JosephHurd, NathanielHawkins, SethWyman.
1795 and 1796, the same, with the exception of Mr.Hawkins, who was succeeded by TimothyTufts.
1797, 1798, 1799, the same, with the exception of Hon.NathanielGorham, who was followed by his son, NathanielGorham, Jr., and TimothyTufts, who was succeeded by SamuelTufts.
1816, the same, with the exception of CaptainMiller, who is succeeded by IsaacTufts.
Holding over for a number of years previous to the reorganization of 1793 is the name of NathanielHawkins.
Wyman, who gives him the title of colonel, says that Mr.Hawkins came to Charlestown from South Kingston, R. I., and that he was recorded in the census of 1789 with his children, Nathaniel, Christopher, Sarah, and Samuel.
This was after the death of the firstMrs.Hawkins, and about the time of his second marriage.
Both wives were the daughters of SamuelKent (Vol.
III., p. 89). Old residents of Union square will remember the two homes of the Hawkins families in that vicinity.
At his own request, Mr.Hawkins' term on the school board ended May6, 1795, when he received the thanks of the town for his valued services.
As local committeeman for Milk Row district, his name has been mentioned frequently in these articles.
After 1795 we find him holding various town offices, as surveyor of highways and selectman.
He died October3, 1817, aged sixty-nine (Wyman). On the board of trustees he was succeeded for two years by TimothyTufts, Esq., and the next in succession from their district was SamuelTufts, 1797-1804, inclusive.
For a brief account of these two brothers the reader is referred to Vol.
III., p. 92.
Another name which has already received our attention is that of SethWyman.
For several years before 1793, and for fourteen years after, 1793-1806, inclusive, Mr.Wyman served continuously on the school board, perhaps the longest of any one individual after SamuelKent.
His home was in the upper part of the town, in what is now Arlington, near the Mystic ponds.
He was the son of HezekiahWyman, and was born in 1750.
About 1774 he married RuthBelknap, and was the father of eight children.
He died in April, 1825, aged seventy-live (Wyman).
The names of RichardDevens, NathanielGorham, and JosiahBartlett would add lustre to the history of any municipality.
All three were actively engaged in town affairs during the trying days of the Revolution and in the important years which followed, when state and national constitutions were being established, and each gained for himself in his special line of service more than a local reputation.
Wyman's invaluable work gives an account of these gentlemen.
Hon.RichardDevens, commissary-general in the Revolutionary army, was the first president of the school trustees.
His portrait, painted by HenrySargent, 1798, and bequeathed to his native town by CharlotteHarris, hangs in the Boston Branch Library at Charlestown,
City square. A later generation has made the name of Devens still more illustrious.
Our interest in Hon.JosiahBartlett, M. D., Ll.D., (1759-1820) centres chiefly in his sketch of 1813, which may be called the first history of Charlestown.
Hon.NathanielGorham, regarded by Wyman as one of the most eminent men that ever lived in Charlestown, died while serving on the board of trustees, and was succeeded by his son and namesake the following May, 1797.
Two others elected to the original body of trustees should have more than a passing mention,—AaronPutnam, Esq., and JosephHurd.
The former was the first treasurer of the organization, an important office when we consider that it was for a better management of the school funds that a charter was granted by legislative act. Dr.Putnam's name deserves to be mentioned in connection with Charlestown affairs, for it was he who in 1801, sold to the United Statesfour acres of his own, and as agent secured sixty-five acres, exclusive of flats, for a navy yard.
JosephHurd, if we mistake not, served as the first secretary of the trustees.
He was the son of BenjaminHurd, and, as we understand it, brother of Benjamin, Jr., who succeeded him on the board.
It is a noticeable fact that Messrs.Devens, Bartlett, Putnam, Hurd, and Gorham, Jr., all retired from office at the same time, and few of their successors, to judge from their terms of service, enjoyed a like degree of popular favor.
JonathanTeel was one of these; he stood for the outlying districts, and continued in office until May, 1805, five years. He died in SomervilleJune7, 1828, aged seventy-four, and left worthy descendants to keep the family name in prominence.
JohnStone and Peter Tufts, Jr., next represent our part of the town, the former serving modestly for one year, the latter for six years. SethWyman, the last of the original board, retired in 1807, and was succeeded by CaptainDanielReed, who for nine years represented the upper end of Charlestown.
Hon.TimothyWalker, TimothyThompson, CaptainThomasHarris, DeaconDavidGoodwin, and JohnKettell are names that stand for representativeCharlestown families, but perhaps the most suggestive name on the list is that of Rev.JedediahMorse, D. D. (1761-1826). This gentleman, a native of Connecticut, a graduate of Yale, and the leading minister of Charlestown from 1789 to 1820, was at this time delighting the educational world with his Geography, one of the first American text-books to gain an extensive and lasting circulation.
For more than fifty years it was used in all parts of the country, but the later editions bore little resemblance to the feeble little volume which first saw the light in Charlestown.
It served, where schoolbooks were scarce, not only as a geography, but also as a reading and spelling book.
We of to-day are favored with a reminder of this pioneer in American education every time we pass his residence, which is marked with a tablet that proclaims the birthplace of his illustrious son, SamuelF.B.Morse, 1791.
With the election in 1811 and 1812, respectively, of Rev.WilliamCollier, pastor of the First Baptist church of Charlestown, and AbramRandThompson, M. D., an old-time physician, whose eighty-five years of life came to an end in his native town in 1866, a new order of things seems to have been introduced.
We will now go back to the report for 1812, the first with which we are favored after that of 1802.
From now on there will be no interruptions in these reports, and from some of them we shall expect to make copious extracts.
May8, 1812, the board of trustees organized, with Rev.WilliamCollier, president; AbramR.Thompson, secretary; NehemiahWyman, treasurer, who gave bonds for $10,000. Milk Row School, it will be noticed, at this time was represented by CaptainJosephMiller.
The number of children in town was 1,167, or 457 between the ages of four and seven, and 710 from seven to fourteen.
It appears that no children beyond the Neck, under seven and over fourteen years of age, were allowed to attend the town school.
In reply to the complaints which came, in consequence, from the outlying districts, the report says that School No. 4 (Alewife Brook) contains thirty-four children, from four to fourteen, and yet this district receives for that number as much money as is expended within the Neck for fifty-one scholars.
This distinction in favor of the schools outside is, in the opinion of the trustees, an ample indemnification for all inconveniences arising from their local situation; besides, the money appropriated without the Neck is abundantly sufficient to defray the expenses of their schools through that part of the year when the inhabitants send their children to them, from seven years old and upward; and the expense of educating their children under seven, it seems as just and reasonable for them to pay out of their own pockets as it is for the inhabitants within the Neck to do it. When we consider that, of the 1,167 children in town, only 133 are without the Neck, or less than one-eighth, and that we expend upon them more than one-fourth of the money (contingencies excepted), it cannot be denied that the rule is not only favorable, but generous, to the people without the Neck.
The teachers of the town schools were IsraelAlger, with OliverJaquith for an assistant, and for the others Messrs.Fuller and Stickney.
There had been two public examinations of each during the year, and frequent informal visit had been made, as a board.As a necessary and valuable auxiliary in teaching geography, the trustees had furnished a pair of globes and a map for the use of Mr.Alger's school.
A brief allusion is made to the schools taught by women.
As an application for a school for black children had been made, one was established which was kept from June to November.
Some mischievous boys that were detected in petty thefts were brought before the board, admonished, reproved, and exhorted, and their parents acquainted with their behavior.
The three schools without the Neck were all visited in the spring (1813), and the trustees can with sincere pleasure bestow the most unqualified approbation on them.The sum required for the current year will be $3,000, the same as last year.
From the report read May2, 1814:—
The writing school, kept by D.Fuller, was vacated by him May20, and Mr.Jaquith took the charge until June8, when DavidDodge was installed.
July18Mr.Alger suddenly resigned as principal of the grammar school, on account of ill health, and AbrahamAndrews, A. B., was elected his successor August9. Mr.Stickney, at the Neck, gave up his position January15, and was later succeeded by JohnBennett.
Mr.Jaquith was retained this year as Mr.Andrews' assistant.
He resigned June, 1814, and was succeeded by RobertGordon.
February25 the trustees visited District No. 5, which contains twenty-eight scholars, under the care of NathanielGreen, and also that under JacobPierce, No. 4, which has fifty-eight scholars.
April12 they visited the school in Milk Row, No. 3, containing sixty-nine scholars, under Moses Hall.
April19 they visited the school at the Neck, with ninety pupils, under Mr.Bennett, and April26 and 29 the two schools at No. 1, under Messrs.Andrews, Jaquith, and Dodge. They were perfectly satisfied with the good order and improvement of all.The schools without the Neck are kept only part of the year, and are not confined to any age.The amount spent on the schools for small children (women's schools) was $872.48. Dr.Bartlett, in his address of 1813, says: A public support of schools kept by women for primary instruction and free to every inhabitant, under the direction of the trustees, though novel, is honorable to the town, and affords a pleasing presage of future improvement.If, as he says, twenty-one districts were established, and to each a schoolmistress was assigned for those from four to seven, then, as the whole number was 425; each teacher had about twenty pupils, and the cost for each child was a little more than $2. The address also informs us that two of the schoolhouses on the peninsula were of brick, two stories high.
In eulogistic mood, Dr.Bartlett goes on to say: The free schools were the glory of our ancestors, they are the boast of New England, and the palladium of our future prosperity.
We cannot refrain from congratulating our fellow-citizens on a situation of their public schools so auspicious to the best interests of the town, so gratifying to the dearest hopes of parents, and bearing such honorable testimony to the eminent ability and fidelity of the instructors.
The records of the school board that have come down to us begin with May, 1814.
According to their By-Laws, the trustees met for organization the first Tuesday following the second Monday in January each year; other meetings to be held as desired.
Special meetings could be called by the secretary on direction of the chairman or two members.
The treasurer was to give bonds for $6,000. All bills were to be examined by tile chairman and secretary, and to be approved in writing, if found correct.
The officers of the board were the same as last given.
August18, 1814.
Voted to CaptainMiller$250 for the use of Districts No. 3 and 4.
In November the school of Messrs.Andrews and Dodge was examined by the trustees, and a large number of highly respectable visitors.
The reverend president opened the exercises with prayer.
All were gratified with the behavior and proficiency of the children, and, considering the confused and agitated state of the town, this was highly honorable to the instructors.
The exercises closed with prayer by Rev. Mr.Turner. February10, 1815, the trustees met at CaptainDanielReed's (end of the town) to visit No. 5, under
NathanielGreen (number of scholars, twenty-eight), also No. 4, under JacobPierce.
Milk Row (No. 3) was visited Wednesday, April12, at . Present, Messrs.Wyman, Miller, and Thompson, of the trustees.
This school, under P.T.Gray, was in a respectable state of improvement.
The females at this and every examination have been distinguished for their juvenile attainments, as well as propriety of behavior.
Among the bills approved April21 were those of A.Andrews, two quarters, $403.39; P.T.Gray, $82.85; MarthaIreland, $58.50; JacobPierce, $123.75; PhilemonR.Russell, $80.54.
AbrahamAndrews, having resigned, was dismissed with encomiums.At the examination, April27, of Messrs.Dodge and Andrews' school at the town hall, it was a delightful sight to behold 330 children, all clean and decent in their apparel, all prompt in their exercises, all animated with youthful emulation, and hope, and joy, assembled on the floor of an invaluable common privilege.
The trustees will not conceal their joy and gratification in view of the interesting scene.JesseSmith, a graduate of Dartmouth College, for the past year preceptor of New Ipswich Academy, succeeds Mr.Andrews, at the established salary of $666.66. A school for black children, opened May1, and kept through the summer months to the approbation of the trustees, was under the charge of Mrs.EleanorJackson.
The sum of $1,000 was reserved exclusively for the women's schools within the Neck.
Each schoolmistress was required to make a monthly report, together with an accurate return of ail children under her charge.
These schools opened May1, and closed the last of October. Five hundred children from four to seven were thus educated at the expense of the town.
The report read May1, 1815, says: The trustees for two years past have kept a summer school at Winter Hill and the inhabitants have asked for a schoolhouse.
The trustees would recommend one if, at the present time, our fellow-citizens were not struggling with great and accumulated burdens.
They will endeavor to continue the school on its present establishment another year.
They indulge the pleasing hope that, with the joyful return of peace, our fellow-citizens will be restored to their wonted occupations, when they will cheerfully support additional means of education, as the increasing population of the town may require.(SignedA.R.Thompson.) This school was probably in the vicinity of
Franklin street. Query: Was it in charge of MissMarthaIreland, whose name has been already mentioned?
1815-1816.
May16.
Voted that CaptainMiller open the summer schools in Districts No. 3 and No. 4, and CaptainReed in No. 5. Mr.Dodge is allowed $31.25 per quarter for his son Horace, who serves as his assistant in the writing school. Mr.Smith recommended changing the evangelical instruction for Murray's EnglishReader and it was so decided.
August8JohnBennett resigned at the Neck.
The trustees engaged IsaacGates as his successor, and the same salary as for masters at other schools within the Neck was voted him, $666.66.
April6, 1816, DavidDodge resigned as writing master, and later RobertGordon, formerly assistant, was promoted to the mastership.
SamuelCampbell was elected to second place, at a salary of $500.
Friday, April19, Milk Row School, under YorickS.Gordon, was visited.
Messrs.Miller and Thompson were present, with several of the inhabitants of the district.
The school appeared very well, notwithstanding many difficulties under which they had labored during the winter.
Mr.Gordon had discharged his duties acceptably.
May6 the trustees met, and, taking into consideration the high price of living and, at the same time, appreciating the valuable and successful services of Mr.Gates as a teacher, recommended making him a special grant of $40. Schools in Districts No. 4 and 5 have been kept the past winter to the satisfaction of the board.
In reference to women's schools: By making the privilege of instruction free to all has preserved the chain of education unbroken by the distresses of the people in the shock of war, and so has been an inducement to many to remain in our town.
Happily the scene is changed.$4,400 will be wanted next year, in addition to the $1,500 for small children's schools.
1816-1817.
Voted that IsaacTufts, who has been elected a trustee, have particular charge of No. 3 and No. 4, in place of CaptainMiller, resigned, and later, also, of No. 5, as CaptainReed resigned in September.
In JuneJesseSmith resigned as head of the reading or grammar school.
He received the encomiums of the trustees.
J.M.K.Wilkins was elected to fill the vacancy.
Mr.Gates' salary is raised to $800. As the number of black children from four to fourteen is only ten, it is voted not to have a school for them.
Voted that District No. 3 be continued till the Saturday before the first Monday in April.
Voted, April28, to MarthaIreland, $66.
April15 the trustees discussed the Lancastrian plan of education, and it was voted to apply to J.Buchanan, Esq., British consul in New York, for information.
From the report, signed May5, 1817, we learn that District No. 3 is still maintaining two summer schools, namely, at Milk Row and Winter Hill.
In speaking of No. 1, R.Gordon's services are highly praised.
1817-1818.
August9, 1817, the trustees have looked up the Lancastrian system of education, and paid Mr.Dixon$20 for his information.
They decide that it is not feasible for Charlestown.
March25, 1818.
The trustees examined School No. 3.
Present, Rev. Mr.Collier, Messrs.I.Tufts, P.Tufts, and Thompson. About fifty scholars attended the examination, and appeared well in all their performances.Eighty belong to this school, kept this term by DanielRussell.
April3 the trustees examined School No. 4, kept by J.Underwood.
About forty were present, out of a total of fifty-two.
From bills mentioned, D.Russell is paid $115, and MarthaIreland$71.50. A clock and bell purchased by a sub-committee is presented by CaptainWyman for the exclusive use of the school at the Neck.
The report recommends the separation of the sexes in the town school.
The districts without the Neck have received a liberal allowance of the money appropriated, and No. 5, in particular, has expended more money than for many years before.
It is not to be denied that our schools are expensive, but, etc., etc.
1818-1819.
According to a recommendation in the report of a committee appointed to choose a site for a girls' school, I.Prentiss and MissS.Carlisle were hired, the former at $800, the latter at $400, to have charge.
As Mr.Campbell's services were no longer needed, he was discharged.
Interesting exercises were held at the opening of this school, September14, 1818.
Later the trustees paid on a lease of eight years$130 for the building in which the girls' school was kept.
It seems that it was built and owned by Rev. Mr.Collier, and stood adjacent to Mr.Collier's meeting house.
The Baptist society was allowed the use of the building for a Sunday school.
The school numbered 241April23, 1819.
The boys' school, kept by Messrs.Wilkins and Gordon, numbered 200 in September, 1818.
MissCarlisle seems to have been the first woman to teach in Charlestown in a school above primary grade.
The trustees were of the opinion that an intelligent mistress would fill the place as well as a master.Their expectations seem to have been realized.
Isaac and JoelTufts are to have charge of the schools without the Neck for the trustees.
March18, 1819, I.Hayward's school, No. 4, was visited.
An excellent teacher and gave fine exhibition.As the school at No. 5 was not satisfactory, it was closed early in consequence.
Voted April13 to report a statement of facts to the town respecting the territorial limits and number of children in District No. 3.
This school went on very well under the care of Mr.Russell until the schoolhouse was destroyed by fire, and so there was no regular exhibition.
This fire was the third of March. The district commences in Cambridge road, sweeps around the Cambridge line, runs across Milk row by IsaacTufts' to Winter Hill, by the house of JosephAdams, Esq., to Mystic river, and down to the cluster of houses near the entrance of 3Pole lane, and over to the place of beginning.
It contains sixty-one families, and 106 children from four to fourteen, about one-third of whom are below seven years. The remaining seventy-three would be at a fair calculation the highest number to be provided for. Of these, the largest number live on the Milk Row side.This is the first report signed by JamesK.Frothingham, secretary of the board.
The following quotations seem worthy of a place here: In populous towns the great mass of boys from seven to fourteen cannot be employed, and it is therefore necessary to keep them constantly at school as a measure of restraint and order, but schools for girls may be suspended with perfect safety, as they can assist at home.From observation of Mr.Hayward's school, the trustees are of the opinion that a part of the year devoted to learning and the remainder to some other employment will in the end make quite as good scholars as spending the whole year in education.
Constitution of the Somerville Union Benevolent Sewing SocietySeptember28, 1842
We, the subscribers, do unite ourselves into a society for the relief and assistance of the unfortunate and distressed, and adopt, for our regulation, the following rules:—
Art. 1. This Society shall be called the Somerville Union Benevolent Sewing Society.
Art. 2. The object of this Society shall be, to make clothing for the destitute, and assist them as far as shall be deemed expedient by the Society.
Art. 3. The officers of this Society shall consist of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and ten Trustees, all of whom shall be chosen annually.
Art. 4. It shall be the duty of the President, to preside at all meetings of the Society, as often as they may be deemed necessary.
In her absence, the duty shall devolve upon the next in office.
Art. 5. It shall be the duty of the Secretary, to keep a correct account of the proceedings of the Society, and present a report of the same annually.
Art. 6. The Treasurer shall be intrusted with the funds which shall be kept subject to the order of the Society.
And it shall be the duty of the Treasurer, to present at the annual meeting an account of all the receipts and disbursements.
Art. 7. It shall be the duty of the Trustees to visit the poof and ascertain who are in need of assistance.
They shall also assist in preparing and superintending the work.
Art. 8. It shall be the duty of each member to promote the interests of the Society, as far as her circumstances will admit, and to contribute such cast clothing as may be spared with convenience, to assist in sewing at the meetings, and when convenient, obtain work for the Society.
Each member shall pay fifty cents annually to the Treasurer, and in proposing a friend for admission, if there be no objection, may introduce her at the next meeting.
Art. 9. The annual meeting shall be held on the last Wednesday in September, for the choice of officers and the transaction of other business.
Stated meetings for work shall be held monthly, at the houses of members where it may be convenient.
And during the progress of the work, a member shall be requested to read from such books or periodical publications, as may be furnished by the ladies.
Art. 10. In case the funds be not required for the assistance of the poor, they shall be reserved for the purpose of furnishing a meeting house, when the gentlemen see fit to build one,
Officers of Somervillehistorical Society.
1905-1906
PresidentFrankM.HawesFirstVice-PresidentLeviL.HawesSecondVice-PresidentJamesF.WhitneyThirdVice-PresidentJohnF.AyerTreasurerSethMasonRecording SecretaryMrs.WilliamB.HolmesCorresponding SecretaryFlorenceE.CarrLibrarian and CuratorAlfredM.Cutler
SamuelPhipps
An early resident of Somerville territoryBy Capt.GeorgeA.Gordon
(Read before SomervilleHistorical SocietyDecember20, 1905.)
The presence of so many friends, acquaintances, and fellowcitizens is encouraging, as well as complimentary.
I must regret that so many will be disappointed,—not finding in the theme of my paper this evening, or in its treatment, the interesting relation hoped for.
I come not before you this evening to give instruction to you, whose object and aim is the acquisition and dispensing of local history; but I beg to call to your minds that, at the dates covered by the theme of my paper, Charlestown and Cambridge were contiguous in territory, with a common boundary reaching from Miller's river to Burlington, Charlestown bounded with Lynn on the northeast, and with Boston on the Mystic river, as Chelsea was early a part of Boston.
This most ancient town of Middlesex County was the third settlement in the limits of Massachusetts, outside of Plymouth plantation.
The first Court of Assistants was held at Charlestown.
In every line of business and commerce Charlestown held prominence.
Phipps is a contraction in speech of Philip, unknown in England before the Conquest, and one of many forms indicative of the popularity of the fifth apostle.
The Phipps were seated in the shires of Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, and Northampton.
They bore arms and were esteemed among the gentry.
The immediate family, whence the Phipps of Charlestown derived issue, were of Wiltshire, where various members of the race are on record as sheriffs.
SamuelPhipps, town clerk of Charlestown, and his neighbors dwelt within the present limits of Somerville, about 200 years ago, on Mt. Benedict.
A portion of his homestead came within that part of the ploughed field which included the location of the Ursuline Convent of 1830. Dead men tell no tales is a well-known proverb; but allow me to deny it and to caution you regarding its acceptance.
In my own case, I feel better acquainted with SolomonPhipps, carpenter, SamuelPhipps, the register, and SamuelPhipps, the town clerk, with Thomas Danforth, treasurer of the colony, and FrancisFoxcroft, recorder, than I do with any considerable number of my fellow-citizens and neighbors.
I know their handwriting at a glance, and have a clear and intelligent conception of their careers.
The quality of the listening ear modifies the voice of the departed.
They who have ears to hear, let them hear.
SolomonPhipps, the first of the family in New England, was in Charlestown as early as 1640.
He was a Wiltshire man, a carpenter by trade.
His business was prosperous, and, in 1645, he took an eighth in the new mill which was established at what has since been known as the Mill Pond.
Mill street, now extending from Main street to Rutherford avenue, is a survival of the original way to the mill.
The rails and grounds of the Eastern freight track, Boston & Maine railroad, now occupy the site of the mill.
Mr.Phipps held the property to the last, and divided the same, by his will, between his boys.
At this mill Mr.Phipps prepared his lumber for his enterprises.
The houses he built were of wood.
Some were one, some two stories in height, with low studding, plastered inside, the beams overhead exposed, a large chimney in the centre, and that of the kitchen with a capacious oven beside it. Fuel was plenty, and large amounts were piled in the yards every winter.
The homes were plain, built within frugal means, destitute of architecture, and rather evident of poverty of imagination and dearth of culture.
The wealthiest inhabitants of Charlestown were the distillers, and the most numerous the bakers.
Those who lived beyond the Neck kept horses and wagons, and went into town, usually on horseback, to what is now City square, for the necessities they did not raise on their lands.
No butchers', milk, fish, grocers', or coal teams made regular daily calls at those remote homesteads.
How marked the change to-day!
SolomonPhipps, the emigrant, died while his son, afterward the register, was in college.
His grave can be shown in the old cemetery in Charlestown.
It is in the front row, northwest of the gate, among his neighbors, Greene, Ryall, Peirce, Adams, Kettell, and Bunker, of which the most recent date is 1702.
The hard-slate headstone, inscribed 1671, is of a texture likely to last for ages.
SamuelPhipps, the son, was graduated at Harvard College in the class of 1671, the last class under PresidentChauncy, and the only one in twenty consecutive years to consist of more than ten members.
The illustrious member of the class was SamuelSewall, the judge, who was on the bench at the witchcraft trials, whose diary, long since in print, is of immeasurable value, historically.
Proceeding to the degree of Master of Arts, SamuelPhipps assumed the mastership of the grammar school in Charlestown, and taught it ten years. At one time he had fifty-three scholars.
At the close of his school he was elected a constable at the town meeting, which he refused.
The town insisted.
Phipps appealed to the governor, claiming that, as Master of Arts and a grammar school master, it was unreasonable and not customary to choose persons so qualified and improved.The government excused him, but the town still resolved not to comply with the order.
Notwithstanding this breeze, Phipps served against his will, and, in the succeeding year, was town treasurer, and afterward town clerk, selectman many years, and again constable.
In 1689, SamuelPhipps was elected county clerk, and served to 1723, and register of probate, 1692 to 1702, and register of deeds, 1693 to 1721.
He represented Charlestown in the general court of 1692, the first under the new charter of William and Mary, which erected the colony into a province, with a royal governor.
Ten other years Phipps served as representative.
In 1704, he was a captain of the foot company at Charlestown.
CaptainPhipps was three times married.
First, in 1676, to MaryPhillips, a daughter of Henry and Mary (Dwight) Phillips, the butcher of Dedham and Boston; second, to KatharineBrackenbury, a daughter of John and Annie (Anderson) Brackenbury, of Charlestown; and, third, to MaryBradley, an Englishwoman from Staffordshire, and the widow of JosephLemmon, a shopkeeper of Charlestown.
CaptainSamuelPhipps died at Charlestown, August7, 1725, in his seventy-fourth year.
In the last years of the expiring colony, while SamuelPhipps was a selectman of Charlestown, some lovers of old English sports and customs had erected in Charlestown a maypole for the ordinary May festivities.
It was cut down.
Directly another and bigger pole was erected, and a garland hung upon it. This was not to be endured.
Increase Mather called it an abominable shame, a piece of heathenism.
SelectmanPhipps ordered the town watch to cut the pole down.
In the resulting disturbance, the selectman and the captain of an English vessel in the port, the frigateKingfisher, came to blows.
The sailor captain promptly entered a complaint before the magistrate, and the selectman was put under bonds to the next court.
The case never came to trial.
Charlestownbeyond the Neck included the elevated land on the river side of the present Broadway and seat of the Ten Hills Farm, which had long been in private ownership, the stinted commons being on the southerly side of Broadway, and extending to the Cambridge line, stinted meaning bounded by defined limits.
That was done in 1637.
These commons lay between the Neck, Menotomies river, and the farms of Medford and Mr.Winthrop, the ground being reserved for such cattle as milch cows, working cattle, goats, and calves of the first year.
By the time of the threeSamuelPhipps, the commerce which lingered at the port of Charlestown had tended gradually to improve the condition of provincial life.
While the country folk were yet content with the wooden plates, bowls, knives, and pewter spoons of the Colonial period, and sanded their floors from the inspiration of cleanliness, the town inhabitants had pewter ware, some crockery and glass.
The chair-makers developed an industry in the high-backed, split-bottomed frames, which succeeded the stools and benches of their grandfathers.
In their best rooms were solid chairs and tables, and a few books on shelves.
This growth in comforts we learn from the inventories of the estates of the deceased, preserved in files of the county probate court.
The domination of the godly was disappearing.
The captain or lieutenant of the village was not always the deacon at the meeting house.
With the advent of the province came the officials of royal authority, came commissions to the judiciary and the military, came a larger liberality in the thoughts and views of the population.
The fisheries brought Spanish dollars or an exchange of commodities from foreign markets, in memory of which, to-day, the codfish hangs in front of the speaker in the people's general court.
The settlers were, up to this time, purely English; so much so that the isolated individual of other British races was dubbed the Scotchman, the Irishman, the Welshman.
Because they were English, they succeeded.
Our annual orators on Forefathers' Day tell us the colonists succeeded because they were Puritan.
I crave permission to dissent.
I tell you nay. It was the stubborn nerve and fibre of the Englishman from Wiltshire, from Staffordshire, from Devonshire, from Yorkshire, from Essex, and from Sussex, which earned subsistence out of the hard soil, which on the high sea gathered the abundant fish, and, on shore, won an equal distinction and profit in New England rum, ships' masts, and hoop poles.
The result is the same in Canada and in New Zealand, in India and in Cape Colony.
Mark the contrast with the establishment of the Latin race in the fertile and fruitful zones of the equator.
To-day the descendants of the English are building the canal, for the commerce of the world and the blessing of mankind, through the territory the others have held in possession four centuries.
During the closing quarter of the first century of Charlestown's history, that portion of her territory now Somerville had sparsely settled on its two highways, the road to Cambridge and Boston, now
Washington street in our city, and the road to Medford and Woburn, now Broadway.
A few farmers dwelt on the road to Cambridge, while quite a cluster of dwellings stood on the higher ground, through which the Medford road ran. Among these was the residence of SamuelPhipps, town clerk of Charlestown, who died suddenly in February, 1731.
He was a grandson of SolomonPhipps, the carpenter, and a nephew of SamuelPhipps, the recorder.
His father was a son of the carpenter, JosephPhipps, and his mother, MaryKettell.
Samuel was born 1696, town clerk 1726, and died 1730-1, leaving a widow, Abigail, and five children, Abigail, Joseph, Samuel, Elijah, and Solomon.
The widow married JosephWhittemore, Jr., and died in 1734. Mr.Phipps' real estate lay in three parcels, within the limits of present Somerville, or, as it was then expressed, in Charlestowne without the neck.An appraisal rehearses and values it, viz.:—
Homestead, 7 acres, 21 rods on the highway leading from Charlestown to Medford, bounded by lands of widowMaryRand, of CaptainEbenBreed, by land of WilliamHoppin and MeriamFosket, and by rangeways, at £ 55 old tenor per acre£3924s41/2dMeadow, 4 acres, 54 rods, on same highway, and bounded by lands of JosephFrothingham, SamuelHutchinson, NathanielFrothingham, and rangeway, at £ 66 old tenor per acre£2665s6dPasture, on highway leading from Charlestown to Cambridge, and bounded by land of MichaelBrigden and a rangeway, at £ 35 old tenor per acre£2034s4d
The children being young, the estate remained unsettled till the death of the widow, when SamuelDanforth, of Cambridge, the judge of probate, and a kinsman of the family, took charge of and divided the estate, giving a double portion to the eldest son, as was common and legal in those days.
His computation is entered at large on the back of the report of the committee on appraisal, and, as it affords a curious example of arithmetic, as then written, we copy the major portion of it. He first foots the several items of the appraisal, £ 861 14s 21d, deducting the sum of £ 14 13s 1/2d for accrued expenses, among which is given the following, probably an account of disbursements by the mother, viz.:—
BettyPhips for a paire of Briches and Stockins£110s0ddo for altering seaverall things£012s0dMrs.Austin for altering a Gound for Abiagail£05s0dDoct.
Greaves when Sollomon Phils Was Sick£116s0dEsqrDanford when took Gardenship15s
The judge divides the residue, reduced to pence, into six parts, thus: crossing each digit in the dividend as he divides, which mark we omit:—
This is readily explainable, though it has an intricate appearance.
We leave it for the solution of the reader, as the exercise will contribute to his enjoyment.
Such system of ciphering has long since passed out of use and into oblivion.
The guardian's account reads:—
The Acct of What I have paid for the Childeren of Samll Phipps Lait of CharlestownDesead
To paid to
MrStorer of Boston for Cloathing£318s2dCaptJohnson for triming, part for Joseph, part for Samll£15s9dMrJosepgSweatsur for maiking cloaths and finding£24s4dMrRand for three hats and deying Stockings 7-6 and pr Gloves 2£017s6dMr.Skotto for maiking cloaths and finding£512s9
Of SamuelPhipps' children, Joseph became a baker, married ElizabethWebb, dwelt in Charlestown, and died there in 1795.
He was a surety on his mother's bond as administratrix.
Elijah married in 1750, and died in 1752 of smallpox.
By order of the selectmen, his body was buried at , for fear of infection.
Samuel died at the age of twenty-one.
Abigail became wife to JohnBlaney in 1741, and was a widow in 1746.
Solomon was a joiner, married Elizabeth, daughter of Abraham Hill.
He died in 1740-42, leaving a widow and three children, Solomon, Elizabeth, and Martha.
BettyPhips, who supplies the Briches and Stockins, was an aunt to the children, a sister of the deceased town clerk.
Mrs.Austin, who altered the Gound, was a widow.
She made her will July4, 1745, bequeathing a slave, Chance, and £ 60 to four children, viz.: Thomas, a barber; Josiah, a goldsmith; John, a carver; and Rebecca, who married (1) JosephSweetser, (2) SamuelWaite, of Malden.
Dr.ThomasGreaves was the village apothecary, and one of the physicians.
He died in 1746, leaving widow, Phebe, and daughter Katharine, wife to JamesRussell, and daughter Margaret, wife to SamuelCary.
Of his neighbors, or, at least, his abutters, Mrs.Rand was the widow of JohnRand, the maltster, and was born Mehetabel Call, of a well-known Charlestown family.
She was the mother of JonathanRand, the hatter and dyer, who supplied the hats, stockings, and gloves mentioned in the guardian's account.
He was born in 1694, and married MilicentEsterbrook, born in 1699, a daughter of Joseph.
They had thirteen children.
Jonathan died in 1760, and his widow married, in 1764, JohnChamberlin.
From 1725 till death Jonathan lived on the lot, now the east side of
Thompson square, described as a mansion with seven smokes, a hatter's shop and barn.
It extended from Main to Back (now Warren) street.
CaptainEbenBreed was a retired master mariner, who gave his name to the elevation on which the battle of Bunker Hill was fought.
He was a son of JohnBreed, who had been a soldier in KingPhilip's war, and was father to JohnBreed, the distiller.
Breed's Island, northeast of East Boston, takes its name from this family.
CaptainBreed died in 1754, leaving a large estate, appraised at £ 5,647 16s 1d. His will speaks of his son John, resident at Surinam, S. A., and that one's son Ebenezer.
WilliamHoppin was a rigger, who died a very old man in 1773.
The late Rev. Dr.Hoppin, of Christ church, Cambridge, was a great-grandson.
SamuelHutchinson, the shoemaker, lived on the road to Winter Hill.
MiriamFosket, born in 1665, MiriamCleveland, was widow of ThomasFosket, a brother of Jonathan, who once owned the windmill, which he sold to JohnMallet, on the southeast of the range called CaptainCarter's draught.Miriam was widowed in 1694, and died in 1745.
She left a landed estate of thirty acres to son John, daughter Miriam, wife to Matthew Leaky, and daughter Abigail, wife to Thomas Powers.
The Fosket family have disappeared from Charlestown, and have not been known there for a half-century.
Descendants are in Worcester and Berkshire counties.
JosephFrothingham, hatter, and Nathaniel, painter, were sons of NathanielFrothingham, the joiner, who married HannahRand, and left her a widow in 1749, with good estate.
Their posterity have been among the most notable citizens of Charlestown.
MichaelBrigden was a blacksmith, and a deacon in the First church.
He died in 1767.
His estate suffered a loss of $500 in the burning of Charlestown by the British in 1775.
Among creditors to the estate we notice the names of Doct.
Perkins, JoannaPhillips, Stephen Hall, Edw'dLutwich, JerathmeelPierce, ChristfrBlackford, JohnSmith, Margaret Rush, DorcasSoley, MargaretMacarty, JeffsJohnson, JohnSprague, JosephLemmon, JosephStimpson, DrThomasGreaves, DoctorSimonTufts, MeriamFosket, Jonathan Call, JosephFrost, SamllTrumbal.
Many of these are still represented in the population of Charlestown and its vicinity, as well as those whose names were quoted in the inventory as holding adjacent real estate.
Stephen Hall was a Boston merchant, then meaning an importer who dealt at wholesale.
He was a resident in Charlestown, a son of Stephen Hall, the weaver and painter, who married Grace Willis.
ChristopherBlackford was a victualler, who had married SarahKettell, a niece of SamuelPhipps' mother.
Later he sustained reverses in business.
JeffsJohnson, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Jeffs) Johnson, the brickmaker, was a bookkeeper in His Majesty's service.
He married SarahOrne, of Boston, and settled at Weston.
EdwardLutwyche was the landlord of the Bunch of Grapes tavern, at the head of Mackerel lane and
King street, now the corner of State and Kilby streets, in Boston.
In memory of the famous inn and the many feasts celebrated there, the present handsome edifice bears a pendent bunch of grapes, carved on the lintel at the corner.
Long wharf came up to the head of Mackerel lane, now Doane street, in those days.
The Lutwyches were English born and true to their birthright.
The son, EdwardGoldstoneLutwyche, was a scholarly lawyer, who was settled on or near Brenton's farms on the Merrimac river, where he established a ferry.
He remained in the province of New Hampshire till the Revolution.
He was colonel of the Fifth New Hampshire regiment of militia.
At the outbreak of hostilities, he repaired to Boston and joined GeneralGage.
In 1778, he was proscribed by the general court of New Hampshire, and his property confiscated.
Dr.MatthewThornton, one of the signers of the Declaration, and a busy, prominent politician, thrifty in his graft, purchased Lutwyche's farm, and the ferry has ever since been known as Thornton's. Lutwyche went to Halifax with LordHowe, was in New York after peace was declared, returned to Nova Scotia, and ended his days there.
The father, EdwardLutwyche, came from Radnor, in Wales, and married, in 1727, Thankful Parmiter, who died in 1734.
He retired in 1740 to a fine farm of 160 acres in Hopkinton, and died there in 1747.
There were two McCartys in Charlestown at the period under review, James and John, and in 1740ThomasMaccurdy, a stranger, was buried at the town's expense.
Of DochPerkins we find no trace.
The only men of the name in Charlestown then were shoemakers and blacksmiths, descendants of AbrahamPerkins, of Hampton.
JoannaPhillips was the widow of CaptainHenryPhillips, merchant, a son of ColonelJohn and Katharine (Anderson) Phillips, the provincial treasurer and judge.
She was a daughter of Hon.Joseph and Sarah (Davison) Lynde.
She was twice widowed, having first been the wife of SamuelEverton, captain of the ship, Augustus Galley, 148 tons.
Hannah, daughter of JerathmeelBowers, of Chelmsford, married BenjaminPierce, and (2) CaptainWilliamWilson, of Concord.
She had a son, JerathmeelPierce, who must be the person referred to, for certainly two mortals could not both bear that name in peace in the same community.
JohnSmith was perhaps the cordwainer who married Anna, daughter of JohnWhittemore and Sarah (Hall), who became wife to JosephFrost, as before stated.
DorcasSoley was a daughter of John and Dorcas (Coffin) Soley, or the widow herself, who was daughter of Nathaniel and Damaris (Gayer) Coffin, a Nantucket sailor.
Thomas Powers, who married a daughter of MiriamFosket, was a blacksmith.
He died in 1759, leaving an estate of £ 1,057, including a negro woman, named Essex.
JohnSprague was the gunsmith, son of Jonathan and Mary (Bunker) Sprague.
His wife was Elizabeth, a daughter of Ebenezer and Thankful (Benjamin) Austin, the saddler of Charlestown.
His father had been a soldier under Maudsley (Moseley) in KingPhilip's war. He died in 1746, leaving an estate of £ 5,773. His property was a house, land, and cider mill, out of neck, house on
Main street, smith shop and two tenements on Back street, one-fourth of a pew in the church, etc. His three surviving sons became iron founders.
Their descendants settled largely in Malden, where the old soldier of the Long March,Jonathan, lived.
JosephStimpson was the youngest son of Andrew and Abigail (Sweetser) Stimpson, housewright and shopkeeper.
His grandfather Andrew was from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and wrote his name Steauenson.To-day it is called Stephenson, Stevenson, Stimson, and Stimpson.
Joseph was graduated at Harvard in 1720, became a schoolmaster, studied divinity, was ordained and settled as pastor of the Second church, Malden, where he died in 1752.
JosephSweetser, who married RebeccaAustin, was a currier, the only child of Joseph and Elizabeth (White) Austin, a heelmaker in Boston.
He died early, leaving two sons, and his widow married SamuelWaite, and died in 1750.
SamuelTrumbull was a tanner, son of the impressed seaman, John, and Mary (Jones) Trumbull.
He owned the house of the emigrant grandfather, JohnTrumbull, captain of the shipsMary and Blossom, other houses, lands, wharves, still house, and tannery.
He died in 1759.
His son John followed the business of his father, as a tanner; so did James; but Timothy became a distiller, and married Frances, a daughter of JosephPhipps, the baker.
JohnWood, the glazier, was son of Joseph and Mary (Blaney) Wood, and brother of Joseph, who was killed by the Indians at Rutland in 1734.
John married Elizabeth, daughter of DeaconJohn and Hepzibah (Billings) Wood, of Cambridge.
He learned his trade of his father-in-law, removed to Newburyport, and died there in 1786.
SamuelSweetser was a son of the eminent Baptist, BenjaminSweetser, whose wife was a sister to Rev.MichaelWigglesworth, of Malden, born in 1666, married at MaldenElizabeth, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Stower) Sprague, of Maiden.
They dwelt at Charlestown and Malden, where both were buried, she in 1752, he in 1757.
JosephLemmon was a merchant, and treasurer of the town, son of Joseph and Mary (Bradley) Lemmon.
His widowed mother became the last wife to the town clerk's uncle, SamuelPhipps.
His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of CaptainEleazar and Ann (Foster) Phillips, a victualler and prosperous business man in Charlestown; owned wharf, slaughter house, warehouse, farms, wood lots, and negroes.
Matthew Leaky was a laborer in Boston, who married a daughter of and was administrator on the estate of the widowMiriamFosket.
Ab. Bunker was Abigail, widow of CaptainBenjaminBunker, the innkeeper.
She was a daughter of John and Anna (Carter) Fowle, the tanner.
Jonathan Call was a baker, son of Thomas and Elizabeth (Croswell) Call.
His place was near the Neck, resting on the western slope of Bunker Hill.
By his wife, SarahBoylston, he had a family of sixteen children.
He was the fourth generation of Calls in Charlestown who had been bakers, as was his brother, Caleb.
JosephFrost was a native of Billerica, son of Dr.SamuelFrost.
He married the widow of JohnWhittemore, the turner, who was a daughter of Richard Hall, of Dorchester.
She died in 1716, and Joseph married (2) Hannah, daughter of Joseph and HannahEasterbrook.
In 1740Mr.Frost, with his family, removed to Sherburn.
JohnGoodwin is indeterminate, there were so many of him: John, the housewright, of Cambridge, Malden, and Charlestown; John, the perruquier; John, called tertius; and John, a sea captain.
The Charlestown schools
From 1819-20 (continued). FrankMortimerHawes
The trustees for the year 1817 were Rev.WilliamCollier, AbramR.Thompson, M. D., CaptainNehemiahWyman, DavidStetson, IsaacTufts, Peter Tufts, Jr., EliasPhinney.
1818, Rev.WilliamCollier, A.R.Thompson, M. D., IsaacTufts, EliasPhinney, JamesK.Frothingham, JoelTufts, JohnSoley.
Our gleanings from the trustees' records and from their annual reports have been brought down to the spring of 1819. May8 of that year SamuelPayson, EliasPhinney, and JoelTufts were appointed to select a location for the new house without the Neck, and a week later it was voted that the new Milk Row School be erected where the former one stood.
IsaacTufts and JamesK.Frothingham were the building committee, and it was decided to build of wood.
This house was completed in October.
Its sides were filled in with brick, and it was finished in a plain, neat style, with two coats of paint on the outside; the cost was $675. October22 the school, which was in charge of MissCharlotteRemington, was visited by Messrs.Turner, IsaacTufts, and Frothingham.
They were highly gratified with the specimens of the children's improvement, particularly in reading.
This was the first examination in the new building.
The winter term (1819-20) was taught by DanielRussell, and March20 the school passed an examination which was highly creditable to themselves and their instructor.There were present Messrs.Turner, Isaac and JoelTufts, Frothingham, and a large number of interested spectators.The whole number on the rolls was 92; present on this occasion, 35 girls and 26 boys.
October13, the school at Winter Hill, under MissJuliaRemington, was closed.
Owing to unfavorable weather, the examination which was to have been held was not attended by any of the board.
Mr.Gates, of the Neck School, resigned, much to the regret of the committee, and was succeeded, June11, by CharlesFiske, who taught only to December11, when Rev.WilliamCollier was engaged.
In September the lower floor of this schoolhouse was finished suitably for a schoolroom, and it was occupied by a school of small children, with a female for instructress.
Schools for poor children were held from May to November.
These were in different sections of the town, and were visited November13.
The trustees found 26 under Mrs.Rea, 40 under MissSusanWyman, and 30 under MissMaryFrothingham, 96 in all. These teachers received $2.50 per week for 30 scholars.
The school for girls (over seven years of age) was kept six months, and also closed in November.
In April (1820) it was voted to pay MissCarlisle, the assistant, one-half as much as to Mr.Prentiss, the principal.
October20, J.M.Wilkins, of No. 1, resigned suddenly, much to the regret of the board.
He received their commendation.
EdwardSawyer was appointed his successor, at a salary of $800, if he continues two years; if less than that time, only $700 per annum.Later we learn that he received the larger sum. At the examination the school of Messrs.Sawyer and Gordon was highly praised.
At the last visit of the trustees, there were 685 children in all the schools (not primary). Of these, 511 were present, as follows: At No. 1,200; at the female school, 101; at No. 2, kept by Rev. Mr.Collier, 90; at No. 3, under DanielRussell, 61; at No. 4, under SimeonBooker, 33; and at No. 5, under CharlesWyman, 26.
A reduction of salaries having been agreed upon, the sum needed for the current year will be $3,100. No. 5 will need repairs amounting to about $75. JoelTufts and Mr.Frothingham are authorized to attend to these repairs.
May1, 1820, Isaac and JoelTufts are appointed to establish summer schools without the Neck.
March1, 1820, the trustees by vote established the holidays and vacations for the school year as follows:—
1. Wednesday and Saturday afternoons of each week.
2. The afternoon of the annual training in May.
3. General Election week, four days.
4. Artillery Day.
5. Commencement Day at Harvard College and the day following.
6. Day of military review, when holden in Charlestown.
7. From Wednesday immediately preceding the annual Thanksgiving to Monday following.
8. Christmas Day.
Schools to, commence the first of May.
1820-21.
May23, 1820, a communication was received from Mrs.SarahAdams (of Winter Hill), and was placed on file.
This was probably a petition for a primary school in her section of the town, and we have been given to understand that one was established about this time.
It was kept in the old Tufts house, the home of MissAbigail and EdmundTufts.
Salaries of all male instructors, except Mr.Sawyer's, were reduced to $600. The established salary had been £ 200. and, in addition, a grant had been made which augmented the compensation to $800.Mr.Sawyer's salary was not changed, because he had been engaged for two years at that rate.
After a highly commendatory paragraph concerning this gentleman, the report adds: Nor are the services of Mr.Gordon less important.November8 we read that Mr.Gordon is to receive his £ 200 per annum and a grant of $20 for the last quarter.
Unforeseen expenses, to the amount of $385, had exceeded the appropriation; the roof of schoolhouse No. 1 had to be shingled at an expense of $111, and in January the same building was damaged by fire to the amount of $65.
The female school opened May1, and continued six months, under Mr.Whitney and MissCarlisle.
In May, 1821, before the annual meeting, this school had opened with two new teachers, HenryBartlett and MissAnnD.Sprague.
At the NeckMr.Collier's resignation took effect June20.
After a short vacation there, Mr.Gragg was engaged ($600), and began to teach July7. MissAnnBrown left the occupation of the schoolroom at the NeckOctober23, and MissSebrinaJohnson engaged it on the same conditions which MissBrown has improved it, to commence this day.Schools for poor children have been kept six months by Mrs.Rea, Mrs.Thompson, and MissJefferds; 68 children attended.
November8, the money for schools without the Neck for winter schooling was apportioned as follows: $140 for No. 3; $125 for No. 4; $85 for No. 5.
The whole number of school children, outside of the women's schools (primary) was 779 at the time of their examination.
Present at these examinations: at No. 1 (Messrs.Sawyer and Gordon's), 203; at the female school (Mr.Whitney and MissCarlisle's), 122; at Mr.Gragg's, 65; at Mr.Parker's (Milk Row), 67; at Mr.Colburn's (No. 4), 37; at Mr.Wyman's (No. 5), 26. Mr.Colburn's school was examined March22.
Out of the whole number of 54, there were present 22 girls and 15 boys.
The school was addressed by Rev. Mr.Turner, and closed with prayer.No 3 at Milk Row was examined March31; whole number under Mr.Parker, 100, but only 67 were present.
The school was addressed by Mr.Turner, and closed with prayer.
Of bills approved April9, 1821, MissRebeccaCutter received $57.75. She was probably one of the summer teachers outside the Neck.
The report says that schoolhouse No. 5 is a small, old building, considerably out of repair, and quite uncomfortable for the winter season.
The committee is of the opinion that it is not worth repairing.
At solicitation, we recommend an appropriation.In consequence, the town voted $250 for the erection of a new building there, it being understood that the inhabitants will add to this sum. JoelTufts resigns in May, and he is excused with the thanks of the town for his services.
PhilemonR.Russell is chosen to take his place.
The annual report is signed by JamesK.Frothingham, secretary of the board of trustees.
1821-22.
May14, 1821.
Voted that Messrs.Tufts and Russell establish summer schools without the Neck, as in former years; that Messrs.Turner, Russell, and Tufts be a committee to attend to the erection of the new schoolhouse in Gardner's Row (No. 5), agreeable to the vote of the town; June15, that Messrs.Turner and Russell examine No. 4 schoolhouse, to see if it is necessary to have new paint.August17, SamuelGardner proposed to convey a lot of land a few rods south of the present schoolhouse lot (No. 5), he to have the old lot in exchange.
A deed was taken from him for the new lot, with the dimensions of thirty feet on the road, and thirty-six feet, twenty-five feet, and forty feet, respectively, on the other three sides.
We are favored with a complete expense account for building this new house, dated January21, 182:;—
Gardner and Fay's bill for labor$145.76SarahCutter, for brick4.00JohnFisk, for labor3.00DavidDevens, lumber60.41EphraimStevens, lumber80.37Devens and Thompson, for hardware and glass39.50WilliamFlagg, for labor10.50JonathanGibbs, lumber4.44SamuelGardner, labor25.00ElijahVose, Jr., stove and funnel19.16———$392.14
This amount exceeded the appropriation, $142.14, and this sum has been drawn from the treasury.
As Mr.Gragg resigned at the Neck school in June, Mr.SamuelMoody took charge July7.
Up to that time, the school was in a state of bad discipline, but now the conditions are excellent.
The schools for poor children were kept the past season by Mrs.Rea, Mrs.Thompson, and MissJefferds, to the full satisfaction of the board.
One hundred children have attended, and the improvement has been as good as could be expected from children in their station.
For it is with regret we are under the necessity of saying that there is a great want of attention in the parents of these children, in not seeing that their children, who are entitled to this privilege, regularly attend the schools established for their advantage.
The schools for females, under Mr.Bartlett and MissSprague, were closed the last of October. We are pleased to announce that MissSprague is again engaged for the ensuing season.Mr.Sawyer (No. 1) is highly praised, and his salary raised $100. It is recommended that Mr.Gordon's salary be increased a similar amount.
He has been in the school for six years past, teaching writing and arithmetic.
The schools without the Neck were examined April9, 1822, but no return was made, except of school No. 3, under Mr.Parker, at which some handsome specimens of writing were particularly noticed.
The number present, out of a total of 119, was 32 boys and 40 girls.
The whole number of school children —outside the primary departments—was about 750, or 66 more than attended last year; $3,400 will be necessary for the coming year.
1822-23.
At town meeting May6, 1822, JohnSoley, PhilemonR.Russell, IsaacTufts, and J.K.Frothingham declined to serve on the board of trustees.
They received the thanks of the town for their services, and Rev.JamesWalker, NathanTufts, 2d, JosephPhipps, and SamuelP.Teel were elected to their places.
Mr.Phipps was chosen secretary.
The town also voted to buy the land, with the building thereon, now occupied by the female school, but Mr.Collier declined to sell for the present.
May11, 1822.
Voted that NathanTufts attend to the care of the female school at Winter Hill and the school at Milk Row; that SamuelTeel have charge of the upper schools.
October22, these two gentlemen were empowered to, dispose of the old schoolhouse at No. 5.
The school for females opened May1, under JosiahMoody and MissSprague.
In JulyMr.Moody was succeeded by MelzerFlagg.
The school closed the last of October.
It was opened again May5, 1823, with LutherS.Cushing and MissSprague as teachers.
In July, No. 2, at the Neck, was vacated by SamuelMoody, and JosephReynolds was appointed to succeed him. Schools for poor children were kept six months in different parts of the town, under the care of Mrs.Rea, Mrs.Thompson, and MissJefferds.
About 100 children had this privilege.
The school at Milk Row (No. 3), under the charge of Mr.Blanchard, was examined in April, and was found in a good state of improvement.
Forty-four were present out of a total of about 100.
Present: Messrs.Turner, Walker, and Tufts. No. 4 and No. 5, at the upper part of the town, as far as returns have been made, have been satisfactorily kept.
The whole number of children, about 760, Present at the last examination: at No. 1, 191; at the female school, 197; at No. 2, 66; at No. 3, 44; at 4 and 5, about 83. Three thousand five hundred dollars will be needed for the coming year.
The following vote, passed April25, 1823, is interesting: Voted that there shall be but one public examination of each school in a year, to take place some time between the fifteenth and the end of October, and that the several masters be instructed to make this examination rather an exhibition of the schools in the higher classes than a regular recitation of the whole school, and that means be used to induce the parents and others interested to attend the examination, care being taken that the exercises be generally interesting from their excellence and not wearisome from their number or length.
1823-24.
School No. 2, at the Neck, was vacated in July by JosephReynolds, and ThomasThompson was engaged for the month of August. September1, HenryAdams was engaged, and began his labors there, at a salary of $600. In October the school in district No. 1, under Messrs.Sawyer and Gordon, was examined and gave satisfaction.
October20, CorneliusWalker succeeded Mr.Sawyer as teacher.
The female school, under LutherS.Cushing and MissSprague, was kept six months. The examination was highly gratifying, especially MissSprague's work.
May3, 1824, this school opened again, under SamuelBartlett and MissSprague.
The schools for poor children were also kept six months; they were examined and approved by the trustees.
The school in Milk Row at its examination was found under good government and improvement.
October31, Messrs.Turner and NathanTufts examined the school at Winter Hill, taught by MissHobbs.
The number present was 41 out of a total of 50. The scholars were examined in reading, spelling, writing, English grammar, geography, and rhetoric.
In all which they have made such attainments as prove their studious habits and unremitted attention.
The school was particularly distinguished for reading in a clear, distinct, and audible manner.
The order and discipline were excellent.
October24, a remonstrance came from JohnTufts and others in Ward3 against the employment of Mr.NathanBlanchard another winter.
It was voted that, though they regret the existence of such an opposition, the trustees do not consider the case so clearly made out as to justify their rescinding the engagement which the trustees in that ward have already made.
Voted that the secretary (Mr.Phipps) furnish Mr.Blanchard with a copy of this vote and the remonstrance, with the signatures thereto.
The petition of JohnTufts and others, praying for the erection of a schoolhouse at some convenient place on or near the road leading from the neck of land to the Powder House, was referred to a committee consisting of Mr.Turner and Mr.Parker.
Their investigations give us some interesting information:—
The whole number of scholars at Milk Row is about 130.
The distance of travel for those living on Winter Hill road, when following the Cambridge road, is over one and one-half miles; when going across lots, one mile. The distance is so great either way, and the traveling so bad across lots, especially during the winter, that a large portion of those living on that road cannot attend school.
The number of scholars living on the Winter Hill road who will be accommodated by the erection of a new schoolhouse is about 55, which twill leave for the present Milk Row School about 75.
Again, the school at the Neck is now large and constantly growing, and it would be very advantageous to lessen the number by taking therefrom all those living beyond the Canal bridge, amounting to about 20.
By annexing these to the contemplated school, the number there would be about 75.
In addition, the trustees would also state that for several years past it has been necessary to employ a schoolmistress for the accommodation of those living on the Winter Hill road, and the rent of a room for this purpose has been about $25 per year, which is not far from the interest of such a sum as would be requisite to build.
The recent establishment of factories at Milk Row will much tend to increase the scholars of that school, which, together with the ordinary growth of the town, will render the formation of a new district and the erection of a new schoolhouse, if not at this moment, surely within a short period, absolutely necessary.
February16, 1824, it was voted to refer to the selectmen at town meeting this petition of the inhabitants living from Mr.JosephAdams', Senior, on Winter Hill down to Richard's tavern at the Neck.April14, Messrs.Parker, Tufts, and Phipps were a committee appointed for contracting with some suitable person for erecting a schoolhouse on
Winter Hill road. JeremyWilson was engaged to build a house on the Pound lot, thirty feet by twenty-four feet, at a cost of $500. At town meeting, May3, 1824, the committee on new school building report that it will be completed in about twenty days.
April9, Milk Row School was examined by Messrs.Parker, Tufts, and Phipps, and a number of visitors.
The government appeared very good.
The scholars were examined in reading, spelling, grammar, writing, geography, and ciphering, and some of their branches was very well.The number of children present was 56, out of a total of 107 belonging.
They were addressed by Mr.Parker.
1824-25.
As NathanTufts, 2d, and Rev.EdwardTurner resigned, ChesterAdams and ThomasHooperwere chosen in their room.This was at the town meeting held May3, 1824, when it was also voted to district the town for the purpose of establishing primary schools for children between the ages of four and seven, the trustees to report on the same at the next March meeting.
School No. 4, near Alewife (elewive) bridge, was to be superintended by JamesRussell; No. 5 by SamuelGardner; No. 3 by Messrs.Hooper and Phipps.
They were also to have charge of the new school on the Pound lot.
November2, 1824, RobertGordon, of the grammar school, is spoken of as lately deceased, and the vacancy is supplied by engaging PeterConant.
It was voted at the May meeting that the female school on
Austin street be kept through the year, instead of six months. Mr.Barrett (?) and MissSprague have continued here and given general and great satisfaction.
As the lease for this building will soon expire, it is advisable to purchase the site, or one more eligible, on which to build.
HenryAdams resigned at school No. 2 in June, when SamuelBigelow was engaged to fill the vacancy.
He has done much to raise the character of the school.
The new school on
Winter Hill road was opened June14, 1824, under the care of MissHobbs.
This school and the one at Milk Row, under MissElizaWayne, were closed in October (examined Wednesday, October13). At the former 32 boys and 28 girls, or 60 out of a total of 73, were present, mostly young scholars.
Their performances were respectable.Present: Rev.JamesWalker, the president of the board, Messrs.Adams, Hooper, Phipps, and some visitors.
The same gentlemen attended to the Milk Row School, where 46 out of a total of 80 pupils were present.
Their appearance and performance was well; in writing, geography, and grammar very well.
Some samples of needle work, with baskets, etc., was exhibited, all neatly executed.MichaelCoombs was engaged to teach the winter school at No. 3, and as it was decided to have a male teacher at the new school for four months, Messrs.Walker and Parker engaged H.F.Leonard to teach there, at $30 per month, to begin November15. Mr.Coombs' school was visited March25. Their reading, spelling, and other branches were respectable.Messrs.Adams, Hooper, Phipps, Rev. Mr.Fay, and a number of visitors were present.
The school was closed with remarks by Mr.Adams and prayer by Mr.Fay.
The schools in Wards 4 and 5 have been kept the usual time and with acceptance.
In considering the subject of districting the town for the establishment of primary schools, the trustees recommend that they be placed, (1) at the junction of
Wapping street and Salem turnpike; (2) on Town Hill; (3) on Union street; (4) on Cordis street; (5) on Salem street; (6) at the Neck; (7) at Chelsea point. Six schools may be sufficient, but it must depend on the number that may still be taught in private schools.
It is estimated that 50 children in each school may be taught to advantage, and perhaps 60 may be permitted to attend.
The salary of the instructors, with room rent and fuel, would be about $225.
February25, 1825, the following rules for the schools within the peninsula were adopted: The hours for school shall be from 8 to 11 and 2 to 5; but from October to April, 9 to 12 and 2 to 5, except that during the shortest days the schools may be closed at sunset.
There shall be two visitations made,—from the middle to the end of April, and from the middle to the end of October.
Books recommended: Fourth class, the spelling book and Beauties of the Bible; third class, the same, and Murray's Introduction to his EnglishReader, Cummings' First Lessons in Geography and Astronomy; second class, Murray's EnglishReader, Murray's EnglishGrammar and Exercises, abridged by Alger, Walker's Dictionary (abridged); first class, American First Class Book, Walker's Dictionary (abridged), Murray's EnglishGrammar and Exercises, or the abridgment by Alger, Morse's School Geography and Atlas.
The following arrangement is made for the boys at No. 1: Arithmetic—Robinson's Elements, Robinson's American Arithmetic (or Daboll's may be used), also Colburn's Mental Arithmetic.
Holidays: Wednesday and Saturday afternoons; Election week; Thanksgiving Day and the remainder of the week; Commencement Day and the remainder of the week; Christmas Day; Fast Day; first Monday in June; Seventeenth of June; Fourth of July; and the day next after the semi-annual examinations.
Officers of Somervillehistorical Society.
1905-1906
PresidentFrankM.HawesFirstVice-PresidentLeviL.HawesSecondVice-PresidentJamesF.WhitneyThirdVice-PresidentJohnF.AyerTreasurerSethMasonRecording SecretaryMrs.WilliamB.HolmesCorresponding SecretaryFlorenceE.CarrLibrarian and CuratorAlfredM.Cutler