CHAPTER VIII

EARLY SCHOOL HISTORY

The early history of the Northborough schools is very interesting. It goes back to the year 1726 while Northborough was still part of Westborough. A stringent law of the Province (passed in 1701) required every town having fifty householders to support a schoolmaster, and it meted out drastic punishment to them if they did not do so. By 1726 the number of householders in Westborough having reached fifty or more, the town took measures to comply with the school law. A committee chosen for that purpose made choice of a certain Joshua Townsend of Brookfield, who contracted to teach "six months in three different sections of the town for eighteen pounds." And as the present town of Northborough was one of the "three sections" of Westborough at that time, we are able to fix upon Joshua Townsend as the first schoolmaster of Northborough. continued as our schoolmaster for at least a dozen years.

He

Townsend married Mercy Rogers in 1730, and this event seems to have made him a fixture in this locality (as marriage has made so many teachers "fixtures" in many localities). Later he took up his residence in the north district, having purchased the estate known as the "Brewer Place" on the road to Berlin, and now occupied by Mrs. Lucy Wilson. In May, 1746, we find him to be one of the ten men who organized the Northborough church. In 1749 he was one of the precinct assessors. Soon after this date, in 1756, he became a member of the Episcopal church in Hopkinton (or said he did; though we believe his name does not appear on the church book), and protested against payment of his ministerial taxes, here. He drops out of sight about this time and it is presumed that he moved away from town.

It is not possible to obtain a complete list of the names of our school-teachers before 1814 for the reason that no records were kept. The meagre information that the author has been able to gather has come to him quite incidentally. Mr. Townsend's probable successor was a man named William Jenison. We learn this from an original letter which he sent to Lieutenant Edward Baker (one of the selectmen) asking that he be paid his salary, for, he says, "I shall have need of what I can get in an honest way to answer my intentions." This was in 1742.

How long Mr. Jenison remained as schoolmaster is not known, nor how many successors, if any, he had between that date and 1766.

Westborough had no schoolhouse until about the time, or soon after, its second precinct had been set off and incorporated under the name of Northborough. In the meantime, school was kept in private houses, the schoolmaster teaching two months each year in each of the three districts.

The separation of the precinct from the parent town was completed in 1766. And from that date Northborough went its way as a separate town. From its very beginning as a town, Northborough has been interested in in education. "A lawful school for the ensuing year" seems to have been a desideratum of the new town from the date of its incorporation. At its first town meeting, in March, 1766, no action was taken on schools. But a month later, on April 1, "It was put to vote to see if ye district would provide a reading and writing schoolmaster." The vote passed in the affirmative. "It was then put to vote to see if ye district would choose a committee to provide schooling." This vote also was passed in the affirmative. The meeting then chose as its first school committee, Jesse Maynard, Seth Rice, Jr., and Lieutenant John Martyn. The committee made choice of Thomas Goodenow for schoolmaster. Mr. Goodenow was an inhabitant of the town who lived on the place now owned by Theodore Woodward. There evidently was no "dead line" in the teaching profession in those days beyond which one was considered too old to teach, for Thomas Goodenow was fifty-seven years of age and was serving that year as town assessor. The school was kept twenty-seven weeks that year, during most of which time the schoolmaster "boarded himself."

In the years 1768 and 1769, Mr. Goodenow was paid 16s. and 18s. for "boarding the schoolmaster," so we conclude that the exacting details of a schoolmaster's life were no longer congenial to him, and that he had withdrawn in favor of a younger man.

Northborough, time and again, has anticipated state legislative action looking toward the improvement of our public schools. In 1789 an act was passed by the General Court requiring towns to be divided into districts in order that children in all parts of the town might be equally accommodated. Twenty years before this, in 1769 (November 20) the Northborough town meeting "Voted and chose a committee to divide the town into squadrons (another term for school districts) so that each part may have their proportion of schooling."

The committee attended to the duties assigned them and on March 5, 1770, made the following report:

"We, the subscribers, being chosen a committee to divide the town into parts, or squadrons, for the keeping of the school, having viewed the situation of the town and each particular family or house, have come to the following conclusion, viz.: that the district be divided into four parts, or squadrons, and the persons hereinafter named, to be the first squadron:

The above report was accepted and its recommendations adopted.

These four divisions were known respectively as the west, south, east and north squadrons.

This doubtless proved a very convenient arrangement, for each child knew to which district he belonged, and when school in his district would keep. Teaching was carried on as beforethe master boarding in the respective districts during the term of his service.

The schoolmaster for the years 1770 and 1771 was a Mr. John Molton; for the year 1772 there were two-a Mr. Curtis and a Mr. Houghton; in 1773, and for several years thereafter, a Mr. James Hart.

By the year 1780 the number of children in the town had increased to such proportions that they could no longer be accommodated in private houses, and in March of that year "it was voted to build a schoolhouse in each squadron, on the town cost, 18 feet square." To defray the cost of these first schoolhouses a grant of four thousand pounds was made. When the bill for the house in the south squadron was presented and allowed, two years later, it was found that the committee had expended only £40 18s. 4d. Hence it was "Voted the three houses in the other districts be sett at the same price." This makes an expenditure for the four bulidings of only £163 13s. 4d., a signal instance of a public building being built within the appropriation. Whether this were an exemplary building committee, or the currency had materially fluctuated within those two years does not appear; very probably the latter.

These first schoolhouses were located as follows: The East

School was on Maple Street, at what we now know as Bailey's Corner. It stood a few feet back of Mr. Bailey's carpenter shop, on the left hand side of the road, going toward Bartlett's Pond. Later, a new house was built farther down the road on what is now the Frank Codd place.

The South school stood on the Plains road, a few hundred feet beyond the Picard place, on the left-hand side of the road going toward Westborough. A second house was built near the site of the first. This second house was built of brick and is well remembered, it having been taken down only about a dozen years ago.

The North school stood in what is now a wood lot, on the right-hand side of the old road that goes by and beyond the Edwin S. Corey place. It is difficult now to locate the exact site on which the house stood, it is so overgrown with brush. The author visited the place not long ago in company with Mrs. Lucy Wilson. Mrs. Wilson is eighty-seven years old, and as a child attended school in the old building (a second house which was built in 1792 on the original site). As she has always lived in the neighborhood she remembers the place very well and was able to point out the exact spot on which the schoolhouse stood. Another house for the North school was built later, on the right-hand side of the Berlin road, a few hundred feet beyond the Corey farm. This house was built of brick and is still standing, and is now a tenement house.

The West school has had three locations, the original one being on the Ball Hill road, on the left-hand side and directly at the bend of the road a little beyond what is still known as the "Nathan Green Farm." The place is now owned by Mr. Pond. A second house was built in 1795 in an entirely new location, in what is now Mr. King's pasture, on the Boylston road, and a few feet beyond Mr. King's house. The corner-stone of this house may still be seen-directly opposite the bars opening into the pasture, and about twenty feet back therefrom. In 1837 a new house was built in yet another location, on the corner of the Boylston road just this side of the King place. This building burned down, and was replaced by a brick one in 1847, which is still standing though not occupied.

TWO NEW SCHOOL DISTRICTS

The west district covered a large territory and included a large number of children. The inhabitants of Ball Hill and vicinity were becoming dissatisfied. They wanted a school of their own; and in 1795 when it became necessary to build a new house in the district, they made an attempt to get one. The