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The Lynn Academy Transcribed by Shaun Cook
By George H. Martin, A. M.., LITT.
D.
April 16, 1908
from the1908 Lynn Historical
Society Register
pgs. 58 - 84
To help transcribe or submit information, please e-mail Shaun Cook.
Lewis' History of Lynn, like all local histories
written in the form of annals, reminds the reader of that valley of bones seen
in the vision by the prophet Ezekiel. Like the bones the records are “very many”
and they are “very dry.” It is hard to realize that the stories were once full
of life, pulsating with human interest, that they tell of real men and women
living in a real world, breathing the same air, seeing the same sky and hills
and shore and ocean that we see, and moved by them as we
are.
It is the work of the modern historian to make
these dry bones live again, to set them in their proper relations, and to give
them warmth and motion.
I have been led to these
reflections by reading in Lewis’ History the statement under the date 1805: “The
Lynn Academy was opened on the 5th of April under the care of Mr.
William Ballard. A bell was presented to the institution by Col. James
Robinson.”
The story of the Academy begins a year
earlier than the event thus briefly told by the historian, and is contained in
sundry records which reads as follows:
To see if
the Parish will lease to a number of persons one fourth of an acre of land of
the parish for the purpose of erecting an academy thereon for a term not
exceeding one hundred years, - agreeable to the request of twelve of said parish.
FRED’K
BREED,
Parish Clerk.
At a meeting held May 14, 1804, it was:
Voted to Lease to the Proprietor of the Entended
Academy one fourth of an acre of the Parishes land adjoining Jonathan Breed Land
and fronting the Common for and Duering the term og Ninety Nine
years.
Voted that there Be a Committee Chosen
annualy to estimate the Rent that the said Proprietors shall Pay yearly for said
land.
Voted that the Proseeds of the Rent of said
land Be Paid to the minister of said Parish yearly and his Resait shall Be their
Discharge from the same.
Voted that Epheram Breed,
Thomas Rhodes and Charles Newhall Be Committe the Present year to Estemate the
Rent the Present year.
The land having been leased, the next step was to provide a building. How this was done is graphically told by the following bills the originals of which are in the possession of Dr. Mangan, one of our members:
The proprietors of Lynn Academy to Alasy Faulkner, Dr.
1804
To Building the Academy as per
agreement…..$1,825.00
Dec. 12, To my bill
rendered………………….
90.44
1805
Apr. 11, To my bill
rendered…………………. 103.51
Apr. 28, To my bill
rendered………………….
8.86
May 21, To my bill
rendered…………………. 41.45
To work on ye Thunder
rood………................ .65
---------
$2,069.91
Lynn, 14th June, 1805.
Errors Excepted
and payment received in full of Amos
Rhodes,
ALASY FAULKNER.
Rev. Mr. Thatcher to Sam McIntire, Dr.
To an
Eagle and Iron work for the Cupola of the New Academy at Lynn @
…L14.0.0
SALEM, 18th Augt.,
1804.
Received
payment,
SAML.
McINTIRE.
Amos Rhodes To Zacheus Collins, Dr.
1804.
9 mo., 24th, To A Cross with 4
Letters for the Academy………..$4.00
Received payment, in
full,
ZACHEUS COLLINS.
The property was held in shares, 110 in all. The only hint of their value is contained in a receipt still in existence:
Received of Amos Rhodes Forty four Dollars in full
for Two Shares in the Academy which I promise to give him a Transfer
for.
$44.
LYNN, 17 Apr.,
1805
SAML. JOHNSON.
The petition to the General Court for an act of incorporation came next.
To the Honorable the Senate and House of
Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court,
Assembled, January, 1805.
The petition of the
subscribers Inhabitants of the Town of Lynn in the County of Essex humbly
sheweth:
That your petitioners have associated
themselves into a company for the purpose of establishing an Academy in said
town of Lynn - that they have erected a large and commodious building on the
most approved construction for the purpose. Your petitioners conceive that the
local situation of the Town, the salubrity of the air, and the proximity of the
great Towns of Boston, Salem and Marblehead will all contribute to render such
an institution extremely beneficial to the Youth of this town and the vicinity,
by rendering an Academic education more easily obtained and much less expensive
than it has heretofore been. And as innumerable inconveniences must arise in our
present unincorporate State, your petitioners are induced to pray for your
Honors to grant them, with others of their associates, an Act of Incorporation
vesting them with all the privileges and immunities, which are granted to other
similar institutions in this Commonwealth: and in duty bound will ever
pray
|
Amos
Rhodes
|
Thos. Witt Dan’l R. Witt John Collins John Stone Joseph Lye Sam’l Brimblecom William Mansfield |
It will be noticed that all the signers of the
petition were residents of what is now West Lynn. James Gardner, Frederick
Breed, Edmund Mansfield, John Stone and William Mansfield lived on Boston
Street. Amos Rhodes, Ephraim Sweetser, John Collins and Daniel Tufts lived on
Federal Street. William Rose, Thomas Witt, Daniel R. Witt and Joseph Lye lived
on the Common. Samuel Brimblecom lived on the
Turnpike.
The response to the petition is in the act
passed on March 15, 1805:
|
LAWS OF MASSACHUSETTS |
AN ACT TO INCORPORATE CERTAIN PERSONS AS TRUSTEES OF AN ACADEMY, IN THE TOWN OF LYNN, IN THE COUNTY OF ESSEX.
Whereas Amos Rhodes and others, have subscribed
three thousand dollars, and have expended the same in erecting a
building, accommodated for the instruction of youth, in the town of Lynn;
and whereas it appears to this court, that the said town of Lynn is a suitable place for such
institution.
SECT. 1. Be it Enacted by the
Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court assembled, and by the
authority of the same, That there be, and hereby is established in the town
of Lynn aforesaid, an academy, by the name of the "Lynn Academy," for
the purpose of promoting piety, religion, and morality, and for the education of
youth, in such languages and such of the liberal arts and sciences as the
trustees of said academy shall direct, and that the following persons, viz.,
Amos Rhodes, James Gardner, William Rose, Jeremiah Bullfinch, Samuel
Brimblecomb, Thomas Mansfield, and their associates, be, and hereby are
incorporated into a body politic, by the name of "The Trustees of the Lynn
Academy," and that they and their successors shall be and continue a body
politic and corporate by the same name forever.
SECT. 2.
SECT. 3.
SECT.
4.
SECT. 5. Be it further enacted,
That the number of said trustees shall not, at any one time, be more than eleven
nor less than seven; five of whom shall constitute a quorum to do business, and
that a majority of said trustees shall consist of inhabitants of the town of
Lynn.
SECT. 6. Be it further
enacted, That James Gardner, Esq., be, and hereby is authorized to
fix the time and place for holding the first meeting of said trustees, and to
notify them thereof accordingly.
(This act passed
March 16, 1805)
The land leased, the building
erected thereon, on the site now known as 170 South Common Street, and the
corporation formed, everything was ready for the opening of the school which
took place, according to Lewis, on April 5, 1805.
We
need to go back of these records of legal and commercial transactions to get the
real story of the old academy. What had these petitioners and proprietors
in mind? What did they want to accomplish? Whence came the moving
impulse?
This was no isolated act. These men,
ancestors of some of us, were not pioneers. They felt the impulse of a
wide-spread movement and yielded to it. The purpose of this movement was
to furnish to the youth of the time an education higher than the
rudiments. Outside of two or three commercial cities, no public
oppurtunity to acquire an education existed. The impulse was noble in its
inception and splendid in its results.
The movement
began with the founding of Dummer Free School in Newbury in 1763. William
Dummer who had been Lieutenant-Governor, dyin in 1761, left by will his mansion
house and farm in NEwbury for the establishment of a free school to be
maintained forever on the estate. Among the early pupils in this school
was Samuel Phillips of Andover. Through his influence a second school of a
similar character was founded in Andover in 1778, by three brothers, SAmuel
Phillips of Andover, John Phillips of Exeter and William Phillips of
Boston. It was at first called the Phillips school but was incorporated in
1780 under the name of Phillips Academy. Two years later the Dummer Free
School was incorporated as Dummer Academy. In 1784 the famous Leicester
Academy was established, and within a few years Derby, Bristol, Marblehead,
Westford, Westfield, Plymouth and New Salem academies. To three of these
the State had given a grant of land in Maine. Petitions for similar aid
came from other towns and in 1797 the legislature adopted the report of a
committee and established a uniform policy for the future.
Under the provisions of the act, State aid should be given only on condition
that there be a neighborhood of thirty or forty thousand inhabitants not
provided for by existing academies, and, second, that there should be a
permanent fund contributed by towns or individuals.
Following this decision, acts of incorporation succeeded each other with great
rapidity. Before 1840, 112 acts had passed the legislature, authorizing
academies in 88 towns. Among these was the act which had been read
concerning Lynn.
It is evident that the motive
urging the Lynn men was to do what other towns were doing, - to have what other
towns were having, - to keep up with the procession. Under the condition
imposed by the State, Lynn could not receive State aid. There was not the
requisite number of people unaccomodated and the school had no endowment.
Marblehead fared better. Her academy had received an endowment and she had
received a land grant before the restrictions were imposed. This land was
sold for L3,000, and the school put upon a permanent
footing.
Just what the Lynn petitioners thought when
they urged that their prayer be granten because they were near Boston, Salem and
Marblehead, it is hard to tell, for Boston had its old Latin School, Salem had a
grammer school almost equally old, and Marblehead had its new
academy.
Up to this time the provision for secondary
education had been scanty. The early school law of 1647 had decreed that
towns having one hundred families should maintain a school where youth might be
fitted for the university. In the commercial and larger towns such schools
had been kept almost continuously. Elsewhere the Latin school was felt to
be a burden and kept only intermittently if kept at all. There was a
penalty for noncompliance with the law and this penalty was several times
increased, but in spite of it the county records contain frequent entries of the
presentment of towns to the Grand Jury for not maintaining a grammer
school.
Lewis' records show that Lynn employed a
grammer school master with considerable regularity. Parson Shepard was
hired to keep the school several times, but this effort at economy was
afterwards cut short by the Legislature which forbade the employment of the
minister as schoolmaster.
So heavy had the burden become
during the long impoverishing period of the Indians and Revolutionary wars,
that, under the terms of a new law enacted in 1789, only towns having 200
families were to maintain the high school.
Out of
this dearth of oppurtunity for learning grew the academies. When Leicester
was founded in 1784, there was not in all Worcester County a school in which
anything beyond the rudiments was taught. So eager, however, was the
desire for learning that the new schools were crowded and crowded with the
choice spirits of the towns. By 1876 the four schools at Leicester,
Westford, Groton and New Salem had instructed more than 30,000 young men and
women.
The work which the academies undertook to do
is shown by the list of studies included in the act of foundation of Leicester
Academy: "Greek languages; writing, arithmetic and geography; the art of
speaking; practical geometry, logic and philosophy" and "such other liberal arts
and sciences as the trustees shall direct." That all these studies were
taught in all the schools is not probable. But the oppurtunity was
offered, the fountain of learning was unsealed, and those who thirsted might go
and drink.
What sort of boys took
advantage of the new oppurtunities and what the schools did for them is
shown by the fact that, under its first master Moody, Dummer educated
fifteen Members of Congress, two Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, one
President of Harvard College and four college professors. Among the
alumni of Monson have been m ore than two hundred ministers.
Our own Lynn Academy can boast of no such
distinguished body of alumni. Handicapped at the start by the lack of an
endowment, it depended wholly on tuition fees for its support, and it
could never maintain teachers of standing sufficiently high to attract
students from abroad. It had only a quarter of an acre of land and no
dormitories.
The list of
preceptors given in Lewis' History shows that until Master Batchelder came
a man rarely remained more than a year and apparently some were here for
but a term.
The
preceptors were all young men, most of them just out of college. Of the
nineteen names recorded by Lewis, eight had been matriculated at Harvard,
five at Dartmouth, three at Yale, and two at Brown. One, our own Alonzo Lewis, was not a
graduate.
For a part of the time at least the school was large enough to employ an
assistant, as is shown by one or two receipts which have fortunately been
preserved. To the same source we are forced to look for our only
information concerning the early preceptresses who taught the girls.
What
the young preceptors lacked in experience they made up in promise. I have been
able to sketch the career of most of these young men and present it here with
this caveat. In most cases their stay in Lynn counted so little in their lives
that no mention is made of it in the college biographies or the genealogical
records from which my data are obtained. Yet I have no doubt that the name which
is associated with the Lynn history and the name in the other record stand for
the same person, and I shall assume that to be the fact.
William Ballard,
under whom the academy was opened in April, 1805, was born in Framingham,
Mass., July 6, 1776; and was graduated from Harvard College in 1799. In a
genealogical sketch of the Ballard family, he is said to have been a
physcian and to have died in Framingham in 1827, but he is not recorded
among the physicians of that town. He wrote and published anonymously an
"Historical Sketch of Framingham," now very rare. It is a queer compound
of description of the natural history of the town, brief mention of a few
historic facts and garrulous disguisitions on the folly of women, the
weaknesses of lawyers and doctors and the wickedness of Calvinistic
ministers. He seems to have taught but a single term.
Francis Moore followed him and taught one
term or more. A an of this name was born in Cambridge, May 30, 1787;
studied medicine without going to college and was graduated from the
medical school in 1812. He practiced in Ipswich, Mass., and later in West
Sparta, N. Y., where he died May 16, 1836. If he is our teacher, he could have
been but 18 years of age at the time. A receipt for his salary seems to show
that he was employed at the rate of only $500 per annum. This may have been on
account of his youth.
Hosea Hildreth was born in
Chelmsford January 2, 1782; was graduated from Harvard in 1805 and seems
to have come to Lynn directly. He is said to have taught school in various
places from 1805 to 1811. He seems to have gone to Deerfield Academy from
Lynn, as his son Richard, the historian, was born in Deerfield in 1807. He
was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Phillips (Exeter)
Academy from 1811 to 1825. He then entered the Congregational ministry and
became pastor of a church in Gloucester, where he remained until 1833. He
became an Agent of the Massachusetts Temperance Society, and died in
Sterling, Vt., July 10, 1835.
Perhaps the most interesting
of all these men was Abiel Chandler who followed Hildreth in 1807. He was
born in Concord, N. H., February 26, 1777. At the age of twenty-one he was
given some wild land in Maine on condition that he should settle on it and
develop it. He went to Maine, worked on his land in summer and attended
academies at Fryeburg and Exeter in winter. One day he heard some
Dartmouth College men conversing. The superiority of their language
impressed him and led him to think of college advantages for himself. He
entered Harvard and was graduated in 1806, coming to Lynn the next year.
After teaching in our
academy one term, he seems it have been tempted by a liberal salary of
$1,200 to go to the grammar school in Salem where he taught twelve
years.
He then left
teaching for business, establishing himself as a commission merchant in
Boston where he amassed what in those days was a fortune. At his death he
left the bulk of his property, about $75,000, to Dartmouth College and the
New Hampshire Insane Asylum. His name is perpetuated in the Chandler Scientific School of Dartmouth
College.
Of Abner Loring, who seems to have finished out the year 1807, I
have been able to find but a single fact, namely, that he was graduated from
Harvard in 1807. He evidently came here directly from college.
The next name is an historic
one. Samuel Newell was born in Durham, Maine, July 24, 1781. He was early
left an orphan but found a home in Roxbury. He showed scholarly tastes and
was aided in getting an education, fitting for college in two years and
being graduated from Harvard
in 1807.
He came soon after to Lynn.
Lewis says of him: "He was feeble and unable to keep up a rigid
discipline." While teaching here he formed the purpose of entering the
ministry and went to andover Theological Seminary in 1809. Here he came
under the influence of Judson and Nott and became inspired with the
enthusiasm for missions to the heathen then prevalent. He was ordained as
a missionary in 1812; married Harriet Atwood of Haverhill and sailed for
Calcutta in the same year. He died in 1821. His name and that of
his wife are prominent in the annals of foreign missionary work.
Proctor Pierce, the next in
the list, was born in New Salem, Mass., March 20, 1768, and died in Boston
in 1821. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1796 and received an
honorary degree of Master of Arts from Harvard in 1814. His life was spent
in teaching in Lynn, Greenfield, Cambridge and Boston.
Joseph Wardwell, who was here
in 1811, seems to have taught our academy during his college course, as he
was not graduated from Dartmouth until 1813. He was born in Salisbury,
Mass., July 3, 1788, and died in Boston, February 3, 1814, aged 25. A record says,
"He taught there until his premature decease."
Solomon Smith Whipple was
born in Hamilton, Mass., March 29, 1789, and died in Boston in 1840. He
was graduated from Dartmouth in 1811. Chapman's Alumni of Dartmouth
College says he taught in Lynn in 1811. Lewis says 1812. He read law with Robert W.
Trevett of Lynn and Hon. Samuel Putnam of Salem and began the practice of law in
Salem in 1816.
A few receipts still in
existence in the possession of Dr. Mangan tell us something of the terms
on which these men taught, and also give us our only knowledge of the fact
that girls shared with boys the benefits of the school and were taught by
women preceptresses. The practice seems to have been for the trustees to
pay a fixed salary to the instructor who collected, as much of it as he
could from the parents of the pupils. The preceptor hired the preceptress
and paid her salary, charging it to
the trustees with
his
own.
LYNN, 18th Octr., 1805
Trustees of Lynn Academy,
Dr.,
Francis Moore, Junr.,
For instructing in the Academy from July 8th to
October 8, at $500 per annum .... $125 00
For the
assistance of Rev.
Wm. Frothingham four weeks at $900 per annum
........ 50 00
From 10th Oct. to 17th Oct.
................... 7
81
-----------
$182
81
Received Pay for the above Acct.,
FRANCIS MOORE, JUNR.
REV. WILLIAM
FROTHINGHAM
He was born in Cambridge,
Mass., on March 14, 1777; was graduated from Harvard College in 1799;
taught school; was licensed to preach in 1801; married in 1804; in
September, 1804, was ordained pastor of church in
Saugus.
"In that place he struggled with the
difficulties of an incompetent support for more than 12 years, when he
felt constrained to resign his pastoral charge."
He did some missionary work in Maine.
In 1816 he became preceptor of the Academy in Belfast, Maine, and soon
after was employed to preach there. He was formally called to preach in
1818 and was installed the next year. He had a successful pastorate of 27
years.
In Williamson's History of Belfast, may
be found an extended sketch of Mr. Frothingham and a portrait of him."
LYNN ACADEMY
Dr. The Trustees of Lynn Academy with H. Hildreth.
Cr.
|
1805. |
1805. By cash
........
$68 00 |
July 31st,
1806.
Received the above Balance
HOSEA HILDRETH.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LYNN ACADEMY.
Amos, Benj. & Eliza Rhodes,
To the Preceptor of Lynn Academy, Dr.
To 1
quarter's tuition,
.......
$16 00
Books 1.00, Stationery, 64, Pane glass, 1,00
....
2
64
--------
$18 64
July 6, 1808.
Received Payt.
ABNER LORING.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LYNN ACADEMY.
Mr. Samuel Newhall,
To Eliza H. Mansfield, Dr.
To instructing in the female apartment, Lynn, Academy, from August 25th to Oct. 5, 1808, six weeks at $6.56...$39 36
Received
payment,
ELIZA H.
MANSFIELD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trustees
of Lynn Academy, Dr., to Mary Bordman for thirteen weeks'
instruction.....$97 50
Received payment of Mr. Moore in full,
Oct.
21st,
1805.
MARY BORDMAN.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LYNN,
Jan. 1, 1806
Trustees of Lynn Academy indebted to Mary Bordman for one quarter's services in the Academy, $97.50
Received payment of the Preceptor,
MARY BORDMAN.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
LYNN, Dec. 19, 1812.
Amos Rhodes, Esq.,
Please to pay Mr. Proctor Pierce twenty-four
dollars on my account, it being due me from the Trustees of Lynn Academy
for land rent.
THOS. C. THACHER.
LYNN, 5th Feb., 1813.
Rec'd the within for Proctor Pierce
$23 19
81
---------
$24 10
PETER G. CONANT.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The period during the war
of 1812 and subsequent to it seems to have been a time of stress in
academy affairs as well as in those of the nation. Between 1812 and 1817
are but two names, both sons of trustees, John Flagg Gardner, son of Dr.
James Gardner, who left Harvard in 1813 and was in the Academy in 1815,
and Amos Rhodes, son of Amos the millwright and treasurer, who left
Harvard in 1816 and taught in 1817.
Afterwards
Rhodes became treasurer of The Lynn Institution for Savings, and had a
long and honorable career as a business man.
Things seem to have been going so badly that the proprietors became discouraged and in 1817
the following petition was sent to the Legislature:
To the Honorable the Senate and tI,e Honorable House of Representatives
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court
Assembled:
The Petition of the
Undersigned Trustees of the Lynn Academy, humbly shews,
That the Building, accommodated for the
instruction of youth in the Town of Lynn was about ten years ago, erected
by voluntary subscription and contributions and a Charter of Incorporation
for the same obtained in the same year: that said Building and property of
the Corporation are and have been held in one hundred and ten shares by
the said subscribers, or their assigns and legal representatives: that
said Corporation has received no public or private Donations: that for
want of Funds and Patronage, the said Building has for some years past not
been occupied as an Academy, and is now in a decayed condition.
Wherefore, your Petitioners pray that an Act
may be passed authorizing the said Trustees to call a meeting of the
holders of shares in said Academy, as well as those who originally
subscribed as those who hold by assignment, authorizing the said holders
of shares by a major vote in interest to dissolve and discontinue the said
Academy, and to sell and dispose of the said Building for their own use.
AMOS RHODES,
JAMES GARDNER,
EPM. SWEETSER
LYNN, November 29, 1816.
The petition received
favorable consideration and an act dissolving the corporation was passed.
The building seems to have remained in the
hands of the proprietors, and a school was kept probably intermittently
for several years. In the records of the First Parish are the following
entries indicating that the parish had some difficulty in collecting rent
for its land.
March 22, 1819. Voted to choose
a committee of three persons to ascertain what is due from the proprietors
of the Academy to the Parish for the ground rent of the same, and report
at the adjournment.
Voted that Rev. Trevett,
Dr. Hazeltine and J. Burrill be the committee.
April 12, 1819. Voted to accept the report of
the committee respecting the Academy land.
Voted that the said rent be put into the hands of the Collector to
collect.
April 18, 1820. Voted that the Clerk
be directed to make out a bill against the proprietors of the Academy and
deliver it to the Collector to collect and that he have six per cent.
for what he collects of the same and that he endeavor to collect it before
the adjournment.
"December 6, 1824. Voted
that the parish committee be authorized to settle with the proprietors of
the Academy for rents for the use of the Academy building on the one side,
and the ground on which the building stands on the other."
The use of the building referred to was for
the Sunday School connected with the First Parish which was founded 1818,
held first in the "Old Red School House" so-called at the West End of the
Common, then transferred to the Academy building. Later the school was
removed to the meeting-house. "The soiling of the ladies' dresses by the
schoolroom floor is said to have led to this step." Subsequently, the
academy building was again used for a short
time.
The Legislature, having in 1824 granted
to the parish permission to sell its parsonage land, the academy lot was
offered at auction in March, 1824, and purchased by Rev. Otis Rockwood for
$250. On December 4, 1826, Mr. Rockwood sold the land and building to six
men, all of West Lynn, for $609, the grantees to hold the property in the
following proportions: Jonathan Bacheller 11/29, Caleb Wiley, 8/29,
Hezekiah Chase 6/29, Isaiah Newhall 2/29, and Isaac Childs and James
Gardner each 1/29, the single share being valued at $21.
While the property was in this non-corporate
and shifting ownership, young men as preceptors came and went as before.
Lewis gives their names associated with a single date. The exact time of
their service cannot be ascertained.
In 1819
Benjamin Dudley Emerson was here. He was born in Hampstead, N. H., April
20, 1781; was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1805; is said to have
begun to teach in Newburyport in 18l0, and to have been principal of the
Adams Grammar School in Boston in 1817. In later years he published a
Spelling Book and "The Academical Speaker."
In 1823 Alonzo Lewis, who had been a pupil earlier, taught for a little
time.
In 1825 Ripley Perkins Adams came
directly from his graduation at Yale. He was born at Colchester, Conn.,
January 11, 1804, and died at Reidsville, N. C., April 30, 1870. His
father, John Adams, LL.D., was a noted teacher, a graduate of Yale in
1795. He taught in the academies at Plainfield and Colchester, Conn., and
was from. 18l0 to 1833 preceptor of Phillips Academy at Andover. Later he
was engaged in Sunday school work in Illinois and died in 1863 at the age
of 90.
In 1827 George Edwin Delavan of
Danbury, Conn., was graduated from Yale and entered at once on his
teaching here.
In 1829 Joseph Hardy Towne of
Salem, a classmate of Delavan's in the Yale class of 1827, took the
school.
He was born May 6, 1805, and died in
Andover August 3, 1897, at that time the oldest living Yale graduate. He
probably remained here not more than a year, as he studied theology at
Andover in the class with Horace Bushnell and Nathaniel P. Willis; was
ordained in 1833 and held long and important pastorates in the
Congregational Churches in Portsmouth, Lowell, Boston and Bridgeport,
Conn.
In 1830 Samuel Lamson, also of Salem,
was here. He was graduated from Brown University in 1828, became clergyman
and died in 1864.
We now approach the third
period in the history of the old school, the closing years of which are
within the memory of many now living.
Prior
to 1832 the proprietors and patrons had been the well-to-do merchants and
manufacturers of West Lynn. But business was extending eastward and the
number of families opulent enough to afford their children an education
beyond the rudiments had greatly increased.
A
petition which reached the legislature in 1832 is significant in revealing
these social changes in the town, as nine of the signers marked* lived
east of the Common.
To the Honorable the
Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
in General Court Assembled:
The
undersigned having purchased a building to be occupied as an academy with
the land thereunto belonging, request of your Honorable bodies that they
may be incorporated into a body politic, by the name of the Proprietors of
the Lynn Acadey, with the liberty of increasing their present funds and
with all the privileges usually granted to similar Corporations.
And as in duty bound will ever pray.
LYNN, March 1,
1832.
Andrews Breed.
Isaac Storey.
Henry A.
Breed.
William Chase.
David Ellis.
J. C. Holmes.
Jona.
Bacheller.
Ezekiel H. Parker.
Caleb Wiley.
Samuel T. Huse.
George Johnson.
*Isaiah Breed.
*John Lovejoy.
Josiah
Newhall.
*John Alley, 3rd.
F. S. Newhall.
*Amos Mower.
*Dan'l Chase.
*Otis Wright.
James Pool.
Jacob Chase.
*Dan'l Farrington.
*Jona. Buffum.
March 13, 1832, a new act
of incorporation was passed in which Andrews Breed, Isaiah Breed, Josiah
Newhall, Jonathan Buffum, Francis S. Newhall, Caleb Wiley and Hezekiah
Chase were named as incorporators.
The
trustees turned again to Ripley P. Adams, who had been here some years
before. The first Lynn Directory (1832) gives these items:
"Lynn Academy, Preceptor, Ripley P. Adams,
residence, Waterhill; Preceptress, Mary Kidder, 70 pupils. A boarding
house attached on Commercial Street, kept by John Russell."
This is the first and only intimation that
students attended from out of town.
How long
Adams remained is not known, but in 1835 Ephram Ward was here. He was born
in Middleton, Mass., October 5, 1811, and was graduated from Brown
University in 1834. After leaving Lynn he taught in the Sanderson Academy
at Ashfield, Mass., for ten years, subsequently became a lawyer in Ohio, a
Baptist clergyman in Raynham, Mass., a land commissioner in Chicago, and
died in Highland, Kansas, December 25, 1873.
With Ward the days of transient and itinerant pedagogues ended, and in
1835 the academy settled down to its only period of stable existence and
steady work under Jacob Batchelder as preceptor and Priscilla Titcomb as
preceptress.
Jacob Batchelder was born in
Topsfield, Mass., July 10, 1806; was graduated from Dartmouth College in
1830, and then taught a flourishing private school in his native town. He
came to the Lynn Academy in 1835 and remained until the opening of the
High School in 1849, when he gave up his position as preceptor to become
principal of the new school. His service as principal of the High School
continued until 1856 when he removed to Salem to become principal of the
Classical High School of that city. After serving there five years he was
again placed in charge of the Lynn school, November, 1861, but resigned
after about a year to take the office of Collector of Internal Revenue.
The same year he became Librarian of the newly opened Public Library. He
held this position until his death December 19, 1876. "Master Jacob," as
he was familiarly called to distinguished him from his cousin "Master
John" Batchelder who was teaching the grammar schools in Wards 5 and 6
during the period of Master Jacob's service in the Academy and High
School, was a teacher in the best sense of that word.
Although scholarly after the fashion of the
time, he was no narrow pedant. His scholarship was broad rather than deep.
His tastes were literary and scientific, yet his teaching of mathematics
was singularly clear.
His conception of the
functions of a teacher was unusually broad. To help boys and girls to love
study and knowledge was his aim rather than to fit them for examinations.
He cared less for actual attainments than for the cultivation of tastes
and sought by all kinds of ingenious illustrations to create an interest
in the subjects he was teaching. His Saturday morning talks or lectures on
natural philosophy with experiments often with apparatus bf his own
devising have not been forgotten by his students. He felt responsibility,
too, for the moral culture of his pupils, and most of those who came under
his instruction remember his Monday morning sermons. In his discipline he
was in advance of his time. He wanted his students to learn to control
themselves and threw on them much responsibility, more in fact than many
of them were equal to.
During these years from
1835 to 1850 the girls were as fortunate as the boys in having for an
instructor Miss priscilla Titcomb. I have known few teachers for whom
their pupils cherished such lasting and grateful memories. She remained in
the Academy a short time after the boys' department had been closed, then
followed Mr. Batchelder to the high school where she taught as his
assistant for several years.
The following
letter from a near relative of Miss Titcomb is an interesting contribution
to our biographies:
248 High St., NEWBURYPORT,
Jan. 20, 1908.
Mr. Geo. H. Martin:
DEAR SIR,--I
fear that I shall not be able to give you all the dates that you wish
concerning the work of Miss Priscilla Titcomb, but I will do what I can.
She was born in Newburyport, March 7,1811,
and died there June 13, 1899.
In early life
she taught in public and private schools in Newburyport, thus earning
money to carry on her own education, which she received largely at
Bradford Academy. She was a great student of the languages, in which she
received private instruction from different
teachers.
She was a teacher in the Academy at
Hampton, N. H., but I do not know the date of her work there. I am quite
sure it was previous to her work in Lynn.
The
date of her going to Lynn Academy I am not able to give, but I know that
from 1832 to 1835 she taught a girls' school in the old brick schoolhouse
on Kent street, Newburyport; and that in 1843 she was teaching in Lynn. So
it was between 1835 and 1843 that she went there.
After leaving Lynn, the date of which I do
not know, she opened a boarding school for girls on High street,
Newburyport.
After that she had private
pupils some of whom she fitted for college. Her private teaching she
continued till much later in life than teachers are able
to.
I will speak of one thing which seemed to
her family remarkable. She had great powers of committing to memory and a
very memory. As a child she would go home from church and repeat much the
sermon. Her Sunday School lessons consisted of Bible verses. She would
learn so many that her teacher would not have time to hear her; and would
appoint a day to hear her at her home. In that way she committed to memory
the whole of the New Testament, which she
retained in after life.
Hoping this
information may be of some use to you,
I am sincerely yours,
ANNIE B. TITCOMB.
I have sought in vain for any records of the school or for complete lists of pupils. The late Enoch S. Johnson, who was a pupil sometime in the forties, prepared from memory long afterwards a list of the boys who attended while he was a member of the school. As Mr. Johnson's memory was singularly accurate and retentive, the list is probably quite complete and a few earlier names have been added:
| John B. Alley John Henry Alley Charles Babb Samuel Batcheller Alonzo W. Boardman A. B. Breed Edward A. Breed Frank P. Breed Henry Breed Henry A. Breed I. C. Breed William B. Breed Andrew Buffum Daniel C. Buffum William Bullard George H. Chase George S. Chase William A. Chase Charles Coolidge Rufus Cutter Charles Dalrymple John Davis Augustus B. Edmands William J. Emerton John Flagg Benjamin Phillips James Purinton Daniel Putnam Edward H. Rhodes William H. Rhodes Edward A. Rich Charles Robinson Charles Sprague Phineas Sprague Charles H. Stickney John B. Stickney Frederick Story |
Charles L. Gardiner Benj. Phillips Gardner Henry Gardner Edward W. Halliday Benjamin A. Hallowell Willard Harding, Jr. Henry S. Hill Stephen Holman Ephraim A. Ingalls Samuel Edwin Ireson N. H. P. Ireson John Jameson Richard Jenness Charles A. Johnson Enoch S. Johnson George O. Johnson George R. Johnson Moses A. Johnson Samuel H. Johnson Samuel O. Johnson William Otis Johnson Benjamin F. Newhall Fales Henry Newhall George T. Newhall Henry Francis Newhall Isaac Story Joseph Story Stephen Story William F. Story Amos P. Tapley Henry Tapley Gardiner Tufts Frederick Walden Wayland Weston Timothy P. Whitney Caleb W. Wiley Ephraim E. Wiley |
Stephen Holman, now living at 150 Atlantic Avenue, Swampscott was a pupil at the Academy from 1833 to 1836, preparing for Williams College from which he was raduated in 1840, being the oldest alumnus of both institutions, and still in such bodily and mental vigor as to enable him to attend, to his business affairs and also to take extended journeys every summer either in this country or abroad, as well as an annual fishing trip in the Maine forest.
The following program of exercises in the school in 1831 was printed in the Item, May 14, 1909. It shows that both boys and girls were then in attendance. The name of the preceptor does not appear, but probably Ripley P. Adams was then in service.
LYNN ACADEMY
Order of Exercises - August 19, 1831
DECLAMATION
1. Extract from a Speech of J.
Randolph (Select) ........ Augustus B. Edmands
2. The Indians
(Original)..... Edward H. Rhodes
3. Extract (Select) ..... Timothy P.
Whitney
4. The United States (Original) .......Amos P. Tapley
5.
Extract from Grimke's Address on the Influence of the
Bible...........William F. Story
6. Dialogue (Original).........Edward
A. Rich
Glutton Bill...........A. P.
Tapley
Buck.....N. H. P. Ireson
Tom Pry......Ephraim E. Wiley
Mr. Hoard............E. H.
Rhodes
Farmer..............T. P. Whitney
Sailor.........E. A. Rich
Patrick......William Bullard
7. Extract from "Letters of Fabius on the
Federal Constitution (Select)..........William J. Emerton
8. Influence
of the numerous publications of the day on Literature
(Original)..............Ephraim E. Wiley
9. Extract from Grimke's
Address on science (Select)..........Charles A. Johnson
10. Character
of Alexander of Russia ( Original)..........William Bullard
11.
Dialogue (Select) - Student.........E. A.
Rich
Farmer...........A.
P.
Tapley
Farmer's Boy...........I. C.
Breed
Uncle Joe............Ephraim E. Wiley
12. Regulus
(Select)................Benj. Phillips Gardner
13. Excellence of the
Holy Scriptures (Original) ..... Willard Harding, Jun.
14. True
Excellence Dependent on Exertion (Original) ...... Rufus Cutler
ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS.
15. Female Heroism...........Mary
J. Howard
16. The Priceless Gem..........Sally Massey
17. Air
Castles............Elizabeth Oliver
18. Dangers of Youth.....Lucy Ann
Chase
19. Instruction at the Present Day......Lydia Maria Breed
20.
Reading..........Adeline Ruth Alley
21.
Vacation....................Eunice Ann Tapley
22. Moral
Philosophy...........Betsy Johnson Alley
23. A Walk......Abigail E.
Emerton
24. Various Fortunes of Mankind.........Ellen Augusta
Brimblecom
25. Sorrows of the Strong Warrior...........Sally Massey
26. Learning Preferable to Wealth...........Lucretia D. Smith
With the opening of the
free public high school the mission of the Academy was ended. The property
was sold in 1852 and the building removed to Western Avenue where the
General Electric building now stands. Later it was moved to the corner of
Western Avenue and Centre Streets, where it still stands shorn of its
piazza and belfry and gilded eagle and doing duty as a paint shop.
The Academy building served the public by
being used as a meeting house by an Episcopal Church from 1819 to 1823,
and by the First Church while the Old Tunnel was being remodeled in 1827.
I have used the phrase, "the mission of the
Academy." That mission was to keep alive the lamp of the high learning in
the town of Lynn. Whether their fathers could afford to pay their tuition
or not, the boys and girls knew that the opportunity awaited them, and
though few of them went to college many found the means to spend a term or
two "at the Academy and get a glimpse into the world of books.
Compared with the long terms of service of
the famous teachers in some of the academies, it may seem as if little
could have been accomplished by the young men who rapidly succeeded each
other through all the earlier years of the
Academy.
Probably
there was some loss in exact scholarship. But there were some
compensations. The value of a teacher's influence is not always
proportional to the length of his service. It is easy to believe that
those young men fresh from college with its enthusiasms, and hopeful in
the thought of careers before them in law and medicine and theology for
which they were studying while teaching must have kindled some enthusiasm
here and left some impulses toward study, must have opened some doors into
literature and science which made the town richer for their stay. We must
count the old Academy, therefore, though, it never acquired wide fame, one
of the effective forces in the social life of the community.
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