Vintage Views: Cost of education
When the 1st settlers arrived in our small town their priorities were rather basic, put together for the winter in advance to make sure survival. Land was cleared, crops planted, trees harvested for creating shelters and firewood. The imagined of a delicacy these kinds of as official education was not in their feelings till a handful of decades later. Garrisons have been produced and a meeting residence created down on the west facet our current working day North Principal Street. This crude building was utilized for shelter, town conferences, church products and services and college.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony granted the land regarded as Concord in 1725 and named it Pennycook Plantation. As the settlers started to get there in 1727 the identify was changed to Rumford in 1733 and then to Harmony in 1765.
As the years passed and our minor community started out to grow there ended up a lot more young children. Lots of further small children in have to have of food stuff and shelter, the young children were predicted to lead in the fields, on the farms and anywhere else an further hand was expected. Most of the small children were being currently being schooled at home with the basics when they were being not doing work for the duration of the planting and harvest seasons. The local community was developing concerned with a minimal university process and ideas ended up designed to build buildings for the sole use of training.
In the north close of Concord there were a sequence of early properties utilized as schools in generally the identical location, the southwest corner of North Condition and Church Streets. This area is the great deal identified as the Rollins Mansion or St. Peter’s Rectory creating. There were being two recognized structures on this large amount manufactured for the education and learning of neighborhood young children. It is the 3rd college designed on this website that established a feeling of controversy amongst the men and women dwelling in our local community.
The new college was manufactured on the identical good deal as the prior schools and named the Bell College. The university was designed in 1820 and regarded far and wide as the most extravagant college our ancestors ever noticed. The citizens residing in the north end district of Harmony were being rather happy with the present day framework that would educate their kids in the coming a long time. Unfortunately, the remainder of the citizens have been much a lot more concerned about the expense of setting up the school, the effect on local taxes and the unfairly insufficient college properties in other pieces of the city through this interval. The good deal was owned by the town with a heritage of prior use for university properties, programs were being created and the content obtained. Some fantastic craftsmen had been employed and the foundation was set in spot. Progress was sluggish but continuous as the basis was concluded, the setting up was framed and siding included. The roof was done and actual glass home windows ended up installed, the form of home windows that let considerably purely natural gentle to filter into the classrooms. When the building was accomplished there was landscaping and a grand opening was prepared. Compared with prior college several years people north end youngsters grandly awaited the get started of school in 1820.
With a great deal interest to the extravagance there were being concerns harbored by the Concord Making Committee. Would the spending budget help the opening of the Bell School and how would they be perceived in just the local community? The setting up was not fairly finished and the personal debt was still owed to the tradesmen when Captain Joseph Walker approached Judge George W. Nesmith and requested for the keys to the Bell College. Judge Nesmith was the 1st assigned to retain university in the new developing even though Captain Joseph Walker was a member of the Harmony Setting up Committee.
Choose Nesmith gladly handed the university keys to Captain Walker assuming there were some previous-moment issues with the construction. The choose assumed the keys would be returned the really future day. A working day passed devoid of the keys currently being returned to Judge Nesmith, then a next working day handed much too. Choose Nesmith was growing anxious about the keys not being returned and decided he would pay out a go to to Captain Walker for dialogue the subsequent day.
Decide Nesmith awoke early and walked to the City Corridor to satisfy with Captain Walker and the Harmony Creating Committee. He expected the subject was only an oversight and would be remedied speedily. He politely asked for the keys to the Bell University and was knowledgeable by Captain Walker the Concord Making Committee made the decision to keep possession of the keys as effectively as the faculty residence until the very last of the invoices were being compensated.
In the coming months prior to the grand opening of the Bell School Dwelling the tradesmen had been compensated and the keys at some point returned to Judge Nesmith.
In the year 1875 the Walker School was created and the Bell School was completely shut. Governor Rollins inevitably created his mansion on the lot, in which it stands to this quite working day in pristine issue following getting renovated by the Potter loved ones last yr.
Often the cost of training is expensive, this state-of-the-artwork faculty dwelling manufactured in 1820 was surely highly-priced and a problem for the men and women for the duration of this period. Confined education with insufficient educational institutions was deemed a really sad cost to pay. Of course, the Bell College opened and the upcoming of top quality colleges in Harmony ensured to this present working day.
Vintage Views is a neighborhood heritage column that explores Harmony and its bordering cities. It operates every single week in the Sunday Your Life part. The creator is a historian and not a member of the Monitor’s workers.