Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

Standing on sloping ground the foundation of the house on the street side was high enough to admit of a cellar above the street level. In the northerly end of the school room there was a platform, two steps above the main floor, with the teacher’s area in the centre flanked on each side by three unpainted pine desks with lids, and with long seats to correspond, facing the area. An alley led from the door to the platform with a row of desks and seats on each side, the row on the east side being broken by a space for a box stove for burning wood, the only fuel at that time used.

The house was built in 1770, and until 1826 was called the central or grammar school, but in that year it received the name of high school. It had a belfry on its southerly end, and a bell with the rope coming down into a cross entry between the outer door and the schoolroom. When the house was taken for an engine house the bell was placed on the Russell street school house, and when during some repairs, it was removed from that building and abandoned, I captured it for Pilgrim Hall, where it now is. The first bells, as large as this one, made in the United States, were cast in Abington by Aaron Hobart in 1769, under the direction of a deserter from the British Army, named Gallimore, a bell founder by trade. There can be little doubt that the bell in question was made by Mr. Hobart in 1769. It is not altogether gratifying that, with other customs of the past, the ringing of bells should be falling into desuetude. The Court bell no longer calls the liar to come to Court, the school bell is silent, the funeral bell is not heard, even the fire bell is giving way to the electric alarm, and I fear that the church bell will be the next to fall asleep under the soporific influence of fashion. But I trust that the day is far distant when the sweet voice of the Sunday bell shall become mute. Years ago when Julian, the great French composer of instrumental music was in the habit of bringing out his new pieces for the year, he played them for the first time at the series of mask balls, beginning each year at Christmas. I had been in Paris six months without hearing the church bell ringing its summons to service, and I have never forgotten the emotions stirred within me when I heard at the first ball in the series, sixty years ago, the piece entitled “la dimanche au sonneur,” the Sunday bells. The first time I saw the “Angelus” by Millet, the same emotions were revived, and the music of “la dimanche au sonneur” is still ringing in my ears.

While talking of bells, I wonder how many of my readers know how far church bells can be heard. I read a few years ago an article in the Living Age on the rut of the sea, or as it is better known, the roar of the ocean, which many persons think is caused by the surf on the shore after a storm. I discovered many years ago that this was not so, as I had often heard it when there was no storm, and when there was scarcely a ripple on the beach. The article referred to stated that the rut was the sound of a distant storm, perhaps hundreds of miles away, and illustrated the distance at which sounds can be heard at sea by the following incident. A ship bound into New York one Sunday forenoon was sailing close hauled on the wind on the starboard tack about eighty miles dead to leeward from Sandy Hook. The mate reported to the Captain that he could hear the New York church bells. The captain doubting it, went on deck and heard them distinctly. Putting his ship into the wind, and thus shivering her light sails, he lost the sound, but putting her off again the bells continued to be heard. The sound of the bells reached the upper sails, and was reflected to the deck. I was prepared to credit the story, because I have been told by grand bank fishermen that in old side wheel days they had heard the paddles of an ocean steamer twelve miles away.

Returning from this digression, let me say that in 1832 I presented myself at the office of Dr. Winslow Warren, on the corner of Main and North streets, chairman of the school committee, to be examined for admission into the high school. The requirements were at that time, an age of ten years, an ability to read well and spell, to write a fair round hand, a knowledge of Colburn’s first lessons, and Robinson’s arithmetic as far as vulgar fractions, and ability to parse a simple sentence. I had at that time not only gone beyond the requirements in my studies, but had made a considerable advance in Latin. When I entered the school it was kept by Samuel Ripley Townsend. When he flogged a boy he did it neither in sorrow nor in anger, but rather for the quiet fun it gave him. He wore spectacles, and had a way of walking leisurely up the alley as if his thoughts were far away from the school, and if any boy after he had passed made a face behind his back, or threw a spit ball at another boy, he would see the reflection in his spectacles, and then going quietly to his desk, and taking out his cowhide, would walk back apparently in an absent mood, and when he walked by the boy he would bring the hide down smartly on his back, and keep on his walk with an ill concealed smile on his face as if he had played a joke on the offender.

Mr. Townsend, son of Samuel and Abigail Townsend, was born in Waltham, April 10, 1810, and graduated at Harvard in 1829. After leaving Plymouth he engaged in business in Boston for a time, and afterwards taught the Bristol Academy from 1846 to 1849, during which period he studied law with Horatio Pratt, and was admitted to the Bristol bar in 1850. In 1853 he was chosen treasurer of Bristol County, serving three years, and in 1858 was appointed Judge of the Police Court of Taunton. After the dissolution of the court he practiced law in Taunton, serving three terms as a member of the city council, and in 1882 was appointed City Solicitor. He married June 29, 1837, Mary Snow Percival, and died September 27, 1887.

In 1833 Mr. Townsend was succeeded by Isaac Nelson Stoddard, born in Upton, October 30, 1812, who graduated at Amherst in 1832. He taught the school about two years, and then moved to New Bedford, where he taught until 1837, when he returned to Plymouth, and again had charge of the school until 1841. In the latter year he was appointed collector of the port, remaining in office until 1845, when he was made cashier of the Plymouth Bank, continuing in office in that and its successor, the Plymouth National Bank, until 1879, when he was made president. He married in 1836, Martha Le Baron, daughter of John B. Thomas, and died July 23, 1891. He fitted John Goddard Jackson and myself for college during the first half of 1838, when we carried on our studies at home, and went to Mr. Stoddard’s house late each afternoon to recite. While in New Bedford Mr. Stoddard became an intimate friend of Judge Oliver Prescott, Judge of Probate of Bristol county, and hence the name of our genial friend, Col. Stoddard. The ordinary punishment to which the boys were subjected by Mr. Stoddard, was a squeeze of the ear between his thumb and forefinger, but the punishment for high offences was a flogging on the soft parts, while the victim lay across a chair. Some of my readers will doubtless remember Bill Randall, and the jolly way in which he did everything. One day knowing that Mr. Stoddard intended to flog him, he went to school prepared for the occasion. When he was called out and told to lie down he exhibited a protuberance never equalled by any bustle of the dressmaker’s art, and as he took the blows which might as well have been inflicted on a bale of wool, he would wink to the other scholars as much as to say, “go ahead old fellow if you enjoy it, go ahead.” Bill went to California, and on a visit to Plymouth a few years ago he was the same old Bill, and if he be living and sees these memories, he will have a laugh over the flogging incident.

During Mr. Stoddard’s absence in New Bedford the first teacher was Leonard Bliss of Rehoboth, a scholarly man, who published a history of Rehoboth, a valuable contribution to historical literature. After leaving Plymouth he went to Louisville, Ky., and edited the Louisville Journal. For some offensive remarks in the columns of his paper, he was shot dead in his office. He was a son of Leonard and Lydia (Talbot) Bliss, and was born in Swanzey, December 12, 1811.

Wm. H. Lord succeeded Mr. Bliss, a native of Portsmouth, born September 10, 1812, and a graduate at Dartmouth in 1832. He graduated at Andover Academy in 1837, and was settled for a time over the Unitarian Societies of Southboro, Mass., and Madison, Wisconsin. At one time he edited a newspaper in Port Washington, and was Consul at St. Thomas from 1850 to 1853. He married Persis, daughter of Rev. Dr. James Kendall, and died in Washington in 1866. He was a popular teacher, and introduced a new feature into school government, which proved successful. At the opening day of his term he told his scholars that they might have the afternoon of that day to themselves in the school room for the purpose of enacting a code of rules for the management of the school, and reporting the same to him the next day, but he wished them to distinctly understand that when enacted, the rules were to be obeyed. It requires no deep knowledge of human nature to know that such a confidence in the good faith of the school would be conscientiously respected. I do not remember a single case of flogging under his administration.

Before the return of Mr. Stoddard to Plymouth in 1837 the school was kept a short time by Robert Bartlett of Plymouth of the Harvard class of 1836, and by LeBaron Russell of the Harvard class of 1832, but nothing occurred during their terms, especially worthy of notice, except the pranks usual in every school. One of these pranks was tried on each teacher in turn. In the cool days of autumn or spring, the fire in the box stove was not kept up continuously, so some morning when there was no fire, a bundle of seaweed was rammed down the chimney, and soon after the school opened the boys began one after another to shiver and ask for a fire. Of course, when the fire was kindled, the room would fill with smoke, and the usual result, the dismissal of the school, followed. There were no janitors in those days, and each Saturday two boys would be detailed to discharge during the next week a janitor’s duties, including sweeping out, sawing wood, making fires and ringing the bell. I do not think such work ever did me any harm, indeed, I am sure that it taught me as much that was useful as is taught today in some branches of instruction included in the regular curriculum, for which special salaried teachers are employed.

A school called the town school, was kept in my day by Thomas Drew in a house built in 1827, which has been recently taken down. It stood also on School street, near the way up Burial Hill, a little distance south of the high school house. The boys attending that school were older and larger than the high school boys, and when there was snow on the ground there was scarcely a day without a pitched battle between the two schools. During my time our leader was Abraham Jackson, always cool and fearless, and generally leading his followers to victory, and driving the enemy into their school. He entered Harvard a year before I did, and on the Delta he was the same hero in the strife that he was on Burial Hill at home. More than once I have seen him there with ball in hand rushing through the crowd with an impetus which no obstacle could check, and heard the cry, “go it Jackson, go it Jackson,” and then a cheer when he sent the ball home. I can conceive of no danger from which Jackson would have retreated, and of no act of daring which he would not if necessary have performed. He once saved a boy from drowning, who had ventured on thin ice in the middle of Murdock’s pond and fallen through. While other boys were paralyzed with fear he kept his presence of mind, and did just the right thing. There was a pile of rails on the shore, and seizing two he dragged them side by side near the broken ice, and then lying down on them worked his way with his weight distributed over as much surface as possible, to the boy, and taking him by the collar, pulled him to the rails and to safety. He was always a hero, and in war would have been a Cushing in Roanoke river or a Hobson at Santiago.