Historically Speaking: The evolution of Exeter’s schools

Three centuries ago, Exeter used a teaching plan called a “moving” school, sharing one teacher between three schools.

At the 1727 town meeting, it was “voted that school be kept five months in the (town) schoolhouse and four months at Pickpocket, and three months at Ass Brook.” Within a decade of this vote, the town seems to have stopped the moving school plan and established separate schools, each with its own teacher. The school building on Hampton Road (near “Ass Brook,” which is today called “Ashbrook” due to 20th-century sensibilities), was enlarged in 1765 to accommodate all the students in that part of town.

State law encouraged the creation of school districts within individual towns, a practice Exeter had already begun. The Ass Brook/Hampton Road district became District #5. An 1832 school report stated 28 students were attending District #5 regularly during the school year, split about evenly between boys and girls. Miss Martha W. Rogers taught the summer term for 24 weeks and the winter term for 12 weeks by Jonathan Robinson. It was common for the winter terms to be taught by men, as older students – no longer needed for farm work – often attended that term only. When big boys came to school, it was felt that more discipline would be needed. Miss Rogers needed no such help. The following year she taught the entire school year of 32 weeks without assistance.

The schoolhouse in District 5, may have been the same one mentioned in 1765. If it was nearly 80 years old, the 1832 report mentioned, “Some valuable alterations have been made in the construction of this schoolhouse; so that in their last examination the Committee felt in every respect, the most unalloyed satisfaction.”

This same schoolhouse was still in use in 1847 when Dr. William Perry was serving as a member of the supervisory committee. He described the school as, “a mournful relic of the past. Its black and dingy exterior contrasts drearily with the rich and painted farm-houses about it; its uneven, billowy floor and hearth surge like the sea in a storm; its stove looks antediluvian and might have been used in the ark; its doors hung convulsively to broken hinges and one of them, when opened, screeches like a ‘stirred up’ hyena.” It had no blackboard, which Perry said was, “an article as indispensable to the teacher as a plow to a farmer or a work-bench to a carpenter.”

The following year he added, “it ought, perhaps, to be mentioned, too, that a small and necessary edifice, belonging to the establishment, not consecrated to scientific purposes, after changing its position as often as an ambitious politician, has at length found rest on the windward side of the school-house, in immediate and fragrant contact with a window, which it darkens, where, in summer season particularly, is not destined, like Gray’s unseen flower, to waste its sweetness on the desert air.” Perry did not mince words with his opinions. The schoolhouse was finally torn down and removed during the summer of 1853.

Published school reports did not hold back in their criticism of teachers. Imagine having the entire town reading your annual review that read, “Indeed, we have sometimes feared that the teacher herself found her occupation at times, as dull, irksome and thankless business, only to be classed with the necessary drudgery of this world, of which everybody must do a part.” Miss Folsom, a three-year teaching veteran at the time, was told that her student’s “free-and-easy way of reciting unprepared lessons, and the poverty of attainment – for instance in grammar, arithmetic, geography, and reading – indicate some grave deficiencies to be remedied.” Was it any surprise she left teaching after this? It was 1867 and there was no formal teaching education in the state of New Hampshire.

The population of the town began to shift in the later decades of the 19th century toward factories that sprang up around the railroad. Schools on the periphery of town found themselves with declining numbers of scholars. District #5, which at one time had nearly thirty children attending, found itself with numbers closer to 10 or 12. It was shut down briefly in 1894 due to lack of students but opened again the following year when numbers briefly went up.

The school board report of 1900 considered, “the school on Hampton Road lost most of its scholars for the winter term and may have to be closed.” It was closed for good the following year, although it wasn’t because there were no children in the district. “A number of the families living on Hampton Road, upon the completion of the electric railway, sent their children to the town schools, so that they might have increased advantages. This brought the attendance at the school in that part of town to the small number of five. Accordingly, after mature deliberation, it was decided to close this school and transport the children to the village. Scholars’ tickets were purchased by the Exeter, Hampton and Amesbury Street Railway Co., at the rate of four cents a ride, and the plan has been followed to the general satisfaction of all parties concerned, and at a expense to the town of over one hundred dollars less than the cost of maintaining a school in that section.” It can be fairly assumed that the kids who got a daily trolley ride to school were the envy of all the rest who were solemnly trudging along.

The schoolhouse on Hampton Road was sold at auction and there is no trace of it today – not even a photo to remind us of those old schoolhouses on the outskirts of town.

Barbara Rimkunas is the curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member. Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Historically Speaking: The evolution of Exeter’s schools