Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: Fairfield high schools

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by Mary Grow

This article continues the history of schooling in Fairfield with information on the town’s high schools. It begins with conflicting information about where the first high school classes were held.

One candidate is the former North Grammar School, at the intersection of Main Street and Western Avenue, near the Kennebec River, at the north end of the business district. The other is the former South Grammar School, on Burrill Street (which runs east-west perpendicular to the Kennebec at the south end of the business district). The South Grammar building is three blocks from the river.

In 1873, the Fairfield bicentennial history says, some of the rooms in a grammar school “at the corner of Main Street and Western Avenue” housed Fairfield’s first public high school, “with $500 raised for its support.” If this building is the one that became North Grammar School, that school dates from before 1873 – how much before, your writer has been unable to determine.

The Fairfield history says after the high school classes had taken over part of the Main Street grammar school, voters at the 1873 town meeting passed over (did not act on, thereby rejecting) an article to build a separate high school.

A document in the Fairfield Historical Society files says the first high school in 1873 was in the South Grammar building on Burrill Street. Yet another source says North Grammar hosted the high school until more space was needed and South Grammar was built (no date given). This source adds that in 1874, voters appropriated $500 for a free high school.

The chronology in the history says in 1890-91, voters finally agreed to provide Fairfield’s first high school building, on Burrill Street, for $5,000. Was this Burrill Street building (at least 20 years newer than the Main Street building) the one that became South Grammar School?

The 1904 Fairfield Register, found on line, alleges that the education offered in the 1873 high school’s early days “was hardly more than that received in the regular schools by the more advanced pupils.” The purpose of high school classes “was to offer to the older and more advanced pupils a chance to attend school during the winter months.”

The Register writer said voters appropriated $400 annually for the high school, “which gradually but surely raised its standard of scholarship,” until by 1904, graduates were ready for college. In the 1904 writer’s opinion, the school was “not provided with a suitable building,” but he hoped one would soon be constructed.

His hope was realized when Lawrence High School opened on Sept. 21, 1907.

A Puzzlement

On sale on line is a copy of the program for the Lawrence High School graduation held Friday, June 27, 1890, and identified as the 39th anniversary graduation. Your writer lacks the mathematical skill to make a high school that Fairfield sources say opened in 1907 have a 39th graduation in 1890.

Although the sale listing says the program is from Lawrence High School, Fairfield, Maine, nowhere on the document is a town named. Your writer looked on line, without success, for people prominent in the graduation ceremony – two ministers, the chairman of the high school committee who awarded diplomas, the graduating seniors who wrote the words and music for the closing hymn.

The senior class is listed on the fourth page of the program, first the girls and then the boys, each in alphabetical order. There were 17 girls and 12 boys in the class; the valedictorian was Ernest Clarence Jewell, who also wrote the music for the final hymn, and the salutatorian was Mildred Withington.

Lawrence High School’s name honors Edward Jones Lawrence (Jan. 1, 1833 – Nov. 27, 1918), who paid more than $60,000 for the high school building. In 1901, he had financed Lawrence Public Library.

The bicentennial history says Lawrence himself had only a grammar-school education. He made money in lumbering, street railroads, ship-building and other ventures, and supported local entrepreneurs Alvin Lombard (inventor of the Lombard hauler) and Martin Keyes (founder of Keyes Fibre).

After his first wife died in 1865, Lawrence married Hannah Shaw, of Carmel, by whom he had three daughters. The history says it was to further their education that he moved to Fairfield in 1884 from Shawmut, which had “only a grammar school.”

The first Lawrence High School was on the west side of High Street, not far from the Lawrences’ house. Photos show an elegant brick building with a windowed basement, two main floors and a roof with three more windows. Three arches decorate the ground-floor front, with the entrance door in the center; the second floor, too, has three decorated sections, and two-story arches rise on each side of these central adornments.

This building was “gutted by fire” on Feb. 15, 1925, the bicentennial history says. Classes were held in other buildings, including the 1888 Fairfield Opera House, while the High Street school was rebuilt; it “reopened in the spring of 1926.”

From the 1950s, Fairfield’s schools began moving to the present high school site on the west side of town. The High Street building remained educational, but grade levels there changed repeatedly; it is now Fairfield Primary School.

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Nineteenth-century Fairfield had a private college preparatory high school, known as Bunker’s or Bunker Academy, or Bunker Seminary. It was named for its founder and teacher, Naomi Bunker.

The bicentennial history writers took much of their information on this school from the School Houses writer. He found that Bunker had been a public school teacher (where or for how long, he did not say) when she decided to teach “practice school” in Bunker’s Hall (wherever that was) before opening her seminary.

This school was established about 1857 in the large brick house mill-owner William Kendall built in the 1790s at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Newhall Street, a block west of Main Street. It was a college preparatory boarding school, and seemed to have three divisions in connected buildings: schoolrooms, a boarding house on the west and a gymnasium.

In addition to college preparatory classes, Bunker hired “competent teachers” for music and painting. “Many pupils were fitted for college at this school,” according to the School Houses writer.

He did not record when Bunker Seminary closed. After the closing, he wrote, “the building used for the school rooms” (apparently not the brick house) was moved to Elm Street, which parallels Lawrence Avenue a block north, and remodeled into a house.

Naomi Bunker’s name appears in two documents found on line.

In a 1923 booklet prepared for the centennial of Anson Academy, in North Anson, she is listed as a student there in 1844. (Other Bunkers named include five more who were students in 1844 and three graduates from the 1880s, one of whom, Fred W., Class of 1885, was a school trustee in 1923. Samuel Bunker was also a trustee, but apparently not a graduate.)

In the catalogue of the 1859 Somerset County teachers’ convention, held in North Anson from Aug. 22 through Aug. 26, Naomi Bunker is listed as a teacher from Kendall’s Mills (downtown Fairfield’s name until 1872) and a member of the six-person committee on resolutions.

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The two-story wooden grammar schools that might have hosted Fairfield’s first high-school classes, North Grammar and South Grammar, got attention from school Superintendent Will O. Hersey in the Fairfield town report for the year ending Feb. 10, 1915.

Hersey, in his seventh annual report to the town, mentioned the sudden death of South Grammar School Principal Katherine Kidder the previous fall. He said of her:

“As a teacher she was thorough, earnest and sympathetic. Although firm in the discharge of her duties she was respected and beloved by all, and her influence will long be felt in the school where she labored so faithfully.”

(Katherine H. [Merrill] Kidder was born in 1871 in Harmony, Maine. On Sept. 2, 1903, she married a dentist, Dr. Charles Fuller Kidder (1874 – 1932); Find a Grave records no children. She died Nov. 13, 1914. The Kidders are buried in Fairfield’s Maplewood Cemetery.)

Kidder’s successor as South Grammar principal was Emma Coombs, identified as a Castine Normal School graduate with several years’ experience.

At North Grammar School, Hersey’s topic was the repairs that were made in the summer and fall of 1914, with a special $1,200 appropriation at the 1914 town meeting. The goal was to deal with unsanitary toilets and a worn-out heating system.

The superintendent described the new heating system, which included a new boiler and, in classrooms, radiators instead of “the old steam pipes which were around the walls of the rooms.” Two radiators were added in the lower entry, welcome “especially in stormy weather when the children come in with wet clothing.”

The winter of 1914-15 had been less severe than the previous one, Hersey said, but a few days had tested the new system, “and we are pleased to say that the building was warmed to the satisfaction and comfort of all.”

For the toilets, Hersey explained that pipes were installed, “the cellar was dug out and leveled, and a concrete floor was made, so that now good accommodations are provided for a winter and rainy day playroom.” Then the money ran out, and work stopped.

School board members intended to ask 1915 town meeting voters to fund installing new toilets. But, Hersey, wrote, “Near the latter part of the fall term the need of the new toilets became absolutely necessary so that the board unanimously decided to have the work completed.”

The superintendent did not explain how or when the toilets were paid for.

The wooden North Grammar and South Grammar schools are similar in size and design. Both have two main floors and a basement with windows (in North Grammar in the 1950s, the toilets were in the basement; perhaps the ones installed in 1914?).

The buildings still stand in 2024, painted a bright red with white trim. North Grammar is commercial, South Grammar is an apartment building.

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Also in Fairfield is the Goodwill-Hinckley School, founded in 1889 by George Walter Hinckley (1853 – 1950). Readers are referred to its website, www.gwh.org, and to the May 20 and June 3, 2021, issues of The Town Line.

Main sources

Fairfield Historical Society Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988)
Fairfield Historical Society, records and files

Websites, miscellaneous.

Up and Down the Kennebec Valley: Education in Fairfield

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Charles E. Moody School at Goodwill-Hinckley School, in Hinckley.

by Mary Grow

After multiple postponements, this article really is about the history of education – elementary education; high schools next week – in Fairfield, the town next upstream from Waterville on the west bank of the Kennebec River. Your writer thanks the Fairfield Historical Society for generously sharing material on the topic.

The present downtown Fairfield is located on the river, near the southern border with Waterville. It was known as Kendall’s Mills until 1872.

The town had in the past six other villages that were business, manufacturing and/or social centers, still named on many maps. Along the river, running upstream, were Philbrook’s, Lyon’s, then Somerset Mills (now Shawmut); Nye’s Corner; and East Fairfield (now Hinckley). Inland, running roughly along roads connecting Oakland (south of Fairfield) to Norridgewock (north), were Fairfield Center; Quakertown, later Black’s Mills (now North Fairfield); and Larone.

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The 1988 Fairfield bicentennial history says the area was settled around 1771 and became a plantation in 1774. The Town of Fairfield was incorporated June 18, 1788. Its first town meeting was Aug. 19 of that year.

Not until 1793, however, according to the history, did voters support education. The measure that was passed is quoted: “to raise twenty five pounds to be paid in produce, corn and grain to be paid into the town treasurer for the use of the schools.”

The voters divided the town into five “classes” (apparently school districts), with five men appointed as overseers, each of the “class” he was in. These men were Elihu Boweman (Bowerman, who settled North Fairfield), Nymphus (Nymphas) Bodfish, Deacon John Tozer (Tozier), Joshua Blackwell and Captain William Kendil (Kendall, early Fairfield mill-owner).

A document in the Historical Society’s files says Josiah Burgess and Daniel Shepherd were the 1793 district-makers who drew the boundaries of each district. Three were inland, two on the Kennebec. In 1794, this source says, voters raised 60 pounds for education.

The Historical Society files include a paper titled School Houses. The author is not named and there is no date; it was written after 1892, because events that year are mentioned.

The author began: “It is certain that school houses had been built in several sections of the town prior to the year 1800.” He listed possible locations of four early buildings, all abandoned and some “taken down.” They might have been:

— On Norridgewock Road (now also Route 139), in North Fairfield, “north of the present residence of H. T. Choate”;
— On the road between Fairfield Center and East Fairfield, “near the cemetery”;
— On Ohio Hill, near Joshua Freeman’s farm (the present Ohio Hill Road runs from Fairfield Center to Nye’s Corner); and
— “[A]t or near the Center” – presumably Fairfield Center.

In 1803, the bicentennial history says, Fairfield was re-divided into 11 school districts. That and other sources continue: in 1826, there were 15 districts; in 1875, James Plummer was Fairfield’s first school supervisor; in 1879, there were 18 districts; in 1886, only 13 school buildings were “in good condition.”

A Dec. 7, 1842, clipping from the North American newspaper in Philadelphia described the fate of Fairfield’s Coval (Covell) schoolhouse: it burned down the evening of Nov. 23, 1842. Quoting another newspaper called The Clarion (an on-line source says a paper with that name was published in Skowhegan in the 1800s), the Philadelphia reporter said arson was the cause: “The Millerites had been holding a meeting in it, and it is supposed to have been set on fire by some opposed to such meetings.”

(Millerites were followers of William Miller, who believed that Christ’s Second Coming would occur in 1843 or 1844.)

School districts were abolished in 1893. In 1904, the bicentennial history says, there were 25 schools: “ten village [another source defines village as Fairfield, the business center on the Kennebec], thirteen rural, and two at Shawmut.”

The School Houses writer said that “probably one hundred years ago,” the North Grammar School lot, at the corner of Main Street and Western Avenue was home to “a small low building erected for school purposes and used for many years being the only school building in the village.”

About the time the Boston Company arrived (the Boston Company briefly owned mills in 1842), the writer said, the building was moved across the road and converted to a house. Later it was moved again, west on Western Avenue, and whenever the writer was writing, “still stands as one of the comfortable dwellings of that vicinity.”

The writer continued by mentioning “the first school in this section of town” in an Upper Main Street house (Main Street, also Route 201, is called Upper Main Street in more than one source). He listed two schools between 1845 and 1865, one in Mrs. Millie Philbrook’s house “where the Express Office now stands” and another in the old Bowling Alley, probably built in 1842.

The South Main Street schoolhouse was built about 1850. The writer said boys from the north and south schools fought each other at every opportunity. He added, “Some such feeling existed between the boys of Fairfield and Waterville and ‘sling shots’ and ‘iron knuckles’ made up a part of every boy’s armaments.”

School Houses includes a story the writer used to illustrate how discipline had changed. He claimed that a teacher, identified as the “wife of one of our present venerable citizens” had made a disobedient boy lie on the floor with his head toward the classroom door. When another boy “who had previously been sent from the room” opened the door to return, the door hit the troublemaker on the head

This penalty “was considered a just punishment for slight mischievousness,” the writer said. For more serious offenses, “justice was administered in larger doses of raw hide and feminine muscle.”

When the classroom was peaceful, the writer added, this teacher would frequently “have a French lad sing a French song” to keep things harmonious.

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Random references to school buildings are scattered through the bicentennial history.

An 1878 map of Fairfield Center shows a schoolhouse on the west side of the road leading south to Oakland. The accompanying text says the village had “the original Fairfield post office,” from 1807 until 1872, and was the town’s first business section.

The map shows the post office in a store south of the school and across the road, with a blacksmith shop and an unidentified “Shop” nearby. C. E. Hawes’ car (carriage?) shop is on the lot south of the schoolhouse. Farther north across the road are H. C. Burleigh’s store and the town house.

The town house began life as a union meeting house, until the Methodist Church was built on the north side of the intersection. The map shows the church at the intersection, and its parsonage a couple buildings north of the schoolhouse.

An on-line Fairfield history says the union meeting house was built in 1793-94, and in 1802, “the first permanent meeting house was established there” and served “as the town hall until 1875.” The still-standing church, identified on a contemporary on-line map as Fairfield Center United Methodist Church, was probably built in 1846.

An undated (probably also 1878) map of Shawmut, then called Somerset Mills, shows three rectangular buildings labeled “school houses.” They form three sides of a square facing south onto Main Street, which runs from what appears to be an earlier version of present Route 201 (Skowhegan Road) to the Kennebec River. The school buildings are at the intersection with the (unnamed) road.

The School Houses paper says two (not three) “old buildings near the county road” were “abandoned” after “the school building at Shawmut” was put up in 1892 (another source says 1898).

The village of Larone was in the north end of town, almost on the Norridgewock town line. The authors of the bicentennial history cited information – without dates – from an earlier Larone history by Will Winslow.

The Larone schoolhouse was “at what was called Whiting’s” (perhaps near Martin Stream, because a Whiting family had mills on the stream). It doubled as “a place of worship for all country gatherings.”

Winslow said the schoolroom was divided, with “the boys on one side and the girls on the other.” Its heating came first from a fireplace and later from “an old fashioned box stove.” He described the “high straight back seats” as narrow, hinged and designed for torture.

North Fairfield, the village between Fairfield Center and Larone that was first settled by Quakers in 1782, had its own post office until 1908, the bicentennial history says. A 1913 photograph labeled North Fairfield shows a group of buildings by a stream, including a corn shop, a blacksmith shop and a store; and atop a hill several hundred yards away, a white building identified as a schoolhouse.

This schoolhouse appears to be a one-story wooden building with a peaked roof, quite close to the road that disappears over the hill.

Main sources

Fairfield Historical Society Fairfield, Maine 1788-1988 (1988)
Fairfield Historical Society, records and files

Websites, miscellaneous.

L.C. Bates Natural History Museum closed for winter

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Good Will-Hinckley’s L.C. Bates Natural History Museum (photo credit: https://www.gwh.org/)

The L.C. Bates Natural History Museum at Good Will-Hinckley is now closed to the public for the winter season. During this time, tours and group admissions are available by appointment only.

The museum is also thrilled to bring its engaging educational programming directly to you! Schools, libraries, community centers, youth groups, and other organizations can schedule on-site programs featuring fascinating natural science topics and unique artifacts. To arrange a visit, please call (207) 238-4250.

Save the Date: Museum Store Sunday

Join us on December 1, 2024, from noon to 5 p.m. for Museum Store Sunday! Both the museum and store will be open, offering a curated selection of nature-inspired gifts, fossils, jewelry, and educational toys—perfect for holiday shopping.

Visitors are encouraged to dress warmly as the museum may be seasonably cold. A complimentary hot chocolate bar will be available to keep you cozy while you browse. Proceeds from all purchases will directly support the museum’s educational programs.

For more information about the L.C. Bates Natural History Museum, booking educational programs, or Museum Store Sunday, please contact them at (207) 238-4250,
Website: www.gwh.org/programs/lc-bates-museum. Donate to the Museum Here: https://bit.ly/GWHdonate.

PHOTO: Lawrence High School girls soccer captains

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From left to right, Bianca Wright, Ella Moynihan, Zoie Ward, Taylor Pellerin, Kylie Delile, and Zoe Hutchins. Absent from photo Hayley Woods. (photo by Galen Neal, Central Maine Photography)

TEAM PHOTO: Fairfield PAL senior champions

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Front Row, from left to right, Jacobi Peaslee, Kayden Lachance, Hunter Lochart and Ryker Miklos. Middle row, Stella Curtis, Chase Bonney, Brock Richards, Levi Brann, Owsley Richardson, Malcolm Gilliland, Jackson Hanson, Bryce Faulkner, and Jackson Curtis. Back, coaches Peasle, Clement, Miklos and Richards. (photo by Casey Dugas, Central Maine Photography)

CAMPAIGN 2024: Candidates address issues concerning Maine voters (Part 4)

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CAMPAIGN 2024: Candidates address issues concerning Maine voters (Part 3)

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CAMPAIGN 2024: Candidates address issues concerning Maine voters (Part 1)

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PHOTOS: Central Maine high schools’ homecoming

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Lawrence high school and junior high school soccer teams. (photo by Casey Dugas, Central Maine Photography)

Members of the Messalonskee grades 1 and 2 red football team. (photo by Casey Dugas, Central Maine Photography)

Members of the Messalonskee grades 5-6 football team. (photo by Casey Dugas, Central Maine Photography)

Members of the Clinton Variety PAL football team. (photo by Casey Dugas, Central Maine Photography)

TEAM PHOTO: Lawrence girls soccer

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Front row, from left to right, Kylie Delile, Eliza Gagnon, Taylor Hatt, Addisyn Smith, Amarie Sam, Sage Dugal and Rosabella Garza. Second row, Alex Young, Brook Pooler, McKayla Cole, Zoe Hutchins, Izabella White, Elizabeth Boutin and London Wilkie. Back row, Coach Mountain, Taylor Pellerin, Leah Gallant, Madalyn Provost, Ella Minihan, Zoie Ward, Bianca Wright, Addison Lea, Coach Delile. (photo by Galen Neal, Central Maine Photography)