Old School House Memories
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Early school class in Portsmouth, NH ? SeacoastNH.com archive
BREWSTER’S RAMBLES #141

Back to school tales. Charles Brewster remembers his early days in Portsmouth schools when textbooks were left over from the 1700s. In this surprisingly readable essay, he recalls playing games, the old neighborhood store, a crashed carriage and a lost meetinghouse.

 

 

 

RAMBLE CXLI
Early School Days in Portsmouth

School House Hill -- School Books – Amusements – Slides -- Mrs. Maloon's Shop -- The Catastrophe -- Parson Walton's Meeting-House – Services --The Beloved Disciple.

Editors Note: This can be confusing stuff even for local historians. C.W. Brewster was a Portsmouth, New Hampshire columnist and editor in the early to mid-1800's. This article includes his opinions and may not reflect current research or current values. From Brewster’s Rambles About Portsmouth, 1859 exclusively on SeacoastNH.com. – JDR

BrewsterIF the Brick School House has its agreeable associations to the school-boys of past and present generations, School House Hill, the scene of their pastimes in recess hours, is not forgotten. Pleasant memories of the old play-ground have been borne away to every spot on the globe where the homes of civilization are seen, or commerce has extended its enterprise. We have recently seen a venerable copy of the "American Preceptor," one of the reading books used in conjunction with "Aesop's Fables," by a school-boy of the time of President Madison.

It is printed with the long s, that must have caused much perplexity to young beginners in distinguishing it from an f, I can fancy one of them just fledged from "b-a ba, k-e-r ker, baker," puzzling over the following extract from Dr. Franklin's story of "The Whistle," half oblivious whether the boy found the whistle, or if it was the sound that attracted him. "I went directly to a fhop where they fold toys for children; and being charmed with the found of a whiftle, which I met by the way, in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered, and gave all my money for it."

A later day than this, however, is embraced in the writer's memories of the old locality, but within the period that the avenue remained unclosed, between Pitt and State streets. While groups of boys could then be seen engaged in various sports on the southern side of the hill, others never tired of playing among the ruins on State street; standing the bricks on end in rows or circles, to see them fall again in quick succession, or forming them into forts, and storming out imaginary foes with missiles of the same hard material--illustrating one of Mr. Punch's "Facts in Natural History," that "among bats, the brickbat flies with the greatest force, if not with the greatest velocity."

An exciting scene was visible on a winter's day, when scores of boys could be seen enjoying the fine slides the hill afforded. Although the boys who lived in the neighborhood, as they worked out the slide after each fresh fall of snow, regarded it as their especial domain, they never quarelled with any others who came to share it with them. It was the resort of youngsters from all quarters; a neutral ground, from its central location, where the hatchet was buried by "Northenders" and "Southenders," who seemed to forget the feuds existing between them, which ran so high in hoop-time, as they went down the declivity upon their sleds, side by side, together.

At the foot of the hill, in the old building demolished ten or a dozen years since, a widow lady kept one of those little shops so numerous at Portsmouth in former years. On the outer shelves was an array of crockery and earthern ware, the latter with an especial eye to country trade, embracing, (from Dodge's pottery,) capacious milk-pans, pots for beans or brown bread, jugs and pitchers for the haying-field, and white mugs that would hold a full quart of cider. Among the older stock, were relics of a former day, mugs and pitchers adorned with Porter, Perry, Bainbridge, Hull and other heroes of the war of 1812, and that now almost forgotten personage "Toby Philpot."

Behind the counter were barrels and boxes of groceries, and upon the shelves above, pins, needles, thread, and other notions, with slate pencils, nuts and apples for the school-boys. A cheese, whose excellence could always be relied on, occupied a particular spot on the counter, and near by, arranged upon a line, were skeins of yarn, stockings, gloves, and mittens, taken in trade from country customers. There was one peculiarity about the mittens, that, among the reminisences of their boyhood, is not forgotten by some of the wearers to this day. No matter how high upon the wrist they came when first put on, after an afternoon's service in snow-balling, they could rarely be induced again to reach above the thumb.The sun was not more regular in its course than the proprietor of this establishment. If a neighbor's time-piece stopped, it could be set from her movements, about as correctly as by the Old North clock. Adjoining the shop was a cosy little sitting-room, with its antique furniture--the walls adorned with engravings of so old a date they would be a rare prize, now-a-days, to collectors of such curiosties--and there she could be found, when not called to wait upon a customer, sitting upon the same spot, year in and year out, engaged in knitting; her favorite cat "Tibby" lying upon the rug at her side. It was a cheerful scene of domestic comfort when a bright wood fire was burning upon the hearth, for she eschewed stoves, and would admit no such modern innovations upon her premises. She had long occupied her mansion, and could remember a time when a ten-foot building stood upon the site of Mrs. Abbott's dwelling, and a blacksmith's shop was on the garden in the rear.

One evening, while engaged in her occupation of knitting, thinking of the days that were gone, and of her youth that would return no more, her meditations were suddenly disturbed by the bursting in of the door of her shop with a crash that shook the house to its foundation. On opening the door to learn the cause, she discovered to her astonishment, as much of a horse-sled projecting inside the shop as its huge dimensions would allow to enter, a boy of some six years old clinging to it through the aid of a hole in the centre, and no one else to be seen, far or near, in the bright moonlight.

The tale he had to tell, related with much fear and trembling, while assisting to remove the unwieldy obstruction, bore sufficient evidence of its truthfulness, as it was very clear that he, unaided, could never have used so ponderous a conveyance. While some of the smaller boys of the neighborhood were engaged in sliding, two of the largest and roughest specimens of "Southenders" made their appearance among them, and after amusing themselves for a while with borrowed sleds, started off in pursuit of something more exciting. A few rods distant on the northern side of Pitt street, was a depot of old gigs, carts and other vehicles that would have done honor to Shepherd Ham's collection of sadlery articles mentioned in Rambles 41. Selecting from among them a dilapidated horse-sled, they dragged it to the summit of the hill, and getting on themselves, and inducing the smaller youngsters to follow their example, they started for a slide. When once underway, it went with locomotive speed, and as there was no such thing possible as guiding so clumsy an affair, it finally brought up at the point mentioned above--all the others making their escape, with the exception of one small specimen of young Portsmouth, before the final catastrophe occurred.

CONTINUE with Brewster's SCHOOL MEMORIES

 
PARSON WALTON'S PARISH CHURCH (continued)

I cannot close these sketches without at least a passing notice of the venerable church, known as "Parson Walton's Meeting house," that in former years adjoined the widow's residence; the same structure that, afterwards remodelled, was finally torn down to give place to the new chapel of the Unitarian Society. It was one of the most antique of the old New England churches, now fast passing away, and of which not a vestige will remain, ere many years have elapsed, in the most sequestered country village. It stands before me now, both in its interior and exterior aspect, just as it looked when untouched by the hand of modern improvement. The plain and unpainted, but not ungraceful pulpit, and its faded velvet cushion whose tassels swayed to and fro in the summer breeze; the solemn-looking sounding-board, exciting childish wonder how it was ever raised to its seemingly lofty height, or what sustained it there; the square pews, nearly large enough for a small family to live in, city tenement-house fashion; the long galleries, that creaked at every footstep! the gayly colored chandelier, suspended by a painted rope from the ceiling; the queer looking poles, well filled with hooks and nails, rising above the pews, designed for coats and hats, but looking,

in more modern times, like some arrangement for the suspension of a clothes-line; the long pews, one on each side the centre aisle, where a choir had once been located, (the ladies occupying one, the gentlemen the other,) with seats that turned upward on a pivot while the occupants were standing, and elevated forms in the centre for singing-books; all are daguerreotyped in unfading hues upon my memory, mingled with remembrances of early childhood, when my home was almost within the shadow of the ancient bell-tower. Nor is the exterior--weather-beaten, black with age, and moss-covered--less familiar, or the belfry, with its spire and vane, that vibrated at every revolution of the ancient bell. On every Sabbath day, and on afternoons when "conference meetings" were held, hitched to the church-railing, might be seen a horse, of very "certain age," attached to an antique pattern of a gig or sleigh, the conveyance of a worthy pair from Long Lane.

When absent in the winter-time, it was an unerring indication that the snow had fallen very deep in the country, and that the roads must be badly blocked up. Accompanying them was a long hound-shaped dog, of iron-gray color, who was left in charge of the vehicle during church-hours. If a mischievous boy attempted to invade his castle, he was too well principled to bark, especially if it were Sunday, but he displayed a double row of ivory that never failed to send the offender away in terror, glad to escape at so cheap a rate. Others too, who came from far distances, seldom failed to be seen in their accustomed places.

How many prayers ascended to the throne of grace from that sacred edifice, and how often its walls echoed to the good old tunes of 'Lisbon,' 'Corinth,' 'St. Martin's,' 'Mear,' 'Coronation,' that most sublime of sacred lyrics 'Old Hundred,' and many others not less remembered, or less loved. But the old church is no more; those who offered up the prayers have had their "faith changed to sight," and the singers are numbered with the choir who sing the song of "Moses and the Lamb."

There probably never existed, since the apostolic age, a more devoted body of Christians than those who constituted the church of Rev. Joseph Walton; a people, truly, who were "good for goodness' sake," and whose daily life illustrated the truth and beauty of the faith they professed. Many of them long survived the good man who for so many years was their teacher in things spiritual, but all have passed away to those mansions where they have laid up much treasure for eternity. Some of their descendants yet have homes at Portsmouth--others are scattered far and wide abroad. Wherever they may be, it is to be hoped the good seed has not become extinct within them, but that it has yet a living principle, springing up and germinating, and bringing forth much good fruit.*

*One of the most distinguished divines of the American pulpit, Rev. Dr. Stow of Boston, in a brief eulogy at the time of the death of one of these good people, said, "His faith in God I never saw equalled, and I doubt if it has been surpassed in many instances, since the days of Abraham. He lived for God." Among the sacred spots in the North Burying ground, where the ashes of the righteous dead await the resurrection morning, there is none more so than that where rests the dust of this holy man. "That disciple whom Jesus loved" is inscribed upon the stone that marks his grave with a truthfulness equalled only by the pure taste that indited it.

Text scanned courtesy of The Brewster Family Network
Copy of Rambles courtesy Peter E. Randall
History Hypertext project by SeacoastNH.com
This digital transcript  © 1999 SeacoastNH.com