by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, January 19, 2024.
At one time, in the mid-nineteenth century, Exeter had 14 public school buildings. You won’t be able to find most of them today, but it’s an interesting exercise tracking down where they once stood. Charles Bell, author of “The History of the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire,” tells us that there were a few early schoolteachers in town as early as the mid-1600s, although there are no clear records as to where the classes were held. “The records of the town contain no information in regard to the earliest schools, as they were probably maintained, not at the public charge, but by the parents of the children who attended them.” A schoolhouse was erected opposite the meeting house around 1707. Children who lived on the outskirts of town were too far away to attend classes. They would learn basic reading and arithmetic at a dame school near where they lived – generally run by someone’s busy mother.
Over time, small schoolhouses were erected all over town. The 1802 map of Exeter, by Phineas Merrill, places a small schoolhouse at the corner of Kingston and Pickpocket Road. The school has been called by many names over the years – Pickpocket School, King’s Falls District School, Haverhill Road School, Kingston Road School, and District 6 School. The State of New Hampshire required the town to create school districts in 1807. Most of Exeter was dominated by District 1, which had up to six schools clustered in the downtown village area. The little schools located on the outskirts of town, Epping Road, Newmarket Road, Hampton Road, and Kingston Road, were ungraded one-room affairs.
The first account we have of the school in district six, is a notice in the Exeter News-Letter, published in 1832. It must have been a lonely existence for the teacher in one of these small schools. They had no other adults present – unless the supervisory committee popped in for an unannounced visit – and the number of students was staggering. In 1832, the school was taught by Mr. Peavey, who seems to have been a replacement for a previous teacher loathed by the school committee. “The appearance of this school in the hands of its present master, as compared with it under its last, was truly cheering. The committee found perfect order, a judicious classification, a full circle of studies, and such visible proficiency in them all, as fully satisfied them that the instruction given had been systematic, definite, and thorough. The attainments of the scholars, especially in arithmetic, deserve great praise.” Mr. Peavey was teaching 46 students of varying ages in a single classroom. The following year, the number increased to 56 students. Even with the increase in student numbers, the committee could only fault Peavey in one subject, “with the exception of penmanship, of which there was but little apparent improvement.”
It’s not certain when the small building was erected, only that it existed in 1802. Students on the far side of town attended classes there for over 100 years. Several times repairs were made to the schoolhouse. Clifton Towle, in a paper presented to the Exeter Historical Society in 1938, noted it, “was small, and had sharply sloping floors which were removed in 1850. Many repairs were made from 1850 to 1885 in response to such hints from the superintending school committee as in 1855, ‘Getting old and leaky. Hope the district will build a new one,’ in 1860, ‘Not large enough.’” He also noted that the building was the oldest existing schoolhouse in the town.
Exeter school reports could be brutally honest. Published for the town, they rarely held back in their assessments of the teachers. In 1852, the Kingston Road School had two teachers: Sarah Locke taught the summer term and John Sanborn taught the winter term. “Miss Locke’s intellectual qualifications were very good; Mr. Sanborn’s were by no means deficient. Miss Locke was gentle and at the same time firm; Mr. Sanborn, so far from being tyrannous in his exactions of obedience, was as easy as an antiquated slipper. Miss Locke was careful to keep the room neat and clean; Mr. Sanborn was content to let it go dirty. With Miss Locke the scholars studied hard most of the time; with Mr. Sanborn they whispered hard all the time. Miss Locke’s children made rapid progress up the hill of science. Mr. Sanborn’s slid down the same hill. In a word, as Cicero hath it, Miss Locke kept a good school; Mr. Sanborn kept no school at all.” Oof.
As time went on, the school served fewer and fewer students. By the time the district system was abandoned in 1885, there were usually under 20 children attending the Kingston Road school. Even then it was considered far too small. However, it was maintained into the 20th century because it served the needs of the farm families who lived too far away to have their children walk to the nearest schools at Lincoln Street. It was the demise of another small school that led to the end of the Kingston Road Schoolhouse.
The school on the Plains, overlooking Park Street Commons, was considered the most miserable school to attend. It was dark, cramped and considered wholly inadequate for the needs of students who would need higher standards to attend public grammar schools or the Robinson Female Seminary. In 1902 it was decided to raze the old Plains school and build a new four-room schoolhouse at Winter Street. The new school could easily absorb the 16 or 17 students still attending the school at Kingston Road. The building itself was sold in 1912.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
Image: The Kingston Road school of District 6 as taken by Alfred Buzzel about 1890. The one-room school was built sometime before 1802 and served students until 1902.