Holyoke High School - Annual Yearbook (Holyoke, MA)

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Education Through the foresight of our founding fathers, an educational system was initiated in Ireland Parish, a village which eventually came to be known as Holyoke. In 1677 Will Madison was employed as a schoolmaster receiving three pence a week for each child he taught to read, and four pence a week if writing was added. It is generally accepted that the first house was built in 1679. It was 77 feet by 17 feet, 81f2 feet high and consisted of one chamber. The appellation of grammar school throughout the whole code of school laws from 1647 to 1825 was under- stood to be one in which the Latin and Greek languages were taught, and where young men prepared to enter college. For each child en- rolled in the school, a parent had to supply a cord of wood. The main function of the school administrators, a moderator, clerk, and com- mittee, was the acquisition of wood for the school fire which warined both teacher and pupil during the cold winter months. As early as 1730, Joseph Ely Senior con- ducted a school which was in Ireland Parish. Ely's own home near Plum Tree Knoll was probably the location of that school. The first evidence of the town of. Springfieldis spend- ing money for the maintenance of a school at Ireland Parish to a committee rather than to a resident of that parish was noted in the town records of Springfield on November 1, 1731. And, on November 2, 1773, the first indication of the existence of an actual school Parson Thomas Rand house at Ireland appeared: there was granted the sum of 5 Cmoneyl for the building of a school house in that part of the town where Aaron livethf' This part of town is now the lower end of Ashley Ponds. Some of the earliest records of formal ed- ucation in Ireland Parish ,date back to 1802 when the mother town of West Springfield opened a school in what is now Elmwood. The prominent village elders furnished room and board for the teachers. Miss Sally Clapp and Miss Lovina Humeston, the two teachers in service in 1802, resided at the home of Caleb Humeston. Reading, writing, and cipher- ing were taught at the school. Through the efforts of Reverend Thomas Rand, Caleb Humeston, Austin Goodyear, Noah Woolcut, and David Bassett, a school 2l

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of about one million dollars. Almost three tons of paper were made at first, but business grew so fast that a second mill was built from profits of the first years. The capital in 1887 was three million dollars, but the original invest- ment was only one million. As of 1887, Hol- yoke produced over half of the fine paper made in the United States. The second wooden dam, built in 184-9, gave excellent service until 1894 when a mod- ern masonry dam was started. This project took six years to complete and cost approxi- mately six hundred thousand dollars. Because it was the largest stone masonry dam in the United States, it was called the 'cmillion dollar dam. The structure, as it exists today, meas- ures 1,020 feet between abuttments and is thirty feet high from the river bedrock. Its granite facing insures against the constant 20 view of the Dam and Canal system 119645 erosion of the water and abrasive forces of ice and driftwood throughout the year. The downstream curve of the dam is truly para- bolic. Following the construction'of the great dam in 1900, Holyoke continued to prosper and has rightfully been called the Industrial City of Western Massachusetts. Even though Holyoke has no centuried past to recall, no crumbling landmarks to cherish, no ancestral memories to venerate, its memories dwell chiefly on the daring and foresight of the- group of men who harnessed the Connecticut River and whose engineering triumphs brought about the birth of our city. There are very few cities in the East that can show such a swift, and at the same time such a substantial growth as Holyoke has enjoyed over the past century.

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was opened in Baptist Village Clflmwoodb. This school, Baptist Academy, was situated on Back Street fHomestead Avenueb but was later moved to the site of the old Merrick res- idence on the corner of Westfield Road and Northampton Street. At this academy, boys received instruction in mathematics and the classics as a preparation for college. The first evidence of the existence of a high school in Ireland Parish came with an agree- ment of the Trustees of the lreland Parish High School which allowed William Gamwell to become master of that high school in 1839. Gamwell agreed to assume the entire charge of the lreland Parish High School as preceptor for the term of three years. This high school became known as HGarnwell Academygi' tui- tion to the academy was from three dollars and fifty cents to four dollars per month with an additional dollar for French, drawing, and painting. ln 1850 Ireland Parish ceased to exist when it became the Town of Holyoke. In 1852 the first school committee consisted of three men: A. B. Clarke, Asbel Chapin, and Mark Car- penter, and in the same year Stephen Holman established the Holyoke Village High School, the immediate forerunner of Holyoke High School. Mr. Holman Ncommenced the school and earned for himself a reputation as a well-quali- fied, thorough, and most efficient teacher. At first the Galludet block on the corner of High and Lyman Streets was the location of the Village High School, later, the high school moved to a block on the corner of Race and 22 Dwight Streets. At that time it was the policy of schools to regulate school terms to the farming needs of the New England community. Hence, the Village High School had three terms-summer, winter, and fall. Textbooks used at the high school included: Andrewis Latin Lessons, Andrew's Latin Reader, Anthonas Horace, Cooperis Vergil, Harris' Bookkeeping, Green's Elements of the English Language, lVlitchell,s Ancient Geog- raphy and Atlas, Goodrichis United States H is- tory, and Colburn's Intellectual Arithmetic. On February 19, 1856, the students of the Village High School published Our Little Pet, their first school newspaper. This issue, the first of six that are known, sold at five cents a copy, twenty-five cents a year. As explained by its originators, the purpose of the newspa- per was as follows: 5'0ur Little Pet is intended as a school journal to lay before our parents and friends, view our compositions, a catalogue of our school, and a program of our exhibi- tion. Whether it will be issued during future terms depends upon the patronage it now re- ceivesf' During a town meeting in March, 1862, the first municipal high school was established when the Village High School was abolished. During the same year a new high school build- ing was erected at a cost of 38,500 on the west side of Elm Street, between Suffolk and Dwight Streets. Here is a detailed description of the building: The structure is of brick, with slate roof, and consists of a main part and two wings. It has two stories, the first twelve feet in height, the second sixteen feet,