Atlantic Union College - Minuteman Yearbook (South Lancaster, MA)

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Academy or Administration Building. For two years school was held in the church. On that first bright spring morning in front of Professor Bell and his assistant, Miss Edith Sprague, who had arrived a few days before from Battle Creek, sat nine- teen young men and women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four. When the roll was called, the following answered ' present ' to their names: Orville Farnsworth, Horace Tucker, Otis Thayer, George Holley, Cortez Bee, Omar Bell, Ernest Stratton, Hermon Stowell, Herbert Stowell, William Weston, Joseph Mace, Rose Redmond, Ella Graham, Carrie Mace, Mina Robinson, Lizzie Spencer, Elsie Turple, Nettie Priest, and Bertha Priest. In a few days Edwin Cobb, Esther Richmond, Gertie Perry, Flora Piper, and Es ' .ella Clements joined the others, making a total enrollment of twenty-four for the term. In the summer of 1882, immediately after the close of the first term, as applica- tions for admission to the school came from all directions, immediate steps had to be taken to provide room for the anticipated increased enrollment. The two houses north of the Seventh-day Adventist Church were rented for dormitories. Again the little shop had to be abandoned, and for two years school was held in the church. In the fall of 1883 a board of managers was elected and the institution incor- porated under the laws of Massachusetts as South Lancaster Academy. The main part of the present Administration building and the section of the dormitory known as East Hall were completed in the summer of 1884. . . . The frugal school fathers believed in economy, for even the land in front of the Academy was planted to corn, the rows extending almost to the front steps. The dormitory was set in the midst of a large orchard and for many years tall apple trees grew in the front yard. Students ' Home, 1884-99. Dores A. Robinson, 1884-85. !

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Sixty Years of Service The little carriage shop with a future. April, 1882. ' n April 19, 1882, in a humble little carriage shop that had stood for years in the rear of Elder Stephen N. Haskell ' s home on the north corner of Main Street and Nar- row Lane, Atlantic Union College was born . In 1873, when the membership of the South Lancaster Seventh-day Adventist Church had become so large that it could no longer be accommodated in private homes, this little old one-story shop, twenty- four by eighteen feet, had been moved westward to Sawyer Street and converted into a chapel where the Adventists worshipped until 1878, when outgrown, the little shop-chapel was abandoned. When plans for a school were being made, Elder Haskell suggested that this little chapel be utilized, for a time at least, as a schoolhouse. The little building was moved eastward to the middle of an open field near where Mr. Hanaford ' s store now stands, and facing the south, it stood all alone, for there was no Prescott Street at that time, and a fence extended all along Main Street. How the good folk scrubbed and painted that little room to make it ready for the new part it was about to play. Professor Goodloe Harper Bell was chosen to take charge of the New England School, as it was first called. Professor Bell had had many years ' experience in the public Elder Stephen N. Haskell. schools of Michigan, and was at this time professor of English in Battle Creek College. Goodloe H. Bell, 1882-84. • . SSiLjL.

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Joseph H. Haughey. 1894-99. As Professor Bell began to feel that his increasing responsibilities were be- coming too heavy, he resigned in the spring of 1884, and Elder D. A. Robinson, a minister in the New England Confer- ence, was appointed principal. . . . That fall there came to South Lancaster from Kansas a teacher who was eventually to wield a powerful influence in the school and to become a strong pillar in its up- building. This was Mrs. Sara J. Hall. Mrs. Hall ' s pupils, now scattered far and wide, will always be grateful to her for her in- sistence upon well-learned lessons. Prosperity attended Elder Robinson ' s wise management . . . but at the end of the spring term, he was called back to ministerial work, and the growing young school was again left without a principal. Then Elder Haskell sent a call to Professor Charles C. Ramsay of Healdsburg Col- lege, California, to take charge of South Lancaster Academy. He immediately be- gan to organize the school and planned regular courses of study. That much-travelled little schoolhouse . . . had not been idle, but having taken a short journey across to the east side of Sawyer Street, was now displaying over its door a big sign, ' Printing Office. ' Here the boys were learning the art of print- ing under the skilled instruction of Mrs. Emma L. Ball. Here too was published the first school paper, the ' True Educator ' . . . the forerunner of the ' Lancastrian. ' In the spring of 1886, Professor Ramsay enlisted the services of a young min- ister from the New York Conference to assist in methods of missionary endeavor. This young minister was E. Edgar Miles, who was destined to remain several years a mem- ber of the Academy faculty as Bible teacher and a resident of South Lancaster until his death in 1933. Elder Miles soon proved an indispensable addition to the faculty, and to the last a loyal supporter of the institution. The E. E. Miles Bindery, which has assisted thousands of students in earning their college expenses, stands as a memorial to his vision. Five years after its founding, the purpose of South Lancaster Academy was forcibly demonstrated, when one day in May, 1887, it gave its first foreign missionary from among its ranks. Teachers, students, and friends gathered in the church to bid farewell to Carrie Mace, a sister of Elder J. W. Mace and a charter member of the school, who had accepted a call to mission work in South Africa. With her were Elder D. A. Robinson, the second principal, who with his wife accompanied Miss Mace, and Elder S. N. Haskell with his secretary, William A. Spicer, who sailed for England on the same boat. Charles C. Ramsay, 1885-88. South Hall, 1894.