Holyoke High School - Annual Yearbook (Holyoke, MA)

Page 14 text:

STEPHEN HOLMAN, son of Stephen and Hannah CFullerj Holman was born in Royalston, Massa- chusetts, December 28, 1820. When he was twelve years of age, his father died and he made his home with his brother, a clergyman in Saugus. He at- tended school in Saugus Center, Lynn Academy, and Worcester Academy, matriculating at Wil- liams College from which he was graduated A.B. in 1840. Entering the teaching profession, Mr. Holman was principal of the high schools at Win- chester, N. H., Gardner, Athol, Phillipston, and Fitchburg, Massachusetts. He came as first prin- cipal of the Holyoke High School in June 1852, and in later years he served as a member of the town school committee. Upon leaving the high school, Mr. Holman be- came paymaster of the Lyman Mills. In 1860 he bought a controlling interest in the Holyoke Paper Company which he managed with such ability that his material success in life is said to have dated from that time. In 1865 he sold his interest in the paper mill most advantageously and established the Holyoke Machine Company, with a branch in Worcester, and later the Deane Steam Pump Company. He was also heavily interested in a large number of cotton mills. For many years, Mr. Holman resided in Worcester but spent most of his time each week in Holyoke and was known as Holyoke's leading citizen. Mr. Holman's physical and mental activities continued throughout his life. Amid all the cares of business, he constantly kept alive his intellectual interests, par- ticularly the German language of whose literature he was very fond. He made three trips to Europe after he was eighty years of age, and at the age of 92, had returned to this country less than a week when his sudden death occurred on October 13, 1912. He was buried in the historic Mt. Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge, Mass.

Page 13 text:

INTRODUCTION 1f0 the HISTORY OF THE PRINCIPALS of the HOLYOKE HIGH SCHOOL EVERAL years ago in writing a History of the Holyoke High School, which was incorporated in the 1935 year book, it became apparent that much of the real spirit of the school, not embodied in facts pertaining to the location of the buildings, physical properties and courses of study, was to be found in a study of the lives of those gentle- men who have directed its destinies. The Holyoke High School is a great school, there is no institution to which the citizens of our city can point with greater pride. Democratic-with a breadth of view to encompass all races and all creeds, with the power to enrich all and offend none, it stands as a unique example of the foresight and wisdom of those who founded our public schools. In the United States of America, alone in the whole world today, can such an institution live. Interesting developments in public schools may be noted in a study of the principals. First, came the teacher who used teaching as a step into the ministry, medicine, law, or business, then the teacher who taught for part of his last year at college, or who completed the work for his degree by a successful year or two of teaching. Finally, and this of com- paratively recent date, the teacher who chose teaching as a life work. There is much of interest, too, for those about to undertake a new step in their own careers in a study of the story of success written in the lives of the principals. Ambition, perseverance, and a love of their fellow man is written large in the lives of these men, may they serve as guide- posts to all who come as students to the school they helped to build. The form of these short biographic sketches was established by Mr. M. M. S. Moriarty when he published a work on t'The Principals' in 1909. Noted for his meticulous care and his accuracy, the dates he found in the original research have been accepted for this paper. Faculty adviser to the stay? of tloe 1939 ANNUAL

Page 15 text:

JOHN ISAAC IRA ADAMS was elected in March, 1853 second principal of the Holyoke High School. Mr. Edward Jackson Brown, a student at Harvard College had been elected as a substitute for six weeks to fill out the unexpired term of Mr. Stephen Holman. Mr. Adams was graduated from Yale A.B. in 1850, and was later awarded the Master of Arts Degree. After his graduation he taught in Durham, New Hampshire, and in several small communities in that vicinity. John Isaac Ira Adams was the eldest child of the Reverend Reformation John Adams, a noted writer and an elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on July 22, 1826, and was a lineal descendant of the famous Adams family of whom John Adams and John Quincy Adams, second and sixth presidents, respectively, of the United States, were illustrious members. May 26, 1853, Mr. Adams married Helen Mary Branscombe, of Newmarket, N. H., whose sister Sarah Elizabeth, became the mother of Mrs. Charles E. Mackintosh of Hol- yoke. They had one son Arthur who survived his father. Mr. Adams was a scholarly man and a successful teacher, as the many laudatory com- ments in the records of the school committee reports of his day testify. The school was small in those days, probably not exceeding thirty pupils and met in Gallaudet Hall, said to have been located near the corner of High and Lyman Streets. Later, it met in the Chapin Building on the corner of Dwight and Race Streets. So inti- mate were the relations between the town, the principal, and students that frequent reference was made in local reports to Mr. Adams' high school. A school paper was published from time to time and was known as Our Little Pet . Existing copies in- dicate fine ability on the part of the student writers. At the time Mr. Adams was principal, he served also as editor of the Holyoke Independent, one of several fore- runners of the Holyoke Transcript. His health failing, Mr. Adams went to Lawrence, Kansas Territory, in May, 1857, and while there, served as correspondent of the Boston Traveler, writing over the signa- ture Lightfoot',, and of the Springfield Republican under the nom-de-plume of Izac . He died in Lawrence, K. T., October 16, 1857, in his thirty-second year, and was bur- ied at the home of his mother in Durham, New Hampshire.