About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America 2014.
The challenges were different from today; the forms of communication, the modes of transportation, and the sources of heat were poles apart, but one thing was the same. Great Barrington has been arguing about improving Main Street and funding a school for 250 years.
They were hacking life out of clay, rock and root outcroppings. If their crops failed, the consequence could be death. They lived in small knots – communities with a few hundred families – spread over 900 square miles.
They came from further east in Massachusetts and from Connecticut to the western tip of Hampshire County (it was not Berkshire County until 1761). Many came to what is now Lenox or Pittsfield but left because the ground was hard and the weather harder.
In Sheffield and Stockbridge, there were settlements, and the Williams, Ashley, and Dwight families were wealthy, but the majority of settlers were scratching what they could out of the land. They sweated taming the river for mills, cutting trees for shelter and heat, and digging in the dirt for food.
The land had been given by the king in huge chunks to “the proprietors.” They in turn could lease or sell portions as “allotments.” To formalize the transactions the proprietors had to incorporate (become a town or village). First to incorporate was Sheffield in 1733, then Stockbridge in 1739, followed almost three decades later by Lenox, Pittsfield, and Great Barrington, all in 1761.
Each corporation was overseen by the General Court in Boston. The Court laid down strict requirements in order for the community to keep the corporate seal and individuals to keep the land allotted.
According to regulations, a citizen had three years to till at least 12 acres of his allotment and build and inhabit a house on the property. The town had to set aside a minister’s lot, a church lot, a school lot, and build serviceable roads. They had three years to hire a minister and a schoolmaster, and build roads, a meeting house (Congregational church building), and a school.
Decisions about these symbols of civilization were made at the town meeting by vote of the entire community (that is, by those who had the right to vote – men and land owners). The communities differed in their commitment. Some towns were more willing to part with the money or volunteer the materials and labor to have schools; some were ambivalent, and some recalcitrant.
Stockbridge had three schools. When John Fisk came to the village late in 1776, hired as a teacher and Keeper of the District Schools (superintendent of the three schools), he was paid a respectable 11 pounds 30 per month (about $1,000 today). Just as important, in Stockbridge, teachers were highly regarded members of the community.
A notice was posted on the Stockbridge Elm: “The utmost caution should be observed to do or say nothing in a manner likely to come to the ears of children as to injure the reputation of their teacher.”
In Lenox there were many arguments about whether to pay the minister if his sermons did not meet with their approval. The very first vote at the first town meeting in Great Barrington was to pay the minister. Later, however, they refused to pay Reverend Samuel Hopkins, and finally fired him. The minister was fired – essentially – for being too religious.
The battle over the cost of schools in Great Barrington was epic. At that first town meeting approximately 500 citizens including 49 freeholders attended. They named town officials including three selectmen, a treasurer and a Constable. They also voted to build a schoolhouse. There was a suggestion on the floor that more than one school was necessary in the town.
It was voted down, and it was specified “that there be one and but one schoolhouse at the charge and for the use of the town.”
The one school would be 20 square feet, two stories, and have 3 glass windows. It was to be built approximately where the Congregation Church is today.
Money voted to support the town’s obligations was: no more than 25 pounds for the school building; 35 pounds for the minister with 10 pounds for his upkeep and that of the church, and 15 pounds for use by the town for roads and other obligations. [25 pounds then is approximately $2,365 today; 35 = $2,850; 10 = $950, and 15 = $1,425.]
It seemed Great Barrington was following in the steps of Sheffield and Stockbridge and getting organized, but there were problems. Although they had voted to build a school and did so, at the 1763 town meeting they refused to pay the school builders. It was the year of refusals. The people also refused to “defray the necessary charges of the town”– much of which was spent on roads – and refused to “reckon with the town treasurer” – pay the shortfall on the annual expenses.
The following year, 1764, Great Barrington was cited by the General Court for “not providing a schoolmaster according to law.”
If the town had a school house for three years but no school master, what was the building used for?
In 1766, the town finally hired an Episcopal minister as schoolmaster. Having satisfied the Court in Boston on one condition, Great Barrington was now fined by the General Court for failing to keep their roads in good repair.
In letters home, travelers complained bitterly about the condition of the roads and the “surliness” of the people. Great Barrington was experiencing a rough beginning.
In the 1770s, a town committee suggested that more than one school was necessary in the growing town. The committee’s suggestion was approved in theory. The expenditure to build the two additional schools was voted down.
One hundred and twenty-one years after incorporation, in 1882, The History of Great Barrington was published. Taylor writes, “From 1761 to now, there has been but one school in Great Barrington [funded by the town].”
