More History of Whitman

The First High School

      Every school child no doubt knows, by now, that the old Township of Abington was split asunder by a schoolhouse.  The East Ward became Rockland on 9^th March 1874, and almost exactly a year later on 4^th March 1875, the South Ward became a separate town, the name of South Abington  “South Abington” wore this name for eleven years before becoming “Whitman”.

      Not many know, however, where the South Villages new building in the series stood at the time the people rose up in rage at the mounting costs of the high school that was being erected in the Center. 

      It stood on South Avenue, where the Frank E. Holt brick building is now located.   This first “High School”, so-called, was a wooden structure erected where a smaller schoolhouse had been standing on South Avenue.  One room was merely set aside for a “high school class”, the remainder of the building being used by the “grammar school” level but this was the beginning of the elaborate instillation we know today as a high school.   The first building to house a high school class was built in 1870 at a cost of $10,929.86.  After being used for 23 years i.e. in 1893, it was moved to Alden Street at the corner of Robert Avenue demoted to the elementary level and called “Hastings School”; there it functioned until 1925 when it was sold.  The buyer tore it down and two dwelling houses now stand on the site.

      This move allowed the present brick building to be erected at 110 South Avenue as a full-fledged High School. It was dedicated as the first real High School in the village on 1^st January 1894.

      This High School building was enlarged by the addition in the rear in 1912 and functioned until 1927 when a new brick building across from the Colebrook Cemetery entrance was erected, whereupon it became the town’s junior high school; and was named for the popular long time Superintendent of Schools, Frank E. Holt.

Old Schoolhouses

     The story of the schoolhouses for the South part of the Old Township of Abington is a story of many very small, very temporary structures apparently built with the idea, in the old days, that “what was good enough for my parents is good enough for my kids”.  No paint, no comfortable desks, no knighting, no indoor toilet facilities, and almost no heat for wintertime, were the order of the day.  Until 1755, there was no schoolhouse at all in the South Village.  The children had to trudge to the little one-room schoolhouse that had been built on Church Hill in the center, next to the meeting house.  That first schoolhouse for the entire big township, stood on the knoll behind the house now numbered 325 Washington Street, Abington, across from Stone’s store.

      In 1755, however, the big township was divided into 5 school districts and a tiny schoolhouse was built for the southern children near Christopher Dyer’s.  Old Mr. Christopher Dyer lived on Dyer Avenue, not far from the corner of South Avenue.  This building was used until 1768 when another small temporary structure was built on the corner of Plymouth and Pleasant Street, across from Clayton’s market.  This second schoolhouse burned about 1790, and another was built on the west side of Pleasant Street, not far from the firehouse end of the street.

      In 1822, the township was subdivided further into 10 districts, and at this time, an additional schoolhouse was built for the central section of what is now Whitman.  It stood on School Street, across from the present Dyer School.  

      The district system was abolished in 1852, and as the town grew more small schoolhouses were built to be within walking distance for their pupils.  There were no school buses.

      In 1853, the previously mentioned little building at 110 South Avenue was erected and used until 1870 when it was moved out of the way.   Also in 1853, a better school was erected on the east side of Pleasant Street,  a building that was later to be enlarged and will be remembered as “Reed School”

      In 1868, a first little building was erected at the Dyer School site, and from then until after, the time that the South ward was cut off as a separate town, there were two little schoolhouses on School Street, almost across the street from each other.  Each was a wooden two-story, two-room building (one class on each floor) and each eventually was moved away.  The one next to the Holy Ghost Church was moved to 57 Temple Street in 1891.   The one on the Dyer School lot was moved to 31 American Legion Parkway in 1890.

Division of the Town

      The real reason that the South ward of the old township of Abington wanted to become independent was that it had outgrown the center.  The same was true of the East ward.  The separate Villages had developed to such an extend and with such separate needs that the town form of government was no longer efficient.  They had reached the point where they must divide or go onto a representative system.  However, a “cause” was needed in order to fire the population to the extent that they would request incorporation as a separate entity.

      The outrageous and altogether illegal amount of money that was spent on excavating the high School building in the center gave them that “cause”.  The South Village’s new schoolhouse cost $10,929.86 in 1870, as we have seen.  The one in the East Village had been erected for $10,500 in 1867, both ostensibly within their budgets.  But the building for the Center which had an appropriation of $12,000 actually had $23,741.41 poured into it before it was finished.  Leaders in both the South and East villages applied immediately to be set off from the mother town.  They made application on the same day – the 21^stof January 1874, the Southerners registering first.  But the men from the Southern section withdrew their request and let the men of the East forge ahead.  The southern group decided that they could use an extra year in trying to influence the Northville section of East Bridgewater to join the South ward, along with the Auburnville people.    But in this they failed.  Northville still belongs to East Bridgewater, and 2/3 of Whitman today is composed of what originally was the South Ward of Old Abington, with the other 1/3 coming from the Auburnville ( or “West Crook” ) section of East Bridgewater.

      In 1875, the population of the new town was 2,456, men, woman, and children.  The total number of school-age children was 419 and the total school budget was $5,000.  Classroom teachers received between $300, and $400 per year, and most of them taught between 40 and 50 pupils in each group.

      Three problems were facing the new town.  They needed to build a couple of new elementary schools immediately, and they needed a lock-up.  In addition they needed to buy a steam fire-engine and build reservoirs of water at strategic places.

      The total amount of money in the Treasury was $4,632.09, but the town anticipated receiving something more that  $17,000 in real estate taxes, the rate being $11.00 per valuation.

      A new one-room schoolhouse voted in the first town meeting was erected on Auburn Street near the corner of Bedford Street.  It will be remembered as the “Bates School”, and the following year, another was built on Warren Avenue where the “Gurney School” stands today.  Both are now gone, the present Gurney School being built on the same lot in 1897.

      A lock-up was erected in 1876, on the corner of the present Dyer School lot.  It cost $826.77   But no evidence that anything was done immediately about the steam – powered engine was provided, nor was the  supply of potable water  in case of fire addressed.

Water Systems

     However in 1884 a tall standpipe was erected at the present site of 182 Temple Street, with water pumped from Hobart’s pond.  Fire hydrants were installed at intervals in the town.  The natural pressure from the tank was sufficient to throw a stream from the fire hoses that would reach as high as any building in the town. 

      “Daddy Ford”   peddled water from the old Indian Spring.  But the water was found to be polluted, even when augmented from a deep well dug near the east bank of Hobart’s Pond.   It could not be used for drinking or cooking.   Many people today draw their “domestic water” from “Ford’s Spring”, where the Ford Park subdivision has been built near  the Abington line.   Therefore, when the suggestion was made that a tri-town project be undertaken to bring pure water from Big Sandy Pond in Pembroke for use it was taken under consideration.

      There were special meetings and serious discussion for and against joining the tri-town system, but the matter ended when the townspeople decided to make-do with what they had.   One vote is said to have swung the decision.  Abington and Rockland elected their joint waterworks commission and eventually Whitman joined with the City of Brockton.

Aunt Jennie and the Gurney Sisters

     We cannot close any review of Whitman’s history, no matter how brief, without mentioning the Gurney sister’s, Clara, Leila, and Anna who lived at 236 School Street; and their “Aunt Jennie”.  The Gurney’s were the doyennes of local history.

      Clara,  who was handicapped all her life by a bad heart condition, managed to assist in compiling data for the publication of the Abington Vital Records in 1912.  She died in 1926. 

      Leila, the schoolteacher had every intention of writing a history of Whitman, and had a letter of authorization from the Selectmen.  But she died too soon, in 1945.

      Anna, the last of the three, continued the family interest, and at her death in 1959, the Gurney Historical collection of papers and pictures went to the Historical Society of Old Abington, where they are in the safe keeping  in the archives.

      “Aunt Jinnie”, was Mrs. Jane Reed Bates, wife of Daniel Bates, the schoolmaster.  She lived at 277 School Street in what is now Whitman.  Mrs. Bates had been the sister  of the Gurney girls’ great – grandfather, but like “kissin’ cousins down South”. The Gurney sisters always referred to her as though she were their own father’s sister.

       “Aunt Jinnie’ always had been dedicated to her hobby of recording marriages and death’s in the Old South Village and also in the  Auburnville section of East Bridgewater.  She kept no records of births, she had no access to the reports.  But she knew about marriage and death because banns of marriage were read in church and she heard the bell toll the death.

      She began her hobby before she married in 1811, and continued it until her death in 1869.  Her date were included when the Abington Vital Records were compiled and, interestingly, produced some information otherwise unknown, even in the Town Clerk’s books.  She is coded as “Private Records 47” in the Vital Records.

Memories and other sources

     The third hundred years seems like only yesterday.  Much has been written rather recently, about the development of various categories of the history- - some of the Research Reporter columns that have appeared in the Whitman Times, and the very excellent  Centennial  booklet “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”.