History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

2S-2 HISTOEY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
which more than a thousand pupils received a por-
tion, either greater or less, of their education. His
residence and school were on Centre Street, in the
mansion formerly the estate of Henry Gibbs, Esq.,
from whom Gibbs Street receives its name, nearly
opposite the first parish meeting-house. In this
ancient house the ordaining council of ministers
and delegates met and dined together on the occa-
sion of the ordination of Rev. Dr. Homer, Febru-
ary 14, 178^. The apple-trees in the orchard
north of Mr. Rice's house were raised from the
seeds planted by his own hands, and the two fine
maples in front of the house were brought by him
in his chaise-box, when they were sajjlings of a
foot in height, from New Ipswich, New Hampshire.
Mr. Rice died February 'l^, 1879, aged seventy-
eight years and eight months, — a man universally
resjiccted and lamented.
In the year 1830 an academy was commenced
at Newton Centre, under a board of nine trustees.
The land occupied by the academy building on
Centre Street, nearly opposite Grafton Street, and
now occupied as a dwelling-house, was given to
the board of trustees for that purpose by Marshall
S. Rice, Esq. An addition was made to the estate
in 1831, by purchase, for the purpose of erecting
a boarding-house. This was a flourishing school
for many years. The first preceptor was Mr. El-
bridge Hosmer, who w-as followed in succession by
Messrs. Ebenezer Woodward, Rev. John B. Hague,
Bartholomew Wood, and Rev. E. H. Barstow, who
was the last teacher. After this the academy build-
ing was sold for a private residence. The boarding-
house, in 1806, became the seat of a home and
school for young girls, orphans and others, rescued
from the haunts of vice in the neighboring city of
Boston. This benevolent institution was, in all its
history, under the charge of Mrs. Rebecca B.
Pomeroy, an efficient, self-denying, and faithful
friend and ministering angel in the military hospi-
tals of Washington during the civil war, and spe-
cially in the home of the chief magistrate of the
nation, Abraham Lincoln. On a Sabbath afternoon,
June 11', 1868, one of the inmates of the house
set fire to the building, and it was burned to ashes,
and the site has remained unoccupied till the pres-
ent time. The Home was reorganized in the house
formerly owned and occupied by Mr. Ei)hraini
Jackson, southeast of the Theological Institution,
and continued till 187:2, when it was disbanded.
Four little orphan girls, members of this institution,
became the nucleus of tiic Orphans' Home,
established on Church Street, Newton, in Novem-
ber, 1872, and which afterwards was removed to
the Episcopal parsonage, which was purchased for
its use.
Professor Charles Siedhof, from a German gym-
nasium, kept a family school for boys from about
1818 to 1853, in the southernmost of the two
houses erected for professors on the Institution
land at Newton Centre. Both these houses have
since been removed, and now stand, altered and
enlarged, on Cypress Street. The school of Pro-
fessor Siedhof was afterwards removed to the old
Clark house on Centre Street, south of Wiswall's
Pond, now occupied by Mr. Jepson.
Lasell Female Seminary, in Auburndale, was commenced
in the fall of 1851, by Professor Edward
Lasell. The large building occupied by the insti-
tution was erected in the same year. Professor
Lasell died soon after the institution was opened,
and it was taken in charge by Josiah Lasell, a
brother of the professor, and a brother-in-law,
George W. Briggs, Esq., under whom it enjoyed a
marked degree of prosperity. In 1864 the projjerty
was purchased by Professor C. W. Gushing. In
1873 it was acquired by ten gentlemen of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, and reopened under
the superintendence of Professor Charles C. Brag-
don. About eighteen hundred young ladies have
been attendants of the school.
Moses Burbank taught a classical and liigh school
for boys from 1848 to 1852 in the basement of
the First Baptist ileeting-house at Newton Centre.
This was both a boarding and day school. Sev-
eral other and more recent private schools have
existed in different parts of the town, which have
held a high rank and done honorable service ; but
it is unnecessary, as they belong to the latest times,
to speak of them particularly.
The First Baptist Church in Newton was organized
July 5, 1780, numbering thirty-eight mem-
bers. There had been members of the Baptist
denomination in the town many years previously.
Mr. Jonathan Willard, of Newton Lower Falls,
joined the First Baptist Church in Boston, Decemhar
7, 1729. Noah Parker joined the Second
Baptist Church in Boston, July 21, 1749. Several
others, later, joined the Baptist Church in Leices-
ter. May 14, 1753, Noah Wiswall and others
presented a petition to the town that they might
be released from paying a niiiiisterial tax for the