History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

The Phillips Congregational Church was organized
April 17, 1855, with twenty-six members, Eev.
Dr. Lyman Beecher acting pastor. Until its first
edifice was ready for occupancy in April, 1857,
services were held in the town-hall, where Dr.
Beecher, the champion of Orthodoxy, preached once
each Sunday, another discourse of a decidedly un-
orthodox complexion being given by Rev. Theodore
Parker in the same place, on the same day, to se-
ceders from the First Church. The present house,
first occupied January 12, 1863, is on the site of
the first, whicii was burned down on the night of
January 13, 1861. Its successive pastors have
been: S. R. Dennen, D. D., from July 11, 1855,
to August 1, 1862 ; James M. Bell, from April 23,
1865, to May 23, 1871 ; Edwin P. Wilson, July 5,
1872. In the interim between the pastorates of
Messrs. Dennen and Bell, William L. Gage, now of
Hartford, preached one year, but was not settled.
Besides the religious organizations above named,
there is St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, of
which Rev. Robert P. Stack is rector.
Education. — Public instruction had before 1649
been made compulsory, each town of fifty house-
holders being required to have a school for reading
and writing, while each town of one hundred house-
holders must have a grammar school, with a teacher
competent to fit youths for the university. In
that year the first school-house in the town was
erected, probably on School-house Hill, and David
Mitchell was requested to teach. Tiie first known
teacher, Richard Norcross, was hired January 6,
1650 - 51, one year for £30, he being also allowed
2«. a head for keeping the dry herd. Norcross
continued to teach until 1701, when he was seventy-
nine years of age.
In 1667 the school was to be free to the inhabi-
tants, others to pay as before, " their pay to go
towards the teacher's salary." In 1667 the school
hours were eight, between 7 a. m. and 5 p. m., from
May to September, six hours from September to
November, and in wiu(er from 10 to 2. In 1679
the selectmen agreed that " they would go two and
two through the town to see that all the children
be taught to read the English tongue, and some
orthodox catechism, and to take the names of all
youths from ten years' old unto twenty years' old,
that they may be publicly catechised . by the pastor
in the meeting-house." In 1683 those west of
Stony Brook were freed from the school tax, that
they might provide their own teaching. In 1694
schooling was to be paid by. the parents, "for Eng-
WATERTOWN. 453
lish Zd. per week, writing 4^^. a week, Latin Qd.
a week. The teacher also to catechise scholars
and all other persons that are sent to iiim." In
1709 a school-house was built near Mr. Angler's
meeting-house, 25 x 20 feet.
In accofdance with the recommendation of the
legislature in 1733, the town in that year resolved
to have two school-houses, and to employ two
schoolmasters. In 1771 it was agreed that there
should be five women's schools, three on the north
side of the town and two on the south side, and to
allow hs. and ^d. per week to each of the mistresses
" they finding houses to keep in. Said schools to
be kept twelve weeks each." In 1830 there were
four public schools, two of which were kept through-
out the year, the other two being taught by masters
in the winter and by female teachers in the summer,
average attendance about 240. There are now six
public schools, including a high school established
in 1853, with an average attendance of 876.
On the southeast corner of Arlington and Mount
Auburn streets is one of the oldest graveyards in
New England. The first mention of it in the town
records occurs July 5, 1645, when a "sufficient"
fence was ordered to be set up about it. There
is a tradition that on the opposite side of Mount
Auburn Street, on the southerly corner of Joseph
Bird's estate, there was an earlier burial-place, soon
abandoned. Among the oldest stones remaining
are those of Sarah Hammond, 1674, Captain Hugh
Mason, 1678, and Hannah Coolidge, 1680. Here
are the tombs of Rev. Thomas Bailey and his wife,
" Pious Lydia," with their quaint inscriptions
and here also a plain granite shaft, erected by his
descendants, April 19, 1875, commemorates the
patriot Joseph Coolidge, who fell at Lexington
just a century before. The two next graveyards
originated in a vote of the town January 1, 1702
-1703. That of Mr. Angler's society on Grove
Street, near Beaver Brook, was the only one in
Waltham for more than a hundred years. The
Weston burying-ground was near the meetinghouse.
The Village Burying-Ground, in Water-
town, at the intersection of Mount Auburn and
Common streets, dating from 1754, has been re-
cently enlarged upon its northern border. Since
its opening few interments have been made in the
old yard.
Mount Auburn Cemetery, the first of the rural
cemeteries of America, renowned for its extent, its
natural beauty, and its artificial embellishments, is
the burial-place of many of the wealthy and dis-
;