Gorham, Maine: In the Days of Gorham's First School Teacher By Lucina H. Lombard (Descendant in 5th Generation from Sarah Phinney) Sprague' Journal of Maine History Vol. VII May June July 1919 No. 1 pages 29-34 Gorham, Maine In the Days of Gorham's First School Teacher By Lucina H. Lombard (Descendant in 5th Generation from Sarah Phinney) " 'We ought to have schools', said Elizabeth McLellan, one day; 'our children will be savages'." "Good Old Times," (1) (the direct result of the stories told Elijah Kellogg when a boy by his step-grandmother Martha McLellan Warren at the old homestead--burned sever years ago--on Flag Meadow Road near Little River) tells us how the McLellan boys and girls played with the Indian children and learned to imitate their ways. The boys "talked Indian, strutted about with knives and tomahawks" playing Indian and finally painted themselves Indian-fashion to go on the war-path. It was no wonder that Mrs. McLellan wanted some other playmates for them. This was the in the spring of 1744. The home of the McLellans was seen "as you descend the Academy Hill, which was then covered with a heavy growth of rock-maple and yellow birch." It was a log-house on the western side of the road, close to where the brick house now stands, but nearer the Fort Hill Road and Tommy's Brook. A fallen pine served for a bridge across the brook which owing to the dense forest was a much larger stream then now, with many trout. Later on, toward the last of May, Elizabeth again broached the subject to Hugh, her husband saying : " Here is Bryant with a family and Reed and Watson, and others are coming; I don't see what there is to hinder our having a school for all the children in the neighborhood. We might take one of the front rooms and put in some benches, and fix it for a school-room, in the summer at any rate; and if you build your brick chimney, we might make fireplaces in the other rooms as well as in the kitchen, and so we could us it in the winter. What a great thing it would be for the children! For it is but little time that you or I get to 'instruct them.' 'But were shall we get a school-master?' inquired Hugh. " Why, there is Sarah Phinney, she has good learning. "You can all club together and hire her.' " 'Whether I build the chimney or not,' said Hugh, 'I will put a stone fireplace in there just like this in the kitchen, and I will go and see if the rest will join me; and if not, we will hire her ourselves. It is just as much our duty to give our children learning as it is to give them bread. I think the neighbor will like it in the summer; but how could the children get here in winter?'" You will remember that your history tell that King street (as it was then known) was full of stumps, and cradle-knolls and bushes. Along this road (now the Fort Hill Road) live the white settlers; for then, what is now Gorham Corner was a forest. So Elizabeth replied, " 'The older ones could come on snowshoes, and haul the younger ones on a sled. They might be obliged to lose a good many days, but it would be a great deal better than nothing'." Hugh found his neighbors of the same mind, and he accordingly put in some benches, and secured the teacher; and the next week--the first week in June--school was underway. Elizabeth went out and worked in the field haying that her oldest son, William, might not lose overmuch of his school; for in hoeing he had had to help his father, and was only able to go three days in a week. What would the scholars of today think of the hours their predecessors passed in the school room? The sessions were from 7 a.m. till 5 p.m. from March to October, and from 8 till 4 during the rest of the year, the noon outing being from 11 to 1, and vacations were almost an unknown quantity. Fast and Thanksgiving days were about the only day outings they had, as that primeval period antedated by some years such holidays bestowers as George Washington, Bunker Hill and Fourth of July. We had not then begun to make the history which makes holidays. Out of school they still enjoyed their frolics with the Indian children a the encampment on the northern side of the brook. There were four Indian wigwams there covered with bass (linden) bark and the children had built a dam of willows across the brook and in the pond thus formed had made three beaver lodges, imitating them perfectly, being helped by the older Indians who were kind to the white children; treating them like their own, in time of peace. But fearful rumors were now abroad; it was said that was was inevitable between the mother country and France; it was certain that the Indians would be stirred up by France, and let loose upon the frontier settlement's ; and Maine was all frontier, --Gorham (Narragansett No. 7) lying directly in the Indian trail. In the latter part of May his state of suspense was turned into fearful certainty. In Indian runner in the service of the government brought word to Capt. Phinney that England had declared war against France. All was now activity along the sea-coast, arming forts, and building garrisons, and preparing for an attack from the French from water. But the danger of the settlers in Gorham as in other inland towns was from the Indians. It was 19 years since the last Indian War but there were many whose parents, children, and friends had then fallen beneath the tomahawks. Many of the settlers had themselves fought and their recollections were still full of horrors. But the excitement was some what allayed by the news that government had made a treaty with all the Indians this side of the Penobscot River, and with the Penobscots, to take part on neither side. The Indians acknowledged this, and appeared as friendly as ever. Soothed by this report, the inhabitants, loath to leave their fields and lose their crops in order to build a garrison, continued at their labors as usual, in spite of the efforts of Capt. Phinney, who put no trust in Indians or Indian treaties. But Mr. McLellan made up his mind to run no risk by waiting but to put his own house in a state of defense. Taking off the bark roof, he made a protection all around with some heavy timber and loopholed it. He put on a new roof and planked and shingled it. Then he dug a small cellar under the floor. He stopped up the windows to the size of loopholes. A large trough which he made was put in the house and filled with water. Then he bought as extra gun, lead, powder and fling, and thought truly that his house was about as good as a garrison! This was in the fall. Passed down in our family is a tradition that during this work the school was of necessity suspended. It is interesting to stroll along this road and try to picture the scene of those early times. Did tall eglantine grow by the alder in the shade by the brook and low wild roses border the hill then as now? As the way dipped with arrow straightness thru the vine tangled gloom were clustered chumps of elder-bloom it reminded those of the settlers who had been born in the country-side of the Home Land of the dewy fragrance of twilight hedgerows. Now perchance the path, trailed out were virgin's bower overran the weedy angle of a stake-and rider fence. Small wonder that the children loitered where berry bushes grew or lagged to pick fragrant peppermint or pull and dig up roods of pungent sweet flag that their mothers after boiling and slicing it might candy in maple syrup. The wild yellow cherries (still common in our great grandmother's time, but only one bush of which I have ever seen) lived and the witch-elm moved a spell as in those love Scottish Highland for which some of their parents' hearts yearned. But, finally, up the his unswervingly the way led to duty. And Sarah Phinney, the teacher. Her home was at the junction of King and Queen Street, near the old Indian trail--just beyond where Mr. Edward Roberts' house now stands. Again family lore must describe her for us: "Some what above middle size, with dark brown hair satin-smooth and large brown eyes that flashed when she was cross!" was the description of her mother given by great, great grandmother Hancock who my great uncle Colby Bean of West Buxton can remember. And what did she teach? "Well, that telling," is the good humored reply. Like Dickens' Mr. Gradgrind--though not so sordidly or so disagreeably we may be sure it was nothing but facts! In the colony of Massachusetts, up to 1754, or for rather more than a hundred years the free schools for boys only, but there must have been some progressive woman's rights women in the Province of Maine before that year, though girl stock was not quoted as quite so high a figure then as now. Their course of instruction included sewing, embroider, working samplers (no house being considered furnished, in those days, without at least one hanging on the wall of the "fore-room,") reading, writing, spelling and ciphering. The wee ones learned their letters standing at the teachers knee while she pointed them out with a long thorn. The Bible was the favorite reading book--indeed there was little else and was used as a speller also. Of a late Saturday afternoon--for school "kept" 6 days in the week then--they would go down by the brook with their samplers and sitting by the line of flowers that grew on the banks she would say "Now make your hems with care," or "Take dainty stiches---this way," as she poised the long slim needle between her deft thumb and fingers. She told them stories of "Merrie England." And how Elizabeth one of England's good queens had liked to do needlework, her white fingers darting in and out as she wrought wondrous pictures of famous battles or of brave knights and fair dames on the lengths of tapestry. For was not England Mother England still, though 2,000 miles of ocean rolled between? At the time our story began there had been 6 months of preaching by itinerant ministers in the log church of the hill beyond Capt. Phinney's and just below the fort. Behind this peaceful frontier life there was always the alertness for news. But the spring passed quietly, the Indians coming as usual to camp at the brook. There was open war between the government and the eastern Indians, and it was said that the Penobscots had been seen with their war parties. This was in July. The Saco River tribe was then but a broken down remnant so that they helped instead of bothered the whites. In August, the government (finding the Penobscots were not only determined not to aid in subduing the other Indians, but were also, if they could not remain neutral, --disposed rather to join with them) declared war against them and offered a bounty equal to a hundred dollars in silver for each Indian scalp. (2) But before the Gorham settlers had heard of this the Indians had left town and also gone from Sebago Lake as was told by a company of government rangers who guided by three Saco Indians were scouring the woods. One of these rangers was James Emery the famous hunter. The leader was Capt. Bean. The settlers at once began work on the garrison so as to have it ready to put their crops in when harvested. Gorham at this time had no road to any other place except Portland. The garrison stood on the west side of the road near the old burying ground on the top of Fort Hill, the highest land in town. Col. Gorham's saw mill on Little River had been built in 1741. In September, half of the settlers going to Portland, only 9 families were left to face the merciless foe. Cattle had been stolen or killed in the meantime, and the people knew that attack could not be far off. The garrison was now finished; but the government provided only 20 soldiers (rangers) to scout from Capt. Bean's Block house at Union Falls, 3 miles below Salmon Falls--on Saco to Yarmouth. In the spring of 1746, Capt. Phinney begged the people to go into garrison. All but four families complied. In the fort, Sarah taught in the less troublous times as best she could. But preservation needs must be foremost in the minds of all. Religious services were held in the south-east flanker of the fort. At the time of the Indian massacre, Capt. Bean and his rangers who happened to be in Portland at the time heard the report of the cannon from the fort and hastened to rescue. At the banks of Little River, the trail was lost, and it was not found till noon of the next day the Indians with their captives had too much the start to be overtaken on their way to Canada. Soon after this 11 soldiers and a corporal were assigned to the command of Capt. Phinney. Two months after the attack which took place April 18, 1746, Mrs. McLellan killed the Indian chief Worambus and his braves carried him by the old trail to Sebago Lake where he was buried under a white birch still standing on the south shore at Sango Lake in Naples; as told by Whittier. After the Indian battle, about this time, things slowed down a little for the white men, but it was not till Sept. 26th, 1759 that news of the capture of Quebec was received and 14 years of endless worry and some blood shed was over. The road from Gorham to Buxton (Flaggy Meadow Road) was then only a bridle path by spotted trees. Over this road Samuel Leavitt came a-courting. His sweetheart was the Gorham school marm, Sarah Phinney. His suit prospered, for we are told that she married him and went to live in Buxton." --------- Sarah Phinney was a great, great grand-daughter of Lieut. Joseph Rogers who came over when a boy with his father in the "Mayflower." "For well she keeps her ancient stock, The stubborn strength of Plymouth Rock." 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