The Lost Schools of Fort Fairfield

The second oldest town in northern Maine has had many schools over the years. Some of them burned in chimney fires over a century ago, while others slowly tumbled to the ground. In more recent times, buildings were demolished due to modern safety standards or because they were too small, too dark, or too drab.

Today the double township of Fort Fairfield contains two modern buildings for students. But of the older schools, only one out of the 26 rural ones still stands, and several in-town schools have also disappeared. It’s hard to tell, nowadays, where these buildings were located or why they even existed.

In the beginning

A replica of Fort Fairfield’s blockhouse.

The education of the town’s youth began in the early 1800s when New Brunswick, Canada, families settled along the Aroostook River near the Aroostook Falls. Records indicate youngsters were taught in a house or an unheated cabin. A Mrs. Lovejoy or a Miss Eastman may have been their first teacher, in a land still considered a wilderness.

Then in 1839, confusion concerning the international border between Maine and New Brunswick resulted in Maine declaring war on Great Britain.

In the village later known as Fort Fairfield, Maine soldiers built a blockhouse next to the river and a boom across it to stop timber from entering the British province. The hills of New Brunswick could be plainly seen from the fort, and valuable northern Maine wood was being harvested by both Americans and Brits.

In addition to the blockhouse, a larger fort was carved out of a steep hill above the main street. Soldiers used tree trunks for fencing and built several structures, including an officers’ quarters that remained on Fort Hill long after the “bloodless” war ended in 1842—when US and Britain signed a treaty finalizing the border’s line.

During the war, villagers bought provisions from the military store, and their farm produce was most likely purchased for military use. A sense of stability began to grow in the settlement. The fort was named after Maine’s Governor John Fairfield, and one of the soldiers began a school in the officers’ quarters.

A former officers’ quarters, no longer standing, on Fort Hill.

Soon after the war, some of the soldiers from southern Maine began clearing farms among the already established families. The soil was renown for its rich composition—perfect for growing bumper crops—and timbered land from the state was cheap to obtain.

Building schools

With their numbers increasing, Fort families felt a greater need for education, and four one-room schools were built: one near the Conant Road, one at McIntosh Corner, one in Stevensville, and one in the village.

The McIntosh School.

Eventually 26 rural schoolhouses in the double township were in use by 1900. They included the schools of McIntosh, Hoyt, Varney, Page, Blaisdell, Dorsey, Foss, Grass, Flannery, Haines, Goodrich, Stevensville, Dinsmore, Conant, Maple Grove, Monson’s Mill, Grange Hall, Russell, Ames, Everett, Bridge, Turner, Murphy, Haley, Strickland, and Marshall.

Today, the only country schoolhouse left is the McIntosh School. Some years ago the Frontier Heritage Historical Society moved the building to a lot next to the society’s museum on Heritage Lane, near Brown Street.

Built in 1848, the school’s original floor plan remains intact. The structure was used not only for pupils but for church meetings, town meetings, and other events.

Part of the McIntosh School interior.

Entrance to one of the privies.

The school provided all the necessities deemed necessary for education in the latter 1800s. You can still see the blackboards and chalk, a teacher’s standing desk, handbell and pencil sharpener, slates and sturdy desks, a coat room, large windows along one side for natural light and, in back of the structure, an indoor privy for boys and one for girls.

Organized as a town government in 1858, Fort Fairfield officials began allotting funds for both country and in-town schools. For several years a tuition high school was maintained in a building used by the Masonic Lodge. Meanwhile, out in the country, most one-room schools were so poorly built that they could only be used in warmer months.

By 1870, Fort’s population had grown to 1,893, up from 901 in 1860. The town raised $1,500 for school support, compared to only $700 the previous decade. A committee formed to oversee a better handling of the schools, and about 808 children attended classes that year. Seven schools were reported winterized. Thirteen were considered uncomfortable “shells.”

Free high school education

Nicholas Fessenden.

In 1873, the state passed a law to appropriate funds assisting towns with “free” high schools where local students did not have to pay tuition. At Fort’s annual meeting, townsmen approved $250 to help support a free school.

Hattie C. Ring of Lubec taught the spring term, with Nicholas Fessenden, a young lawyer from Pembroke, as her assistant and supervisor. By that fall, Fessenden was the school’s principal and Mary E. Hyde, his assistant. “Very much of the success and merit of the school was due to the faithful and competent labors of Miss Hyde, who brought to her work accurate and advanced knowledge, combined with ready tact to teach and love for the labor,” he wrote in a school report.

Fessenden may have felt the need to commend his assistant due to her age. Mary Hyde was but 19 when she began teaching high school students, although she had been teaching younger pupils since at least 1870. A decade earlier, her family hosted a local teacher in their home. Perhaps Mary obtained a more substantial education than most due to an educator living under the same roof.

Fessenden later became a probate judge and Maine’s Secretary of State. He and his wife, Laura, had two sons who went on to higher education. The oldest, Stirling, was part of the town’s first graduating class in 1891. He then attended Bowdoin College, practiced law in Shanghai, China, and became its Lord Mayor. His brother, Thomas, also a Fort graduate, earned a divinity degree and eventually pastored a large congregation in Minneapolis.

Even though Fort Fairfield teenagers could attend high school classes for free, rural schools were still problematic. In 1875, the town’s education report stated that there were only six “decent schoolhouses” and those did not contain any “maps, dictionaries, charts or blackboards.” The other 16 buildings in their individual districts were unheated and had poor seating.

An historical plaque along Fort’s Main Street.

Fessenden was chosen as one of the three town selectmen that year, and Jerre Hacker, a businessman, was elected treasurer. Both contributed much to the local schools.

The Hackers

Today, you can view a plaque at the base of Hacker Hill on Main Street that describes one of Hacker’s efforts. According to the historical society, Hacker built the first town hall in 1875. The ground floor was used as a school and the upper level for town meetings and other public events. Most likely the building was heated and furnished.

In the 1870s Hacker was working as a dry goods and groceries merchant in town, following in his father Isaac’s footsteps. Jerre and his wife, the former Almeda Libby, had three children, but by 1874, both Almeda and the children had died.

Hacker married Elizabeth Trafton later that decade, and their first three children died by 1883. Fortunately the last three—Clyde, Tom, and Maria—survived childhood. Perhaps losing two-thirds of his offspring had some bearing on Hacker’s persistence in helping youngsters with their education.

In 1882, the town finally abolished the problematic district system hindering better buildings and supplies. They organized their educational needs with a “town plan” to maintain control and maintenance of school structures.

Things were going well until about three years later when the Masonic Hall at the base of Fort Hill burned. The high school had been meeting there. Later that year, another hall was used until a better plan materialized.

Hacker Hill.

A proper building

By early 1887, residents decided a proper high school building needed to be constructed in time for the fall term. They also wanted the new building to have enough space for lower grades.

The growing student population soon created a crowded effect at the newly-built high school, however, so a new school for the lower grades was constructed on Hacker Hill. An image from that era shows a white building with what looks like a bell tower on the roof. It sits on a slight hill—most likely Hacker—opposite Main Street and the covered bridge.

Philo Reed house.

The high school building, considered one of the finest in eastern Maine, was located on the corner of Main and School Streets. It was designed by George M. Coombs of Lewiston, a major architect, who also designed several other buildings in the community—both commercial and residential—including the 1907 Queen Anne/Colonial Revival-styled Philo Reed house. Beautiful inside and out, the house is still located on Main Street and was added to the National Register of Historical Places in 1986.

In 1889, a major shift in the quality of education was noted in Fort’s annual report. “We have 26 schoolhouses, six more than Presque Isle (11 miles southwest of the town) and five more than Caribou (11 miles northwest),” the report stated. Almost all the Fort schools contained wall maps, charts, blackboards, dictionaries, reference books, good seats and desks, and “commodious outbuildings.”

Fort’s first high school building.

With the town’s continued growth, another new school with four classrooms for the lower grades was built around 1900—next to the high school—and was also designed by the George Coombs firm. The school continued to be called “the graded school” for many years before it was officially named.

Setbacks

Then in early 1902, a sad event caused all the community schools and businesses to be closed for a day—the day of Jerre Hacker’s funeral. President of the Fort Fairfield National Bank, Hacker was also treasurer of Frontier Water Company and manager of his grocery and dry goods business. Everything was closed so that whoever wanted to could attend the funeral of Hacker, who had only been in his 50s.

Well-loved by the community, Hacker treated with kindness people who asked for loans. In addition, his “friendly acts toward our schools will not soon be overlooked or forgotten,” the Fort Fairfield Review stated.

Plaque on the corner of Main and School Streets showing where the first high school building was located.

Also during that decade, Fort Fairfield gained the reputation of being “the greatest potato-raising town in the world,” the Review reported. At that time the village contained 40 stores, 1,500 students, and a population of 5,000.

The second high school.

The year after Hacker died, however, the lovely wooden high school burned to the ground. Hacker was no longer there to assist in the town’s affairs, but others were determined that progress would continue. By December 28, 1904, a new high school building—just behind where the first one had stood—was ready for use. It was also designed by the Coombs firm.

During that era, Fort Fairfield had more alumni attending colleges than any other community in northern and eastern Maine. The high school staff offered a college preparatory course of study and two courses for those who would not go on to college: the English-Latin course and the English course. The school contained a piano, reference library, and supplies for physics, chemistry, astronomy, and geology.

Second high school and “graded school,” both designed by George Coombs. Nowadays the firm goes by the name of Harriman.

Harry Coombs

Fort Fairfield Public Library.

George Coombs died in 1909, and his business was eventually taken over by his younger son, Harry, who went on to design a number of buildings in Fort Fairfield. He drew up plans for a movie theater, bank, hotel, store front for H.N. Goodhue, and the Andrew Carnegie-funded library. At least nine of his Maine commissions, including the 1913 library, eventually were placed on the national register.

Also in 1913, the town hired Coombs to design a brick primary school on the corner of Elm Street and Columbia Avenue, replacing Hacker Hill School.

Harry S. Coombs.

The brick structure opened the following year and housed lower grade students for decades.

Unfortunately, the building was eventually demolished, and apartments now are located on the former school lot. We still can study some aspects of the school’s design, however, thanks to the Maine Historical Society.

Coombs’ 17 architectural drawings for the school can be viewed on the society’s Maine Architecture & Landscape Design Database at https://www.mainememory.net/. The drawings are part of the larger work-in-progress by the society to place records and representational images—from its entire 7,500 plus architectural commissions collection—onto the database.

Here are several images from Coombs’ 1913 Fort commission, kindly scanned by the society to coincide with this blog:

Exterior 1913 school details by Harry S. Coombs.

The front entrance, facing Elm Street.

Original design included four classrooms, blackboards, a teachers’ room, and storage spaces. More classrooms were added by 1950.

Basement level plans provided bathroom facilities and separate play rooms for boys and girls.

At the beginning of its existence, the 1913 building did not have a proper name. Townspeople merely called it “the new brick school.”

The new school, from a postcard image provided by Cheryl Dean Everett, a former student.

The same year Coombs designed the grade school, C.C. Harvey, editor and publisher of the Review, wrote an editorial regarding school names.

What is in a school name?

“A good school is worthy of a good name,” Harvey wrote. “Why is it so many of the schools of our Aroostook villages are not named at all but have to be designated by tasteless long phrases such as the graded school, the Hacker hill school, etc.? Some weeks ago the Review asked its readers to propose a name for what is spoken of as the graded school…” (the building next to the high school).

William Pitt Fessenden.

“No names were sent in,” he continued. “Hence we shall proceed to propose a name ourselves, Fessenden School, and shall always mention it by that title.”

Harvey had previously suggested that the name chosen should not be from a living person. He was not proposing the school be named after Judge Nicholas Fessenden, who was still living, but after Nicholas’ uncle, William Pitt Fessenden, a famous US senator from Maine and Secretary of the Treasury under President Abraham Lincoln.

Several weeks after Harvey’s editorial, he published a letter from Nicholas Fessenden’s son, Thomas, who was then pastoring in Minneapolis. Thomas agreed that schools should be named after prominent citizens to “identify them with personality and life.” He suggested H.N. Goodhue, a local businessman; N.H. Martin, the first high school master; and Jerre Hacker, “a tall oak among the businessmen of Aroostook.”

On August 5, 1914, the fall term began, including classes in “the new brick school.”

A few months later, C.C. Harvey had had enough.

“It’s not convenient nor good taste to designate a school as ‘the new school,’” he argued. “We propose the name Hacker School for the new brick building on Elm Street. It takes the place of the school situated near the Hacker house which for years was called the Hacker Hill school.” The new building stood on land owned by the Hacker estate and “the naming may honor the memory of the late Jerre Hacker, one of the finest citizens of Fort Fairfield or Aroostook County.”

It was “an inspiring thing to have had in a town the lives of men that we are proud to mention to our children,” Harvey reasoned, “and that we are more than glad to name our schools after.”

The name for the new brick school, from then on, was Hacker.

A few years later, Fort Fairfield developed plans for a brick high school on Columbia Avenue containing an auditorium seating 500, a gymnasium in the lower level, concrete floors, stairs, and basement walls. The building was dedicated on February 28, 1923, and the former wooden high school, renamed the Grammar School, housed several of the lower grades.

In 1930, almost 900 students attended the village schools and about 100 students in the country schools. Over 290 students were at the high school, 273 at Grammar, 193 at Fessenden, and 154 at Hacker.

But both the high school and grammar school were overcrowded.

The former Jenkins School, now containing residential units.

Not until 1950 was another elementary school constructed on the site of the first high school--in front of Grammar and Fessenden. The two-story brick building was named after William H. Jenkins, a superintendent of schools who had recently died.

The end of an era

Then around 1960, an outside consultant recommended the construction of an even newer high school, with the older high school to be used for middle grades. The consultant also suggested that plans should be in place eventually for a new elementary school to replace Fessenden and Grammar.

The Grammar School—once the “elegant” high school—was considered “drab” by modern-day experts. The eight classrooms, with a library and cafeteria in the basement, were “inadequate.” In addition, officials recommended that Fessenden be closed “as soon as possible” due to its dark interior and limited rooms for the principal and teachers.

Today, Fort students still attend that newest high school, which now includes middle schoolers. In 1991 a new brick elementary school was built at another location.

Over the years, Fessenden, then Grammar, Hacker, and the first brick high/junior high disappeared. All were torn down for various reasons, but each demolition happened so quickly that if you weren’t present when it occurred, you might never have known.

Where Hacker once stood are now the Village Green Apartments. There is no plaque indicating the site was used for a school.

The brick junior high/former high school on Columbia Avenue was replaced by a lawn. The current brick middle and high school gymnasium and athletic areas can be seen in the background.

The former Jenkins building, now Hillcrest Estates residential housing, includes a garden with a fountain and outdoor seating. You would never know, when passing through, that there had ever been any school buildings—save for the plaque on Main Street marking the location of the first high school.

Fessenden was once situated on a little knoll southwest of Hillcrest, with the Grammar School to the east. A maple tree grows quite close to where the school once stood.

Unfaded memories

The old grammar school contained oak floors and walls that gleamed from multiple coats of varnish, and worn, creaky stairs. But the classroom windows were large, the ceilings high, and I felt nothing but appreciation for its construction and craftsmanship when I attended fourth and fifth grades there in the late 1960s.

Further back in memory, to 1963, my mother and I attended the first grade step-up day at Fessenden—the year before kindergarten was available in town. I remember walking up the front steps and into a dimly lit classroom filled with old desks—I think they were attached to the floor. Our teacher had us color pictures and told us to keep our crayons inside the lines.

I left, thinking that was a fine place to start first grade, only to discover on the first day of school that Fessenden had closed. Instead, I was to attend the two-story Jenkins School, located on the other side of the lot.

My mother parked our car along Forest Avenue that morning and informed me of the change. “Get out,” she said, pointing her finger in the direction of Jenkins. “It’s over there.”

I looked over to what seemed a long distance from the safety of our car. There was a snake-like line of third graders ready to enter the building at the main entrance. The school seemed huge and overbearing and strange. I didn’t know where my classroom was. With all those windows, it could have been anywhere.

I screamed.

Mother sighed. She took my hand and escorted me into the building with its steel staircases. We walked what seemed forever down a brightly lit corridor to my classroom at the very end.

I have regretted ever since that I could not attend the smaller, older school that did not have a long line of upperclassmen standing outside. Such is progress.

We still have images and memories, however, of some of the older schools, and a few names still attached to local streets or hills that no longer fit the names. But they once did, to structures that, in their time, were deemed adequate, safe, and secure to assist in the education of growing minds—and in many instances were considered beautiful. And that, apparently, is enough.