Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/105

 THK SURPLUS REVENUE IN CANAAN.

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��his workmen. His wife was pleased with the progress of the work, and spoke cheerfully to the men as long as the outside was unfinished. The finishing of the inside was slower work which she could not appreciate. She said the men were getting lazy, and she would have them all discharg- ed. She called upon Mr. Weeks, who held the contract, and asked to be permitted to read it. He placed it in her hands, and turned away to attend to other affairs. She sat down, read it through very deliberately, then quietly tore it into small pieces, and placing them in a heap on the table, passed out of the office, saying " I guess I 've taken the life out of that thing, any how ! " She went home, and when the men came in to dinner, they found nothing to eat. She told them she had got done boarding lazy men. and they must go elsewhere to board. When the Doctor learned of the affair. he went to Mr. Weeks and renewed the contract. And the building was ready for occupation at the time ap- pointed.

The school was organized on the first of September, 1839. with a for- midable board of officers. Mr. Jona- than E. Sargent, an undergraduate at Dartmouth, who had taught the last term in the old building, was engaged as principal. The trustees, feeling yery confident of success, engaged to pay him 340 a month and board, for three months. Great efforts were made by the sixty proprietors of this school, to fill all the seats, and it opened with one hundred and forty-three pupils. The other party also organized a school in Currier's hall, and employed Mr. J. N. Hobart, a classmate of Mr. Sargent, to teach it. He drew in about sixty pupils.

But these efforts were strained. Many of the pupils who trod those unclassic floors, were there by reason of the social and political antagonisms, which had not been allayed nor soften- ed as the years went by.

There always was a trace of stingi- ness in the people of Canaan in matters

��pertaining to schools, and it is not sur- prising that the interest in this school should fall off, when it became a matter of paying out money for board and tuition.

Mr. David H. Mason, a classmate of Mr. Sargent, taught the spring term of 1S40, to a diminished number of pupils, so much so that the speculation looked likely to prove a failure, and on the 30th of May, 1 S40, the proprietors offered the building and its privileges "to any suitable person who would take the school upon his own risk." Mr. Mason accepted the school upon these terms, and conducted it two terms. Thus suddenly the hopes of these sixty men faded out, and they found themselves indebted to the town in the sum of twelve hundred dollars and accruing interest.

Socially, affairs were not much changed. There still existed a good deal of sullenness, but there was a decrease of malicious personal vitupera- tion. The proprietors, however, were not pleased with their investment. The terms of the loan required the interest on their notes to be paid in advance, and the town was now asking for the principal also. The most interesting query with many of them was, how to avoid payment, and free themselves from their obligations. The sugges- tion that was acted upon and accepted was made by S. P. Cobb and Joseph L. Richardson, namely, to sell the land, and buildings to the town, and thus cancel their obligations to the town. The vote quoted above passed at the annual meeting 1S42. "remitting in- terest," &c, was the result of that suggestion, and led to an outburst of wrath and indignation seldom equaled and never excelled, against the men who had borrowed the public money, and had attempted by a trick to vote away that money to pay their private debts. There was a very radiant atmosphere in Canaan for the next two weeks, as the following "whereas" and •'•'resolved " witness.

Onthe24thof March. 1842, a special town-meetinn was held. William E.

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