Blue Hill, Maine

By Vika Grindle, Junior, George Stevens Academy

Blue Hill Academy
Ever since the 1790s, residents of Blue Hill have been very concerned with the education of their young people. Before Maine had even attained its 1820 statehood, education in Blue Hill was growing. As early as 1802, Blue Hill had requested a secondary school. A surveyor from the town rode on horseback to the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with the request for an academy. His strong and convincing words persuaded the legislature to grant Blue Hill its wish. The citizens "felt it to be the duty imposed upon them by the author of their being to establish, foster, and perpetuate an institution, in the interest of piety, virtue, morality, and intelligence, that their children might not be brought up like unto the heathen." And thus, Blue Hill Academy was incorporated in 1803.

Although most people have not heard of Blue Hill Academy, many have heard of George Stevens Academy. Outside GSA is a sign proclaiming its 1803 incorporation. However, it was actually the parent school, Blue Hill Academy, that began at this time. There was quite a dispute over which town would host the first academy in Hancock County. The people of Castine were disappointed, since they had sent a request for a high school similar to that of Blue Hill. The Legislature deemed Blue Hill’s petition more practical and denied that of Castine.

Due to carefully kept records, we know that the entire building cost $1407.25. Building of the Academy commenced in March of 1803, and was finished that same spring; the doors were opened to students in November. For thirty years this wooden building was in operation, but in 1832 it was sold for $90 and moved to a different location to be used as a store, which burned down in the 1860s. In the original location of the wooden building, a better brick building was constructed to serve as the new academy.

The first principal to serve at Blue Hill Academy was William Frothingham. He was paid $6 a week, which included the board for his horse. It seems that he was principal for less than a year, for one Elias Upton was subsequently hired for thirteen years, until 1816. Upton was a well-respected citizen of the town and was exceedingly faithful to his position, as was remarked on by many. During that time, the responsibilities of a principal included keeping general order, assigning lessons, correcting student work, hiring "monitors," maintaining safety, being a role model to the student body, collecting payments for destruction of property, and teaching the wrongs of slavery. The principal would also educate his students in the benefits of republicanism, a school of thought that dominated the Northeast in the first half of the nineteenth century.

In 1805, music was introduced to the school. Soon the arts became popular, and students began to pay for painting, drawing and music lessons. Other than arts, important courses in the academy included English, Latin, Greek, writing, the art of speaking, logic, philosophy, geography, arithmetic, and geometry. Of these, Latin and Greek foundations, English, and penmanship were considered extremely important. A common course for young men was navigation. This prepared them for marine navigation and exploration, and taught them outdoor skills; things a person could learn in camp today. This was the only course offered specifically for boys. In fact, the Academy was the first in Hancock County to allow girls to attend.

Despite the plethora of course offerings, in 1852 there were only three teachers and one assistant reported working at the school, which quickly grew in both attendance and popularity during the first half of the nineteenth century. But in the later 1800s, Blue Hill Academy began to feel the competition as other schools and academies began to appear in Maine. Many of these were larger and had no tuition fees. In 1808, school policy changed to allow children of clergymen to attend Blue Hill Academy free of charge, but all other students still had to pay tuition, a point on which the academy heads were resolute. If a student did not pay his or her tuition, expulsion quickly followed. As more options became available to them, students began to gravitate towards other schools that offered more of what they were looking for in terms of size, price, and a "normal" education. In 1870, Blue Hill Academy closed due to lack of tuition. But this wasn't enough to douse the burning flame of education in Blue Hill. The academy reopened in 1873, and students once again flocked in. Blue Hill Academy continued to operate until 1898, when George Stevens Academy opened.

George Stevens and His Academy
George Stevens and his brother Theodore first arrived in Blue Hill, Maine in 1776 after traveling from Andover, Massachusetts. Theodore was already married to one Dorcas Osgood from Massachusetts and George Stevens is recorded as marrying a different Dorcas Osgood from Maine (although Maine was Massachusetts at the time, this Dorcas was from the "Maine" area). George Stevens built his homestead, now know as the Academy House, and became a very successful merchant. He owned various mills, including a cotton mill, and was a shipbuilder. In the early nineteenth century he was a very successful man, yet he only built one house, sometimes also called the "mansion house." Although George Stevens had no children of his own - except for a foster son - he was very interested in the education of the youth of Blue Hill. He and his neighbor, Jonah Holt, ran a music school for half a year and Stevens became a trustee of Blue Hill Academy. But there was a problem. All the trustees - and in fact the entire school - were under heavy Congregational control. Stevens was a Baptist and was angered at the intolerance for any other denomination. In the same year the wooden academy building was sold - 1832 - George Stevens offered a piece of land to the academy and $1000 to build a new building. His only condition was that the school accept all denominations. Unsurprisingly, the town and the church, (which at that time were virtually one unit) answered with a firm "no." For the school, it was the end of the argument, but George Stevens did not give up. In 1852 Stevens died, leaving written in his will a provision that, when his wife died, a new academy - with its own board of trustees - would be built on their property. There was much controversy over this, but the school was nonetheless constructed in 1897. It was built with a strict budget of $6,000, but with a final budget of over $7,000. The first 70 students began attending George Stevens Academy in 1898, and the first class graduated in 1900.

Blue Hill Academy and George Stevens Academy
After George Stevens Academy went into operation, the old Blue Hill Academy building was vacant for eleven years, until 1909, when the seventh and eighth grades began attending school there. In 1929, this was expanded to include students in grades five through eight, where they attended until the opening of the Blue Hill Consolidated School in 1939. After that, the building was left vacant. In 1943, George Stevens Academy and Blue Hill Academy officially merged and the resultant school was christened Blue Hill-George Stevens Academy. In 1968 the school reverted to George Stevens Academy. When the schools merged, $12,000 went to GSA. Before this time, Blue Hill Academy had to pay GSA $175 a year, almost like rent money.

Blue Hill-George Stevens Academy was greatly preferred to the old academy. It was said to be modern and well-furnished. There were even modern heaters in the school, which, as one student discovered, made a wonderful spot to place a container of chemicals. The resultant stench - next to the principal’s desk! - caused quite a commotion. Tuition was free for all students from Blue Hill. However, students from surrounding towns did have to pay to attend. Rides to school were very difficult to obtain at the time, and many students who lived too far away to walk to school would find room and board close by. George Stevens was a reputable, distinguished, and even prestigious academy. Courses ranged from basic classes like algebra and English to more specific topics like physiology and botany and studies devoted entirely to historical figures like Caesar and Homer. Some form of navigation class still existed for boys and home economics classes for girls developed later in the twentieth century. There was also a bookkeeping course which many people today want re-added to the school’s curriculum. As times changed, so did the course list. Instead of botany and physiology, it was Health and Biology. Latin gradually disappeared from the curriculum. Along with the new curriculum came a new set of rules. Students were held to high standards of behavior and obedience. Although most physical punishments were reserved for elementary schools, the Academy staff had plenty of ideas for punishments. For example, a student who had misbehaved in some way might have to stand in front of the entire school and the board of trustees and apologize. This was designed to embarrass the student and set an example to other students. Even so, one student cleverly remarked during his apology, "I apologize for being caught." Apparently, the schoolboard did not pick up on this trickery.

School Consolidation
Even though George Stevens Academy was such an excellent school, the early half of the twentieth century brought a slight depression. Travel was difficult for students without vehicles. Many students still preferrerd their local schoolhouses where they did not have to pay tuition. Before this, the modernity and superiority of the Academy had attracted much attention, but this had begun to fade in the early to middle twentieth century. The town of Blue Hill paid the Academy a small amount of money, but this was barely enough to sustain it. Things began to change in the late 40s, 50s and 60s. Three important elements allowed the school to rise once again. The first was the coming of the automobile to the region. This facilitated much easier transportation to the Academy than horse and cart or walking. High school students had to pay to ride the local bus for some time before it became free, but even so it was a much needed improvement. Better roads also improved traveling conditions. The final cause was school consolidation. During the 40s and 50s Sedgwick, Penobscot, Brooksville, and other towns around Blue Hill began to close their own high schools and transport their students to GSA. This brought a new flow of income from tuition and the school got back on its feet with great speed. In 1943 only four teachers taught at George Stevens Academy. In 1968, eighteen teachers were needed to accommodate the flow of students. The Blue Hill area is known for consolidating approximately a decade sooner than other similar regions in Maine.

Schoolhouses
There are no records of when the first school was established in the Blue Hill area. In early Jonathan Fisher maps of the late 1700's, scattered schoolhouses can be seen around the town. At that time, Blue Hill was split up into four districts. Each had its own schoolhouse and was in control of its own school matters. But as time progressed, more districts began to emerge and by 1850 there were twenty-one districts with twenty-one schools. Issues involving the schools were not discussed in town meetings until school consolidation took effect, and did not involve the entire town, but just the individual district.
These schools were difficult to work in; they became very dark on cloudy days, making it virtually impossible for schoolchildren to read at their desks. Despite the cold winters, there was only one furnace per schoolhouse, and these furnaces would only heat a few square feet of classroom. The first kids to arrive at school would load the stove with firewood gathered by the boys. Some of the schools were even labeled as unfit for children due to cold and harsh conditions. Bathrooms, or "privies," were found outside of schoolhouses, one for boys and one for girls. In 1928 modified toilets were installed inside the buildings, but they were still windowless, filthy, and cramped. A child would have to hold up his fingers to say whether he was going “number one” or “number two” so that the teacher would know how long he was going to be absent. Sometime in the mid eighteenth century, better stoves were installed; these were bigger and more efficient and heated much better. Still, not much improved until the 1920s when electricity and modern toilets were installed. When the electric light first came in, small bulbs hung in the schoolrooms from long ropes. These made for better lighting, but its quality was still not as good as it could have been. Even so, the schools did gradually improve: one incident recorded involves a student who purposefully allowed a schoolhouse to burn down so that a more modern one would replace it. The grades in the schoolhouses were not apparent. Early on, student’s ages ranged from four to twenty. One to three teachers would teach all students every subject. Most of the school houses were abandoned after school consolidation and now serve as residences.

The Old Schoolhouse
The Old Schoolhouse, also known as the village school, was the schoolhouse located in the heavily populated village area of Blue Hill. It was on Pleasant Street, a few houses away from the Baptist Church. This was the most noted of all the schoolhouses, probably because it was in the town center and had two floors to separate grades. The schoolhouse was built in 1848 and was in operation for ninety years. The districts had been given numbers, and district numbers eight and nine merged into the "head of the bay district" in 1848. Like other schoolhouses, in the earlier years the school had had a wide age range of students, and not much of a "grading" system. But later on it became better organized: first through fifth grades on the first floor, and sixth through eighth on the second floor. But in 1909, after the remodeling of the Blue Hill Academy, it became a grammar school with grades five through eight attending. However, in 1928, the schoolhouse was again revised, this time to hold grades one through four, two grades on each floor. In 1939, after the establishment of the Consolidated School, the Old Schoolhouse was abandoned. Like most other schoolhouses, it is now a residence.

School Consolidation and Blue Hill Consolidated School
The Consolidated School was built in 1938 and opened its doors to students in 1939. At the time this was a controversial action, since vehicles had not yet been properly established, and students did not want to make the journey to one single school. However, they had little choice. Before the Consolidated School, schoolhouses were already consolidating: the twenty-one districts merged bit by bit, and certain schoolhouses would get bigger, while others would close. Eventually, the town required that there be at least eight students in each schoolhouse, or that school would have to merge with another. A few schools were excused from this requirement, most likely those far away from town. But most schools did as they were told. The Blue Hill Falls District school closed in 1908, the Mines District in 1895, the Beech Hill district in 1939, the Granite District in 1920, the Witham district in 1928, the Billings District in 1921, the Long Island District in 1920, and the West Blue Hill District in 1916. The latest school to close was the Wescott District school which closed in 1944, the only schoolhouse that ran for a significant amount of time after the building of the Consolidated School.

Gordon Emerson recalls going to the village school or "old schoolhouse" in his younger years, attending middle school at the old Blue Hill Academy building, then transferring to the Consolidated School the year it opened for eighth grade and finishing off his education at GSA. Another person recalls spending his younger years in the Wescott School District school instead of attending the Consolidated School.

Eventually all other schools shut down, including Blue Hill Academy, and the only two left standing were the Consolidated School - which served the Blue Hill area - and George Stevens Academy - which served both Blue Hill and the surrounding towns.

Why Education was so Important to Blue Hill
Multiple reasons contributed to the prestige of Blue Hill’s educational system. Many people believe that the town’s education developed much faster and concerned the town’s people more than other villages. One reason for this is that the entire Northeast has always focused on education zealously. Another is that religion, dating all the way back to Puritan education, was a very important goal, mostly for religious instruction, but it stuck. The town of Blue Hill was and is a bustling coastal community. Even in the 1700s, Blue Hill was an appealing place to settle. Other coastal communities like Bar Harbor and Camden show similar signs of great education systems. Blue Hill village was centered mostly around the harbor, which helped unify its people, because such a town center provides a focus for the entire community. A meetinghouse was early established in the town and many topics were discussed there. Settlers came in quickly, and Blue Hill had a start to its education system. Blue Hill Academy was one of the first academies in the state of Maine, and the first in Hancock county. This community center not only brought people together, but helped them to work and plan together. The two academy buildings were not funded in any way by the state. They were supported completely by generous donations from inhabitants and built by the citizens of Blue Hill, where everyone pitched in on community projects. This sense of personal, private ownership of the schools gave the town pride in its schooling. The people encouraged the growth and development of the education systems and pushed for improvements. Intelligent teachers looked for a place to settle down and perform their work, and a rural coastal community such as Blue Hill seemed like a good place to do so. The town looked for the best teachers, and the best teachers looked for the town; this created a perfect instance of complementarity. It is remarkable how much the teachers have shaped the education in Blue Hill. Rusticators also tie into the education system in Blue Hill. The town has always been attractive to wealthy people “from away.” Its alluring beauty and overall appearance of perfection draw rusticators who are looking for a place to settle down and meet with other wealthy people. As mentioned earlier, the school was entirely personally funded. Who else would fund it other than the wealthiest individuals in town? They also had a strong influence on the encouragement of education. They not only paid for fine education but endorsed fine education, a "superior curriculum" for the "superior" person. Currently, a deep rift is seen in the community. Rusticators have become a permanent influence on the population. One half of the town’s population is motivated to gain wealth and knowledge, and the other half, the more local population, is not as perfection-oriented. Overall, the private education of Blue Hill has graduated many fantastic students and is overall an educational system full of success stories. An attractive, rural, and coastal community in a centered, devoted and supportive town, is combined perfectly with the influences of intelligent, excellent teachers and the wealth of rusticators to shape Blue Hill's educational system into an extremely impressive, ideal, exceptional and first-rate network.