Going to School in 18th Century Woodstock

Oliver and Elizabeth (Wheeler) Farnsworth had six children. The oldest, Havilah, was born in 1769 in Charlestown, ten months after his parents were married. The next two children, Abijah (1771) and Biel, whose given name was Abial (1772) were also born in Charlestown. The last three children, Oliver Jr (1775), Elizabeth (1776) and Phebe (1778) were born in Woodstock. Oliver and Elizabeth moved to Woodstock with three toddlers. The five oldest children lived to be adults. It's pretty likely that Phebe died early, since I can't find any record of her marrying, or a date for her death.

The Farnsworths lived in the Number 9 School district in Woodstock. The kids would have gone to school at the District 9 School. Henry Swan Dana, author of “The History of Woodstock , tells us in the book that although the first District 9 schoolhouse might have been a log building, the only schoolhouse on record for District 9 was of frame construction. There was a good spring fifteen rods west of the building, where students went to get a drink of water. A container of water was not kept in the building for students to drink out of, which was probably healthier in the longrun, anyway.

Inside the schoolhouse, benches were built along three sides of the room, with desks attached to the front of them. There were openings at either end of the benches, and in the middle, but if you were blocked in by other students, you just jumped over the desk to get out. There was an ordinary sized table in one corner for the teacher, but he shared it with four of the older students.

The schoolhouse was heated by a fireplace. The students who were old enough took turns building the fire. Boys bowed and girls curtseyed when they entered the school, and they were also taught that when they were walking along the road in a group, and an adult passed in a wagon or carriage, they had to line up single file and take their hats off to show respect.

Students wrote with quill pens and ink. Ink wells were made with lead and pewter, and students who were too poor to buy these metals used a cow's horn, cut off at both ends and fitted with a bottom and a top. Ink was made from boiled white maple bark. The quills were goose quills, feathers that were specially prepared by the teacher before the day began. Dana says, “The teacher was accustomed to be at his post half an hour before it was time to begin the morning session, to provide beforehand a batch of pens for the day's use, and yet during school hours always some one would be calling out, "Please mend my pen." Catherine Reef, in Education and Learning in America, says that sometimes a skill at mending pens was the most important qualification for a teacher. The phrase “pen knife”, now used for any small knife, was originally used to indicate a knife used for cutting and repairing quill pens. As people wrote with the quills, the quills would break down and lose their point, and either the writer, in the case of an adult, or the teacher, in the case of a student, would use the pen knife to cut a new point into the end of the quill.

The notebook of the day was called a copybook. Copybooks didn't come with lines in them. Students drew the lines themselves, using a ruler and a plummet. Plummets were the ancestor of the pencil. They were made at home by melting waste lead and pouring it into cracks cut into a piece of wood especially for this purpose. Sometimes people used the cracks in the floor. After these thin pieces of lead cooled, a hole might be made in one end, and a string or thread put through the hole so that the students could carry them to school around their neck and not lose them. Of course, at that time no one knew about lead poisoning!

There were very few textbooks. Beginning readers in New England often used the “New England Primer”, which featured verses based on the alphabet, a strict moral code, and biblical principles. In some schools, advanced math students studied from “Root's Arithmetic”, the first math textbook, written by Erastus Root, a Dartmouth graduate. It is impossible to know if Woodstock schools had these books.

Oliver died in 1785 at age 44. Havilah would have been 16 years old. Elizabeth remarried, to Reverend Elijah Norton. I can't find out much about him, although Elizabeth died before him. Abijah's will mentions “my honored mother, Elizabeth Norton”, and we know that Elizabeth lived in Woodstock at the time of her death. It is impossible to know whether or not the children lived with Elizabeth and her new husband.

Havilah and Oliver, Jr became printers, spending part of their lives in Newport, Rhode Island and part of their lives in Ohio. Havilah became a doctor and stayed in Ohio. Oliver, Jr left Ohio to return to Newport, where he died. Abijah died in his early 40's and his wife died a year later. Three of their children became wards of Bezer Simmons, a sea captain. Abial accompanied his Aunt Relief and Uncle Warren Cottle to Cottleville, Missouri. Elizabeth did marry, but there is no other information about her.

Eunice Farnsworth lived with her son Stephen, Jr, until her death at age 89, in 1811. Her obituary, in the Vermont Republican, says,

“She left a numerous offspring, namely, six children, forty-six grandchildren, and seventy-five
great-grandchildren, making in all one hundred and twenty-seven. She never experienced a fit of
sickness in the course of her life, except a slight attack of fever. She never made use of many
of the luxuries of life; was much averse to spirituous liquor of any kind. Her principal diet milk and vegetables. She was confined in her last sickness about nine weeks, during which distressing scene
she manifested the greatest calmness, composure of mind, and Christian fortitude, and left the

world in the full assurance of a blessed immortality beyond the grave.” We know that she outlived at least one of her sons, Oliver. It must be hard to live longer than your kids.