An inquiry into the backgrounds of the
major players in the 19th century drama of Noyes Academy
in Canaan brings some interesting insight into the possible
motivations and relationships between the allies and antagonists.
First, who was Samuel Noyes and why name the school after him? Samuel
Noyes was 80 years old in 1835. He was born in Atkinson, New
Hampshire and served in the Revolutionary War in a regiment from
Plaistown. He was one of the leading residents of Canaan at that
time,certainly one of the oldest, and probably the only remaining
Revolutionary War soldier. In 1794, records show that Samuel was the
only man in Canaan who paid any taxes on cash on hand, paying a tax
on 15 pounds. This tells us that he was quite prosperous, although he
wasn't the wealthiest in terms of real estate. He was a selectman in
1788, and in that same year he was listed as being a Baptist,
although in 1817 he joined the Congregational Church. William Allen
Wallace says, in “The History of Canaan”, that at that time there
was a strong feeling that they should form a society, like the
Baptists had done, to assist the church in the management of its
affairs, regardless of their denomination.” Samuel's farm was “the
first farm at the southeast corner of the town following the Enfield
town line along the South Road”. His wife's name was Lydia, and
she died in 1833, two years before the controversy over the academy.
They did have a daughter, Relief, who was born in 1791, but it is
unclear whether or not she lived to adulthood, although she was alive
in 1800. At 80, Samuel was active enough to be one of the
incorporators of the Academy, although his name is not mentioned much
in association with the events that transpired after the granting of
the charter.
It's impossible to be absolutely sure
why the patrons and incorporators chose to name the school after
Samuel Noyes. I think it was because he was a very old leading
citizen, and a Revolutionary War veteran. It wouldn't be accurate to
say that he was one of the founders of the town, but he had been
there for sixty years or so, and was one of the wealthier farmers in
the town. He was probably also a nice person that everyone liked.
Samuel lived 10 years after the Noyes Academy controversy. He died
in 1845 at age 90.
The other incorporators were George
Kimball , Nathaniel Currier, John Harris and George Walworth. It's
really important to keep in mind that at first, it wasn't the plan of
the incorporators and patrons of Noyes Academy to admit black people
into the school. There were no Negroes in Canaan. The citizens of
the town had a high quality school system that served the lower
grades and they wanted to establish a secondary school in Canaan so
that their older children wouldn't have to board in another town to
receive further education. William Allen Wallace gives George Kimball
the credit, or maybe the blame, for transforming the plan for Noyes
Academy. He says that Kimball and his friend M.P. Rogers of Plymouth
were instrumental in “changing the original features of Noyes
Academy so as to admit colored students.”
George Kimball was born in Harvard,
Massachusetts in 1787. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1809, and
practiced law in Union, Maine and Warren, Maine. Then he taught
school in Concord, New Hampshire and Richmond, Virginia. From
Richmond, Virginia he went to Bermuda and was a schoolteacher there.
In 1815, in Bermuda, he married his wife, who was a woman of some
property. Some of her property was slaves. George returned to the
United States with his wife and her Bermudan “servant” Nancy.
It is common knowledge that slavery
was illegal in New Hampshire in 1835, and in fact, all of the
accounts of George Kimball's life in New Hampshire call Nancy a
“freed slave”, but how free was she? The Kimballs couldn't sell
her, but they removed her from Bermuda and brought her to New
Hampshire, and from the accounts of Nancy that I have read, she was
very black. What was she going to do, leave them? I am dying to know
if they paid her, but I would bet they didn't. Here is an excerpt of
a letter William Allen Wallace quoted in The Annals of Our
Village, an article in “The Granite Monthly”. The letter is
from his friend M.P. Rogers. Rogers is complaining about not being
able to keep good household help. He says, “I wish we had a good
little Bermudese like Nancy, instead of these white birds of passage.
They are as restless and troublesome as French Jacobins. I can't keep
one a week. Our Lydia is about retiring, and then we have got the
whole planet to circumnavigate for another. When you next go to
Bermuda you must bring Mary (his wife) a neat little Bermudean, a
She-Othello as black as a blackberry and as neat as a penny. Your
faithful servant is cut off by her ebony hue, and by the waves that
wallop our shores, from a propensity to run home among white clowns,
and send you polling after another witch, to run away as soon as you
have got her half learned.” This is the man who wants to admit
black students to Canaan's Academy?
George Kimball returned to Concord
from Bermuda and became the editor of the Concord Register. He is
described in “The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire” by Charles
Henry Bell, as being “refined, intelligent, companionable, and
amiable, but indolent and too fond of snuff and good whiskey”.
Indolence is not a quality that makes a successful newspaper editor,
then or now, and George was always asking his friends, especially Mr
Rogers, to help him out with his newspaper duties.
Finally they got sick of it and told
him he should go back to practicing law. They advised him to see
about starting a law practice in Canaan. Canaan had plenty of
sheriffs and justices. There would be plenty of work, and there was
only one other lawyer, Elijah Blaisdell, who was also a Mason, being
very active in the Mount Moriah Lodge.
George did relocate to Canaan and set
up a law office. Soon he was the postmaster, too. He got a lot of
business but had been away from practicing law a long time and made a
lot of errors in his work. He ended up calling on his old friends to
help him for help almost as often as he did when he was a newspaper
editor. In addition, the other lawyer in town, Elijah Blaisdell,
wasn't too happy to have competition, and harassed George constantly.
George was also terrible at managing
money. He would pay sheriffs and court fees, and then never collect
the fees from his clients. He often bought on credit and was in
significant debt. He liked to get involved in social movements. He
provided a large portion of the funding for the new Congregational
Church, he was involved in the temperance movement, and the
anti-Masonic movement.
In 1829, he convinced Nathaniel
Currier, John Shepherd and Hubbard Harris to publicly renounce their
membership in the Masons. Elijah Blaisdell and Jacob Trussell,
committed Masons, were furious. William Allen Wallace quotes
Blaisdell: “Neither one could explain why they had renounced”.
By 1829, Elijah Blaisdell and George
Kimball were avowed enemies. The competition between them as Canaan's
two lawyers became worse when George convinced Nathaniel, John and
Hubbard to quit the Masons. George comes across as a slick talking,
manipulative character who likes to feel important by joining various
causes and then supporting them with money he doesn't really have.
It also seems like a natural progression of events that the two
enemies, Elijah and George, would be the leaders on opposite sides of
a controversy that would rock the town.
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