The schoolchildren of Brewer have not always enjoyed a public

education — in fact, in the early years of Brewer, children got an

education as best they could, whether taught at home or by a

teacher.

Incomplete records suggest that from the arrival of Col. John

Brewer in 1770 to the years before the War of 1812, children

gathered in local houses to be taught by an adult, often a family

member. With its population scattered for five miles along the

Penobscot River and more than eight miles inland (Holden, known as

East Brewer, had not yet become a separate town), Brewer had no

need to build schools.

Records indicate that the first public school was a room inside

the house owned by John Farrington. By the mid-1790s, Brewer had

been divided into school districts, but few references exist as to

particular schools, except to a brick school located near the dam

on the Sedgeunkedunk Stream in South Brewer.

Brewer was gradually divided into different school districts,

usually based on areas of concentrated population (this could even

be defined as a crossroads settlement with six or seven children of

school age). The names of some of the districts existing in 1852

indicate where the schools were located: Bend, Page, Brimmer,

Whiting Hill, Wiswell, and Clewley. By 1882, Brewer had 11 schools

and a public high school.

Children were not required by state law to attend school a

certain number of days annually. For many farm families, the strong

back and pair of hands belonging to a child were an asset to be

used for farm work, not a liability to be squandered on a public

education. Parents sent their children to school when the family’s

workload permitted. Attendance was higher in winter, when chores

were not so numerous on the farm.

The formulation of a public school system advanced in fits and

starts in the 19th century. Inadequate records suggest that the

attic of the Town Hall was finished in 1852 or 1853 to house a high

school, but many high school students attended school in Bangor.

A public high school was definitely in existence by 1873, with

its classes still being held at the Town Hall. Brewer’s population

had increased to the point that voters apparently felt a high

school was justified; in 1875, the school moved into new quarters

at the school in the Brimmer District.

Classes were held in two 12-week sessions, with about 40

students enrolled in the school. Eight students graduated from

Brewer High School in June 1877, and although voters squabbled

during the next 12 years over the amount of money to be spent for

secondary education, the school remained open, changing in form

from time to time.

By 1910, Brewer High School had taken shape as a school with

its students enrolled in different groups (college group, music

group, artisan group — a euphemism for those students who were

expected to become manual laborers — nursing group, etc.).

As the years passed and forms of transportation became more

reliable, the number of schools decreased in Brewer. The evolution

of the school bus sounded the death knell for the small schools

located in Clewleyville, near Whiting Hill, and on the Wiswell

Road, since the handfuls of students living in those areas could be

transported to larger schools in “downtown” Brewer.

While the one-room schools were being closed, new schools were

being built to house an increasing number of students. On Sept. 13,

1926, the students of Brewer High School moved from the school’s

former location on South Main Street to a new, three-story building

on Somerset Street, which at that time stood close to the

easternmost “developed” boundary of Brewer. Except for a few houses

farther out Wilson and State streets, little but woods, fields, and

farms stood between the school and the Holden town line.

Two years later, the Brewer Community and School Improvement

Association opened an athletic field on the site of a former

brickyard between Wilson and State streets. Containing a football

field and a baseball diamond, the field was subsequently named

Doyle Field to honor former Fire Chief “Dicky” Doyle.

The electric lights installed at Doyle Field in the summer of

1947 were provided by the high school athletic association and some

Brewer residents. Ironically, Brewer residents grouped together

about 40 years later to replace the deteriorated lights with new

ones capable of brightening not only Doyle Field but also the

adjacent streets.

In January 1948, high school students began crossing the

parking lot behind the high school to use a new building that

contained vocational facilities and a gymnasium. Unfortunately,

this building later fell into disrepair after the school became a

junior high school. The structure was torn down in the 1980s and

replaced with a modern building.

By November 1950, when Brewer taxpayers finishing paying the

bonds issued in 1925 to pay for the new high school, the building

had become outdated and outmoded, with students crammed into every

available nook and cranny. Yet the crowded conditions at the high

school were only the tip of the iceberg.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Brewer School

Committee faced the task of educating about an additional 100

students every September. These children were members of the “baby

boom” generation, born after World War II. Once this wave of

children reached Brewer schools, nothing was ever the same.

Brewer’s population had begun growing after World War II, as

new streets and houses started appearing among the fields that had

bordered the city. The roads known as Parkway North and Parkway

South were built through the former farmlands, opening sections of

Brewer to residential development.

As more families built houses in Brewer, the school population

burgeoned. New schools were built, with the State Street School

opening in the fall of 1948. That December, the city bought 13

acres on Washington Street and built a school on the site in the

early 1950s.

Construction barely stayed ahead of increasing enrollment. The

Pendleton Street School opened in 1958, and a small elementary

school opened on School Street in 1960. The last school to be built

in Brewer was the Capri Street School, which opened in 1962.

In September 1958, Brewer High School’s sophomores, juniors,

and seniors reported to a new facility on Parkway South. The old

high school, bearing the marks of time, became a junior high school

housing grades six through nine.

During the 1960-61 school year, the school committee tackled

overcrowding at the high school by informing freshmen and

sophomores from Orrington not to plan on attending Brewer High

School in September 1961. When the state waved a financial carrot

stick in the form of funding assistance for new school

construction, the committee reversed its decision.

In 1962, Brewer enrolled 339 tuition students. A new wing,

later called the “freshmen-sophomore” wing, was added to the high

school in September 1964, and except for some later additions to

both the junior high and high schools, Brewer had reached its high

tide of school construction.

Beginning in the late 1960s, the school population gradually

declined, dropping from 2,929 students in 1967 to 2,608 students in

1977. In October 1986, Brewer schools registered 2,081 students,

about 25 percent of whom were non-residents.

Lower enrollments have led to the closing of the Dirigo and

School Street schools. The Dirigo School was converted into a

housing project for the elderly, and the School Street School was

converted into private offices.