Warm, funny memories legacy of ‘Monson Academy’

MONSON ACADEMY REVISITED, 1847-1997 by William R. Sawtell, Howland’s Printing, 1997, 239 pages, $20 paperback, $30 hardcover.

BANGOR — William Sawtell of Brownville describes himself as the compiler, rather than author, of “Monson Academy Revisited.” Readers might appropriately conclude that Sawtell took the right approach in “compiling” this type of local history — he didn’t get in the way of the book.

Instead, the Milo historian, who has written more than 20 books, allowed as many voices as possible to tell the story of the school.

Reprinting a couple of chapters of “The Old School Master” by Sangerville native Prof. William Smith Knowlton was a great way to take readers back to the 19th century village on the road between Guilford and Greenville.

Pupils came from many towns to take Greek, Latin and French, geometery, trigonometry and surveying.

“The school was rather dark,” Knowlton wrote in one passage, “so I sat a redheaded boy in the dark corner to illuminate that vicinity.” The teacher went on to tell of the youngster’s contact with a most prominent Mainer:

“That same boy was once out fishing through the ice. Vice President [Hannibal] Hamlin was there, having some live bait. My pupil had none, but wanted some so he approached the Vice President holding out at arm’s length a big old-fashioned cent and said, `Meester Hamblen, sell me a chub?’ He got the chub.”

The many other voices in the history include that of Glenn Poole, a 1966 graduate who is now an engineer living in Bucksport.

Poole was himself part of the school’s great basketball legacy, and wrote a chapter in the book about boys’ basketball of the 1920s and 1930s — the era of his father, Oswald Poole.

Included was a 1931 excerpt from the Piscataquis Observer describing a four-day trip to Jackman, Norridgewock, North New Portland and Kingfield. The bus was painted in the school colors, orange and black.

The basketball team went on to an exciting win at the Small School basketball tourney in Bangor.

Personal memories were contributed by a variety of people from different eras, among them Beatrice Jackson Bray, who was a freshman in the fall of 1924.

“One fond memory was of hurrying back from lunch at home at noon so that we had time to practice dancing,” Bray wrote. “Some of the senior girls taught us how to dance, for one of the older girls could play the piano. This enabled us to teach the boys of our class to dance at the end of basketball games.”

School was obviously a place where she felt at home. Bray grew up to be a much loved schoolteacher in the area.

Althea Haggstrom French’s Class of 1944 was 25 strong when it entered in the fall of 1940. By graduation time, only five remained. Enrollment declined as students joined the service, Monson Maine Slate Co. closed, and many families moved from town.

Checking the post office for mail from friends in the military and arranging purchases according to what was left in the ration books were part of life.

“One learned to take good care of their shoes,” French recalled.

Profiles of Monson natives range from Win Pullen, a University of Maine professor whose community service was well-known in the town of Orono, to Buddy Leavitt, the 6-foot, 6-inch leader of the Slater team that won the Class S state basketball title in 1968.

Many sources helped make this history so rich and interesting. A facsimile of the 1849 Monson Academy catalogue, with its list of students and lots of information, simply draws the reader.

Those pupils studied “Weld’s Grammar and Parsing Book” and “Upham’s Mental Philosophy,” and used the academy’s “extensive Philosophical and Chemical Apparatus, the advantages of which the students enjoy in illustrations at time of recitation, and in weekly evening lectures on the branches of Natural Science pursued by them.”

The many pictures from the yearbook, the Pharetra — Greek for quiver — are certainly a treasure. I have watched some of these students play basketball, competed in spelling bees against some of them, and met them through Dirigo Girl’s State and other school activities.

The year I graduated from Piscataquis Community High School down the road in Guilford, 1969, was also the last year for a graduating class at Monson Academy. In the fall, students were bused to Foxcroft Academy in Dover-Foxcroft.

Wendy Anderson, a member one of the first Monson groups to attend FA, broke my heart as she wrote a piece called “To Miss a Place You’ve Never Been.”

After watching siblings Joy, Lauri and Stuart attend Monson Academy with such enjoyment and success, Anderson said, she and younger brother Sam found it hard to pursue their high school hopes and dreams in a much larger school and community.

The grade school continued to operate in the old academy for 10 years, and now has a new building. The old one is gone.

I drove past the site a few weeks ago and mourned the loss of what had been so large a part of Monson. Then I picked up Bill Sawtell’s book, and marveled at how a group of people who refuse to forget can keep alive a spirit — and preserve it for those who will read about it in the next century.

The book is available through Mr. Paperback stores.