By Kendra Rivers
On Samuel Brown, Jr.
By Jared Colombo
Who was Annie I. Mccarthy?
By Kendra Rivers
Chronology of safety concerns.
By Briana Dyer
Appendices
The Samuel Brown School is located at 198 Lynn Street in Ward 1. The school is 85 years old. Negotiations for the school's construction began in 1911 with the appointment of a four-man building committee: Dr. John F. Jordan, James J. Sheehan, Henry W. Shaw and T.W. Reilly. The city acquired the property where the school sits from Augusta B. Trask and Eliza E. Manning.
The contractor for the project, John D. Jeffers of Peabody, submitted the lowest bid of $29,135.80. Ground was broken for the school in May 1911 and work on the building commenced the following month. The building was situated 150 feet from Lynn Street and surrounded by a pipe railing.
The city's oldest existing school was designed by architect Edward Earp & Sons of Lynn, who later sued the town for $3000 for fees in connection with the drawing of plans for the school. The town expended $33,000 for the building committee and for architect's fees. It took about three months to complete the building that was finished on September 20, 1911. The school's one hundred pupils then occupied three rooms.
The original school building was enlarged in1920 to a ten-room building. Four more rooms were added in 1950. [Source: "Brown School One of Our 'Newest'; Opened 1912", by Ed Meaney, Peabody Times, 12/5/1947]
In addition to the school's namesake, the library was named in the 1960's in memory of former Brown School teacher and librarian Nancy D'Allasandro.
Principals of the Samuel Brown School: 1912-18 (?), 1918-52, Annie I. McCarthy, 1952-? Edward J. O'Connor, Louis Surman, Phyllis Rantz; 1994 -present, George "Ernie" Osborne.
The source of information for student reports, unless
otherwise indicated, is from Peabody School Committee Records.