Fourth Peabody High, 1965 
 

PVMHS, 1972 
 

School Reunions 
 

Veterans 
 

Principals 
 

On John Proctor 
by Jessica Smith 
 

Historical Figures 
by Chrissy Leblanc 
 

Learning under Double Sessions 
by Chris Rudel 
 

Appendices 

Letter from George Peabody 
 

All system Go, 1972 
 

Reunion, 1866 
 

Reunion, 1909 
 

School Report by J.W. Proctor, 1847 
 

Soldiers & Sports- 
by Seeglitz 
 

Seeglitz Advice 
 

Peabody Rewards Hero Coach 
  

Misc.

The Danvers annual school report in 1849 reads, "This town needs a High School; it wants, demands one; the law demands the same. A statute, which until now has saved the town from prosecution, is, we are glad to say, repealed. Although the state passed an act in 1840 that released the town from the obligation of building a high school due to the town’s population; however, in 1848, the obligation was re-imposed by the state." 
The Danvers Prudential Committee felt "that the wants of the town join with the law, demanding a High School. The common schools of this place suffer from these wants being neglected. They are crowded with studies; the time for each is too short. They are many young men and women in our midst, worthy so far as character, intellect and desires are concerned, of the best education a High School can give. They would be an honor to the town, and of great service to the world, could they have this aid; but the town will not assist them. Local interests overpower mental needs – and because there is some doubt just where to place a High School, the town sagely and illegally heretofore have determined not to have any. So, if our young men and women wish for higher than common school education, they are obliged to leave their home, and take their talents and energies elsewhere. What thus the town may lose, cannot be calculated." 

Pursuing higher than common school education also meant families had to bear the cost of private education. 

The next year, the committee voted to spend $12,000 for the erection of two High School buildings, one in the North, which became the Holten High School, and the other in the South part of the town, in a building on Park Street. 
 

 

The following studies were pursued: Reading, Grammar, Declamation and Composition (on Wednesday afternoons), Logic, Rhetoric, Geography-Ancient and Modern, History-Ancient and Modern, Astronomy; Natural Theology; Natural Philosophy, Physiology, Mental Philosophy, Geology, Chemistry, Botany, Political Economy and Moral Science, Arithmetic, Book-Keeping, and the Latin and Greek languages. 
Eugene B. Hinckley was hired as a teacher for the school and schooling began under great disadvantages. "It was a new undertaking to the Committee, - new to the parents, teachers, and scholars, and, from the nature of the case, some misunderstanding and difficulty were to be expected. We anticipated more or less jarring from the new machinery. But, to our surprise, there has been none. We have met with no perplexity, annoyance or complaint. Peace has reigned without and within the School. And that this has been so, we owe chiefly to the fidelity and good feeling on the part of the teacher and scholars," reads the annual school report in 1851. 

At a time when the district ranked two hundred and twenty-second in the Commonwealth in the average attendance of scholars, the attendance at the high school was very high all three terms. 

"The condition of the two High Schools is very satisfying and gratifying. That they have enlisted the interest and sympathy of our citizens, is very obvious from the fact that provision has been so freely made for the erection of two buildings suitable for their accommodation. These buildings are not only demanded for the convenience and comfort of the schools, but also that Danvers may favorably compete with other towns in offering inducements for strangers to settle within it limits. Nothing so much tends to the increase of property within any town, as wise and liberal appropriations for the cause of popular education. If those who sometimes complain of high taxes on school accounts, would view the subject in its true light, they might see that such taxes were the most sure and profitable investments they were ever called upon to make. 

"The mayor of Salem in his late inaugural address, uttered the following judicious and sensible remarks: - ‘The maintenance and advancement of our system of public education, in itself the only safe basis of our republican institutions, is felt to be, not more a matter of duty, than of interest. A schoolhouse is a better investment of the common fund, than stocks or bonds; and, ultimately, will yield a better return. It is wiser and cheaper to pay the teacher rather than the jailor or the keepers of our almshouses’" – Danvers Annual School Report, 1854. 

In the first class to graduate from the Peabody High School in 1854 was Samuel Brown, Jr.; he later became the namesake of one of the city’s elementary schools. 

In 1854, George Peabody of London announced his intention to create a fund "the income of which should be forever used for prices and medals to pupils at the Peabody and Holten high schools." 
See Letter from George Peabody (Appendix 1) 
 
The following year, the high school occupied the upper story of the Town Hall on Stevens Street. In 1884, when the new Town Hall at 24 Lowell Street was recently completed, the school took over the entire building. 

 

"The school must therefore limp along through the year like a bird with one wing," reads the Annual Report of the Schools for 1861. "Judging from the experience of former years there are 25 to 30 pupils now in the Grammar schools, qualified for promotion to the High School. They feel disappointed when they are told they must remain in the Grammar schools and go over the same routine of the last year in company with the class below them. But there is no remedy. The employment of a female assistant is all that is required to place the High School in a state of efficiency to the regular working of the other schools." 

The town’s action regarding the high school is ironic, in that the prudential committee, or school board, was acting progressively in 1861 by conducting a successful experiment to allow women teachers to teach both the summer and winter terms in the grammar schools in the rural districts. In 1863, the district completely abandoned the sexist policy requiring the change of teachers. 

"It has been our aim to place all the schools of the town on as nearly equal a footing as circumstances would allow. But great inequalities do and must exist. While in some districts the scholars are numbered by hundreds, in others, they scarcely include as many as tens. Here, the attendance is constant, with a well organized system of grade – there, want of system and inconstant attendance are almost the rule. But by far, the most serious evil under which the smaller Districts have labored, is, frequent change of teachers. It used to be thought that, though a lady was sufficient for the school during the Summer, only a male teacher was competent to carry it through the Winter. And so there must be a change, for that reason, once each year. Then, as the Prudential Committee are also apt to change yearly, there was no certainty that the views of the new Board would be like those of the last. We have sought to place female teachers in the grammar school of the smaller districts, throughout the year, and to make them as permanent as in the larger schools. Whatever weight might once have belonged to the objection that female teachers were not competent to manage a grammar school, it has now lost its force." 

A proposition to add to the old high school was dropped in 1913 on a vote of 3-to-2 because the old school "cannot be made suitable". Two years later, the town used the basement to make cement goods and evening school classes were transferred to the building. 

In 1921, there was an unsightly coal yard on the grounds of the old school and a fire broked out in January, 1922. After the fire, the school was discontinued as a place for school purposes. 

A resolution appeared in the School Committee Records in March commending the bravery of "Miss Connor and the other teachers during the fire at the old high school." 
 
A New High School.  
 
Ed Meaney of the Peabody Times in 1947, wrote, "The agitation for a new school house broke loose in 1899, but nothing definite was accomplished until the town meeting of March 21, 1901, when a special committee was appointed to look into the advisability of constructing a new high school. 
"A year slipped by with no action forthcoming on the project and in June 1902 the report of the committee was accepted unanimously, 164 to 0, at town meeting. The committee members included: A.E. Wells, Amos Merrill, Thomas Carroll, W. Fred Munroe, Abram Lummus, Nathaniel Symonds and John J. Cahill." 

The Franklin Osborn estate on Central Street, opposite the Bowditch School, was purchased and Edward B. Balcomb of Peabody and Salem submitted plans for the new school . The cellar and foundation were installed in 1903. 

 

Over the front entrance to the school were gilded letters reading Peabody High School. The school, which had an assembly hall for 550, opened in September 1906. 

After six years of lobbying for an expansion of the school, the city voted to spend more than a half-million dollars in the 1920's to enlarge the high school. 

The addition of 16 classrooms, a library, a large assembly hall, a gymnasium and a new roof were accomplished by C.H. Cunningham and Son Company of Lynn. The architect was Frank Irving Cooper. The addition was primarily in the rear of the structure. 

When the school was renovated the community learned that the wiring in the original structure was unsafe. "For 17 years we've learned that this high school building was a fire-trap," commented Robert A. Bakeman, a member of the school committee. 

During the administration of principal Willard Woodman, the high school had an orchestra in 1915 and a radio course was introduced in 1922. Around the same time, a push was on to acquire land in the rear of the school to complete the athletic field that was later named for Leo Buckley. (See: Historical Figures by Chrissy Leblanc). 
The enlarged building, which cost $568,114, was dedicated in 1923. 
 

 

While the state Supervisor of Secondary Education gave the high school a positive review in 1941, seven years later, the inspector for the State Department of Public Safety stated that he thought the high school building was the most dangerous of all the local school plants. The school was rehabilitated and expanded with the construction of a vocational school. 
In 1946, the Peabody Woman’s Club operated the lunch counter at the school for nearly a decade before a cafeteria system was installed. 
It became a Junior High School when the fourth Peabody High School opened on Allen’s Lane in 1965. 

There was a second junior high school, the John F. Kennedy Junior High School, built in West Peabody in 1963. Two years later, increased enrollment prompted the district to consider instituting double sessions at the school. 

In 1971, the school board voted to reorganize grade level structure in the district. The Kennedy and Higgins Jr. High Schools were designated for grades 7, 8 and 9 and the high school under construction was geared to grades 10 through 12. 

Planning for the current high school, Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, began in 1969. The opening of the school was delayed until 1972. 
 
Peabody Veterans Memorial High School 
 
Construction began in 1970 on the school designed by Earl Flansburg & Associates and constructed by the Fontane Bros.-Walden Construction Co. The school was designed for expansion to 3,500 pupils and was built in two stages. 

In preparing the site, peat was encountered when test borings were done which necessitated an additional 20,000 cubic yards of fill for the site. Later, excess top soil at the site had to be removed. The drainage plan for the site was also revised. Numerous change orders were also required to the $12 million project. 

The 296,000 square foot building is located on a 64-acre site located near the main street joining the downtown section of Peabody with the residential section of West Peabody. The school is located in a wooded area with appropriately placed athletic fields and parking areas. 

The building is a three-story structure with most of the general academic classrooms on the third floor and the specialized classrooms, including science classrooms and laboratories on the second floor. The Media Center, Language Lab and administrative offices are also located on the second floor. 

The first floor of the building contains a large entrance lobby, an eight hundred seat auditorium with adjoining music room, a large field house that will seat 2,000 for an athletic event, locker rooms, the school cafeteria, and planetarium. [Source: New England School Development Council School Facilities Master Plan, 1997] 

Equipment was moved into the school in August and originally the start-up date of September 1 appeared achievable. However, by the end of the month, it was apparent that the school would not be finished and the architect requested that the opening of school be delayed until September 13 for the school’s 1,925 students. 

Reasons for the delay included: an incomplete fire alarm system and the removal of numerous large boulders from the front entrance of the school, as well as the clean up of the school construction area. 

"It didn’t take long for word to spread through the city Tuesday that the new Veterans Memorial High School off Lowell Street will not open on schedule, having been postponed from September 8 to the 13th," read the Salem Evening News on September 1. 

"The School Department switchboard, which is already overburdened because all calls to the city’s schools are channeled through this board was ‘bombed’ with calls from parents and students seeking information. Detailed explanation had to be given callers because of the staggered system of students returning to school – 700 sophomores, Monday; 650 juniors, Tuesday and 575 seniors, Wednesday." 

When the deadline loomed less than 48-hours away, the school board announced on Saturday, September 11 that double sessions would be established at the old high school on Allen’s Lane. 

The school board and city officials reconvened and held an unprecedented, special emergency meeting on Sunday, September 12 in the cafeteria of the new school. At the meeting, it was decided to cancel the plan for double sessions and a meeting was planned with the State Department of Public Health for the following day. 

State Public Safety Inspector John B. Powers granted a temporary permit for occupancy and required that eight Peabody firemen patrol the halls of the school at a cost of $400 a day to insure safety regulations. 
 
See "All systems go – Peabody High incomplete but classes under way" (Appendix 2) 
 
The starting time for high school students was moved back fifteen minutes to start at 7:30 a.m. and close by 1:45 p.m. because heavy traffic in the high school area was causing a delay in the buses reaching the elementary schools. 

In the 1980’s, the first floor of the school was remodeled to convert the faculty dining room for an early childhood classroom and other classrooms were converted to vocational programs including culinary arts and cosmetology. 

A branch of the George Peabody Cooperative Bank (now the North Shore Bank) also opened in the school lobby at that time. [Source: New England School Development Council School Facilities Master Plan, 1997] 
 
School Reunions. 
 
Peabody High School Reunion Attended by George Peabody, 1866 (Appendix 3) 
 
Peabody High School Reunion, 1909 (Appendix 4) 
 
Veterans. 
 
The first school in the community named for a veteran was the Wallis School. It was named in honor of Dennison Wallis, a local patriot of the American Revolution who was wounded seventeen times at the Battle of Lexington and survived. Illiterate, Wallis became a successful tanner and bequeathed funds to the town to establish a school. 

The Samuel Brown School was named in memory of Samuel Brown, Jr., a member of the first graduating class of Peabody High School, who died at the Battle of Antietam in 1862. 

When the principal and two students of the Peabody High School enlisted in the service in 1863, the Annual School Report read, 
 
"Surely, the Age of Chivalry is not yet extinct, but only elevated and purified by the Common School, when its teachers and pupils trained to the arts of peace, will volunteer to make such sacrifices, not so much for themselves as for posterity. 

"The Common School System in its highest development, is not only essentially democratic both in its origin and its tendencies, but it is also the uncompromising foe of oppression and misrule in all their forms. They flee before it as the sun chases away the shades of darkness. Its aim is to enlighten the masses, to give all a fair start in the race of life. Its tendency is to unchain the minds of the people, to afford them a sure safe-guard against the designs of the few who would use them for their own selfish and base purposes." 
 
William L. Thompson, the principal of the high school, enlisted in 1862. He was followed into service by two of his students: Alphonso P. Rhodes and Charles L. Manning. When he enlisted, his pupils at Peabody High presented him with a revolver. [Source: South Danvers Wizard, 9/24/1862.] 

Thompson enlisted in Capt. Robert S. Daniels’ company of nine months volunteers. He enlisted with George F. Barnes, the principal of the Bowditch School. (See Peabody School History Project: Samuel Brown School) They were both commissioned as lieutenants and sent to Newbern, North Carolina. 

In May, 1863 a list of pupils of Peabody High School who entered the U.S. service was published in the South Danvers Wizard :Capt. Charles Dearborn, Henry Moore, Perez L. Winchester, Charles Taggard, Horace Perry, and Donalson Moore. 
 
Two schools were named after Peabody High School graduates who were veterans of World War I. The both died in the flu epidemic of 1918: 
 

The source of information for student reports, unless otherwise indicated, is from Peabody School Committee Records.