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Six Historic One-Room Schoolhouses

Thousands of one-room schoolhouses once educated New England children, some well into the 20^th century.

Small, utilitarian buildings, they usually lacked plumbing and electricity. An outhouse stood out back, as did a woodshed for the wood-burning stove that heated the room. In the early days, one-room schoolhouses were usually built on tiny plots of cheap land in the village center. Dim, cold and often crowded, one critic called them ‘juvenile penitentiaries.’

One-Room Schoolhouses

In the 1850s, school sessions ran for eight weeks in summer and eight weeks in winter. They increased to three sessions, then to three longer sessions. But the length of the school sessions affected attendance, because the children had to help with farm chores like haying in the spring and apple picking in the fall.

In the 1850s, school reformers like Horace Mann and Henry Barnard led a wave of change that affected the look of one-room schoolhouses. They believed schools should have good light, better heat, comfortable seats and separate entrances and cloakrooms for boys and girls. In their view, schoolhouses should have ‘civilizing’ architectural style and solid construction to uplift and inspire students.

They suggested the two entrances as a way to prevent ‘much confusion and rudeness’ and to promote ‘orderly habits.’

New England’s one-room schoolhouses began to reflect those physical changes. But they were slower to change something else: the district school.

Typically, towns divided themselves into school districts and made each district responsible for educating its students. Reformers attacked the district schools because they didn’t give all children an equal education. Some of the one-room schoolhouses had untrained teachers and none had a standard curriculum. Religious dogma often filled the children’s textbooks.

Ultimately, most one-room schoolhouses disappeared. They were moved, dismantled for reuse in other buildings or converted to a new use with additions and alterations. Some survived, however, and some serve as museums today reminding schoolchildren to be grateful for central heat, electricity, and a ban on corporal punishment.

Here, then, are six one-room-schoolhouses, one in each New England state. If you know of other one-room schoolhouses, please let us know in the comments section.

Wylie School

The Wylie School in Voluntown, Conn.

The Wylie School in Voluntown, Conn., is typical of the hundreds of ungraded one-room schoolhouses that predominated in rural Connecticut as late as the 1930s. It’s atypical, though, because it survived until today in relatively good condition.

In 1850, the town built the Wylie School and later named it after Horace Wylie, who donated the land. Unlike New England towns outside of Connecticut, It had financial help from the state. Connecticut set up a School Fund from the sale of the state’s land in the Western Reserve in Ohio, which includes Cleveland.

The Wylie school had two entrances to separate the 15 to 20 boys and girls who attended. It also had a three-hole privy that still survives.

One teacher, Miss Margaret Tanner, taught in Voluntown from 1909 to 1947. For many of those years she taught at the Wylie School, which didn’t close until 1939. The town never upgraded the school’s heating and sanitation beyond the wood stove and the outhouse.

Today the Voluntown Historical Society uses the Wylie School for meetings and events.

Jct. of Ekonk Hill and Wylie School Rds., Voluntown, Conn.

York Corner Schoolhouse

The York Corner Schoolhouse and Jefferds Tavern.

Maine, a largely rural state, had 4,000 one-room schoolhouses by 1900. That number fell to 226 in 1960 and today only a handful remain.

York has one that survived, the York Corner Schoolhouse. It’s one of the earliest existing 18^th-century one-room schoolhouses in the country. The town started building it in 1746, then paid two pounds 13 shillings to finish it nine years later. The windows had no glass, just oiled brown paper, and the school had no stove, just an open fireplace.

After the schoolhouse closed, a farmer converted it to a chicken coop. Local preservationists saved the building and converted it to a museum. Today it belongs to the Old York Historical Society’s nine historic buildings. In season, visitors can tour the Old Schoolhouse and Tavern.

Maine, by the way, still has six island one-room schoolhouses.

3 Lindsay Rd., York, Maine

West School

Old West in Dennis

The West School in the Cape Cod town of Dennis is the only remaining one-room schoolhouse of the twelve that once educated local schoolchildren. Built aroud 1770, it’s also the oldest in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Younger children attended school in the spring and summer, while the older ones went to school in winter when they had fewer farm chores.

The wooden building used to stand at the intersection of Old King’s Highway and New Boston Road. It operated as a schoolhouse until 1865, and then moved to 61 Whig Street in 1973. Today it’s part of the Josiah Dennis House property, which the Dennis Historical Society runs as a museum.

61 Whig St., Dennis, Mass.

Indian Stream Schoolhouse

A piece of North Country history: The Indian Stream Schoolhouse in Pittsburg, N.H.

The Indian Stream School, one of nine one-room schoolhouses in Pittsburg, N.H., was built and furnished in 1897 for a few hundred dollars. It educated students through the eighth grade, with the older students tutoring the younger.

The town closed the Indian Stream Schoolhouse in 1939, and it stood vacant for years. Then the son of one of its students, Roy Amey, came into possession of the school. The roof leaked, the floor sagged and the chimney had fallen in. Amey wanted to save it as a piece of North Country history, so he and others formed a nonprofit to restore the school.

In 2014, New Hampshire Public Radio interviewed Amey and Bernice Fish, a former student. Amey described how his father had attended the school in 1907.

My father talked about it as very strict, you were very respectful to the teachers, and you came here to learn. Very small classes, very cold in the winter. You’d come here in the morning and there would be snow on the floor, you’d track it in and it didn’t melt because there was no heat. You’d stand around the stove and shiver and wait for it to get going.

Fish recalled the primitive conditions:

We didn’t have electric lights we didn’t have a flush toilet. We had a pail of water out in the entry there. I think every one of us drank out of the same cup. That’s why we’re tough now! Sometimes the teacher would make us a pot of cocoa in order to give us something hot to drink.

Today it’s a museum open to the public on weekends during the summer and fall. Donations are requested.

10 Amey Dr., Pittsburg, N.H.

Southernmost Schoolhouse

The Southernmost Schoolhouse, one of the oldest one-room schoolhouses in the country.

Portsmouth, the second oldest town in Rhode Island, decided 300 years ago that learning was an ‘excellent ornament to mankind’ and authorized construction of two one-room schoolhouses: the Northernmost and the Southernmost. Built in 1725, the Southernmost still stands, and the Portsmouth Historical Society calls it the oldest schoolhouse in Rhode Island.

The Southernmost had a troubled early history. The first schoolmaster, James Preston, boarded with another family until he fell ill. The town let him and his family live in the basement of the school. After he died, his widow and her family used the school as their home until the town kicked them out in 1746.

The school was donated to the historical society in 1952, and today serves as a museum. Young visitors today are no doubt intrigued by the school’s precise menu for meting out corporal punishment:

Boys and girls playing together – 1 lash
Fighting at school – 5 lashes
Climbing for every foot over 3 feet up a tree – 1 lash
Giving each other ill names – 3 lashes
Wearing long fingernails – 2 lashes
Boys going to the girls’ play place – 3 lashes
Girls going to the boys’ play place – 2 lashes
For not saying yes or no sir or yes or no marm – 2 lashes

The worst infractions? You got seven lashes for lying and eight for telling tales out of school. Misbehaving to girls got you 10 lashes if you were a boy, while swearing at school got both sexes nine lashes.

870 E. Main Rd., Portsmouth, R.I.

Eureka Schoolhouse

The Eureka Schoolhouse, once painted yellow and blue.

The story of the Eureka Schoolhouse in Springfield, Vt., begins with the construction of the Crown Point military route between Fort No. 4 in Charlestown, N.H., with the fort at Crown Point on Lake Champlain. The road wasn’t just for the military; it was intended as a path for westward settlers, and Springfield, was the southern gateway.

Springfield settlers began working on the one-room schoolhouse in 1785, but didn’t finish it until 1790. Today it’s the oldest one-room schoolhouse in Vermont. Though built out of hand-hewn timbers, the settlers tried to give the primitive structure some style. They finished the walls in rough-cut wooden boards scored to resemble cut stone. Originally they painted it yellow with a cobalt blue roof.

The first schoolteacher, David Searle, gave the school its name. After he graduated from Yale he headed north to the Vermont frontier, looking for work. When he reached No. 4, residents told him Springfield wanted to hire a teacher. He followed the Crown Point Military Road, and when he spotted the new school he said, ‘Eureka’ — Greek for ‘I found it.’

Apparently he did his job well. A number of the students went on to attend Dartmouth College.

The town moved the school across the road in 1837. The school population dwindled and the town closed it in 1900. The abandoned building probably would have crumbled into the earth, save for a local preservationist named Anna Hartness Beardsley. She spearheaded the effort to carefully dismantle the structure in 1958, store it and then rebuild it using much of the original material. It reopened in 1968.

Today the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation owns the Eureka Schoolhouse, along with the Baltimore Covered Bridge; the Springfield Chamber of Commerce runs it as the centerpiece of a small historic site.

470 Charlestown Rd, Springfield, Vt.

End Notes

If you enjoyed this story about one-room schoolhouses, you may also want to read about the first public high school in each New England state here.

Images of one-room schoolhouses: Wylie School By Digitalpilgrim – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21161288; Old York School https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/96001495_text; Old West School in West Dennis, By Athanasius28 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27997051; Portsmouth RI Schoolhouse By Swampyank at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20439385; Indian Stream Schoolhouse By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51959410. This story was updated in 2019.

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The Surprising German U-boat Visit to Newport, RI, During WWI

A surprise German U-boat visit to Newport Harbor during World War I started with pleasantries and ended with mayhem just south of Nantucket.

Though it may have been a means to gather intelligence, the sudden U-boat visit on Oct. 7, 1916, turned out to be an unexpected publicity stunt, planned or unplanned. It also created an international uproar.

Newspaper photo of the surprise U-boat visit to Newport Harbor.

The Surprise U-Boat Visit

The sub, skippered by Kapitanleutnant Hans Rose, was first spotted near Point Judith, R.I.

As it approached the Brenton Reef Lightship, it requested permission to enter Newport Harbor, which was granted. From there, she sailed into port escorted by the American submarine D2 (Hull designation SS 18). The U-boat anchored near the U.S. Naval War College. among the Atlantic destroyer squadron near the USS Birmingham (Hull designation CS/CL 2), the flagship of Adm. Albert Gleaves.

World War I had been raging for two years, but the United States, officially neutral, had not yet entered the conflict.

Arriving about 2 pm, Capt. Rose rowed ashore and paid a courtesy call on the local naval officials. He invited them, their wives and the press to tour his vessel while in port. Several took advantage of the invitation and inspected the boat. Those who did reported the U-boat was neat and clean with little odor of fuel oil.

Hans Rose

While ashore, Capt. Rose spoke with a reporter about the U-boat visit and asked the reporter to mail a letter to the German Ambassador in Washington, Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff. While ashore, the captain also purchased several newspapers.

It ought be borne in mind that there was no press censorship because the United States was still a neutral nation. It was also common practice to print shipping news, the times of the coming and going of cargo vessels – a nice piece of intelligence for a commerce raider on the prowl.

During the few hours of the U-boat visit, the crew whiled away its time waving to people and playing phonograph records on deck.

The Submarine

The U-53, a super sub, was 212-feet long and displaced 715 tons. She could make 15 knots on the surface and 11 knots while submerged using two 1200 horsepower engines.

Her armament included four 18-inch torpedo tubes, two fore and two aft with a complement of 10 torpedoes aboard. The sub also had two deck guns, again fore and aft for surface attacks; one was a three-inch gun and one a four-inch.

An interesting aspect to the super sub was a design change altering the location of its ballast tanks. That enabled it to carry more fuel, giving it a range of about 7,500 miles. It also had a third periscope for use by the chief engineer.

Albert Gleaves

The boat included a radio capable transmitting and receiving signals for a range of 2000 miles.

The crew included the captain and three officers, the radio/electric officer, the chief engineer, and the executive/navigator, as well as a crew of 33 enlisted men.

At about 5:30 that same afternoon, the boat and crew departed Newport while the crew on the deck waved and saluted people along the shoreline. So ended an unexpected and unusual U-boat visit.

The next day, however, would bring a turn of events that precipitated a diplomatic firestorm and the demise of several ships, perhaps caused by intelligence from the free press of a neutral nation.

Unmitigated Gall

The U-53, a commerce raider, then did what a commerce raider does. It proceeded to score hits and sink several ships off the Massachusetts coast. The ships sank south of the Nantucket Lightship, clearly outside American territorial limits.

Sixteen destroyers led by the flagship Birmingham quickly came to pick up survivors of the sunken ships. So quickly did they arrive on the scene of the first victims, that they witnessed the nefarious activity and continuing mayhem. Indeed, the submarine almost collided with one destroyer. And, in an example of unmitigated gall, U-boat Capt. Rose requested that a destroyer get out of his way so he could sink yet another ship. Those were different times.

A total of six ships were sunk of British, French and Danish registry. American ships didn’t interfere because the U.S. was neutral. The sinkings also happened outside of U.S. territorial limits and the German captain acted entirely within the rules of the international prize court law.

Following those rules, the Germans notified their ship victims they were about to be sunk. They allowed everyone aboard to disembark via lifeboat. Thus there was no loss of life. So much for ‘the courtesy of war,’ as the Newport Daily News put it.

U-Boat Visit: A Warning

Needless to say, the U-boat visit alarmed the British because it demonstrated the extent of its threat. They were also angered by the U-boat attack in the presence of American destroyers.

Diplomats eventually smoothed over the so-called ‘row’ over the incident.

However, as historian Brian Wallin has written, “The incident demonstrated the destructive power of German U-boats and served as a warning of what would come if the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies.”

USS Jacob Jones

Before the war ended, U-boat 53 racked up 80 sinkings, including one American destroyer, the USS Jacob Jones (Hull designation DD 61). It was the first American ship sunk by the Germans after the U.S. declared war in April 1917.

U-boat 53 successfully evaded the British blockade, having changed its hull number to U-boat 61, and returned to Germany.

At the end of the war, U-boat 53 surrendered to the Allies on December 1, 1918. Capt. Rose no longer commanded the sub when it was scrapped at Swansea, England in 1922. He retired, highly decorated, after 15 years of naval service. Rose finally passed away in 1969 at the age of 84.

Leo Caisse, the author of this story, passed away in 2020. He published the book, The Civilian Conservation Corps: A Guide to Their Works in Rhode Island. He also published a number of historical articles, including Ears On the World in America in World War II Magazine, October, 2017. Leo earned a B.A. and M.A. in American History from Providence College and he lived in East Providence, R.I.

If you’re interested in U-boat warfare in the Atlantic, you may be interested in this story about U-boats in World War II here. This story was updated in 2023.

Images: Hans Rose By Unknown photographer – [1], CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4770712.

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Six Lovers Leaps in New England

Lovers leaps are nearly always found in isolated spots where a fall could kill you. They tend to inspire tales of romantic tragedy, often involving a star-crossed Indian maiden (beautiful, of course) and her lover. Sometimes, though, the stories may surprise you.

The United States has 25 designated lovers leaps, including ones in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine. We had little difficulty, however, finding lovers leaps in New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Do you know of another lovers leap, other than the six listed below? If so, please mention it in the comments section.

Lovers Leap Bridge, New Milford, Conn.

Lovers Leap Bridge

Lovers Leap Park includes about 140 acres along the Housatonic River and a high cliff that inspired several legends. According to one, an Indian princess named Lillinonah fell in love with an Englishman. When her lover left her and didn’t return, the despairing princess paddled her canoe over the Great Falls. But then, just as she entered the rapids, he reappeared. When he tried to save her they both drowned.

A second version has the two lovers forbidden to see each other, so broken-hearted and distraught they jumped off the high cliffs together.

The Housatonic widens at one point into a lake today called Lake Lillinonah. In 1895, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company built Lovers Leap Bridge, well after the mythical lovers died.

Lovers Leap Park straddles the Housatonic Gorge near Connecticut Route 67 and Connecticut Route 202.

Lovers Leap Park, Bangor, Maine

The Kenduskeag Stream in Bangor

Bangor, Maine, has a lovers leap along the scenic Kenduskeag Stream Trail, which cuts through the center of the city.

Someone thoughtfully put an informational sign along the cliff known as Lovers Leap. Not surprisingly, it tells the story of a beautiful Native American maiden who fell in love with a handsome young settler. “After she was denied permission to marry him by her chieftain father, the couple leapt off the cliff hand-in-hand rather than live their lives apart,” the sign says.

Old postcards featuring the lovers leap name the young woman Tahalta or Tahiti, and the young man Shawano.

People have actually fallen off the cliff. And other parts of the Kenduskeag have inspired romance. In 1882, The History of Penobscot, Maine, described a poem carved into a tree along the river:

Of lovely Sophia’s eyes beware, / Mirth and mischief mingle there; / I with her have careless laugh’d, / Nor fear’d shy beauty’s dangerous shaft; / But pensive now I linger here, / To trace a name forever dear.

Remnants of old mills dot the banks of the Kenduskeag Stream, and one can see the more prosaically named Shopping Cart Rapids from Lovers Leap.

The image shows a more benign section of the Kenduskeag Stream, behind Bangor’s post office. Another local legend claims that section of the waterway inspired Stephen King’s IT.

Purgatory Chasm State Reservation, Sutton, Mass.

Lovers leap in Purgatory Chasm, Mass.

There’s little love in the story of the lovers leap in Sutton, Mass. The leap is a narrow 70-foot-deep chasm, with about two miles of hiking trails around it.

The legend has an Algonquin Indian woman killing a white settler and walking away from her crime. She ran into another settler and tried to run away. When he grabbed her, she called out to her god Hobomoko for help. The settler then revealed himself as Hobomoko, took her by the waist and flew to the site of Purgatory Chasm. There he stomped his feet and swung his tomahawk, forming the 70-foot-deep chasm. Then he threw his victim into it.

Geologists, on the other hand, say a glacier let loose meltwater, which ripped apart blocks of bedrock 14,000 years ago.

Massachusetts made Purgatory Chasm a state park in 1919. Since then, Purgatory Chasm has inspired a poem, a song and a novel.

Lovers Leap, West Derry, NH

Lovers Leap in West Derry, N.H.

Beaver Brook in West Derry, N.H., has a stone arch bridge over it, built by the Manchester and Lawrence Railroad in 1848. For years people called it Lovers Leap Bridge, assuming it had to do with the usual Indian maiden flinging herself off it after the usual doomed love affair.

But that’s not it, according to a 1915 account reported in the Derry News. The story goes that an Indian chief in Derry (then Nutfield) called Flying Cloud had a beautiful daughter named Bright Eyes. She had many suitors, but the only one she loved was White Feather. White Feather, though, came from a different tribe, and her father hated him. One day he discovered them together by the stream now called Beaver Brook.

Flying Cloud ran after White Feather with a tomahawk, but the young man picked up Bright Eyes and carried her down the hill toward Beaver Brook. He reached his canoe, and they paddled toward Nassana (now Nashua), where his tribe had camped.

Eventually, Flying Cloud sent an ambassador to make peace with the young couple, and they all lived happily ever after.

The story is at best improbable, especially since it identifies White Feather as a Sioux, not exactly a tribe that hung out in New Hampshire. But you can hike to Lovers Leap Bridge along the 3.6 mile Derry rail trail.

Purgatory Chasm, Middletown, RI

Purgatory Chasm, a Rhode Island lovers leap.

In New England you can often find the same thing in two states. Such is the case of the other narrow, deep Purgatory Chasm in Middletown, R.I. The story of the lovers leap, however, is different.

Legend has it that a beautiful young heiress had received the ardent affection of a young man who was her social equal. She shared his feelings but hid them from him.

One day they stood on the edge of Purgatory Chasm and he begged her for some show of love. She told him he could prove his devotion to her by jumping across the chasm. The young man leaped across the divide, tipped his hat, praised her looks, condemned her character and then dumped her. She never saw him again, and went into mourning for the rest of her life.

Like the Purgatory Chasm in Massachusetts, a glacier formed the one in Rhode Island. It overlooks the Sachuest Beach, which interests geologists because of its peculiar elongated pebbles. The hike from the parking lot on Tuckerman Avenue to the chasm is short, only three-tenths of a mile.

Lovers Leap, Cavendish, Vt.

The Black River in Cavendish, Vt.

The Black River carves out a ravine in the lower part of Cavendish, Vt., creating falls, rapids, caves and romantic scenery. Lovers Leap rises at a turn in the ravine. Locals tell a legend about it, but it has nothing to do with love — well, at least, the love between people.

The story goes that two young farmers went to the Lovers Leap to gather some rocks for a foundation wall. They began to quarry when one of the farmers lost his balance and stumbled down the cliff. His companion looked over the edge, expecting to see a mangled corpse. However, the victim was crawling up the side of the precipice. “Are you hurt much?” the first farmer shouted.

The victim slowly and painfully stood, then began to search his pockets. A look of grave concern crossed his face. “Waal, I ain’t hurt much, but I’ll be durned if I haven’t lost my jack-knife.”

Lovers leap state park conn. By Jllm06 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56688546; Lovers Leap Bridge By RHSHAW57 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22394866; Kenduskeag Stream Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=970222; Purgatory Chasm By Dale E. Martin (Martinde) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5027847; West Derry postcard, Derry Public Library by Creative Commons 2.0; Purgatory Chasm, Newport, by Paul Irish, Creative Commons 2.0; Stereoscopic view of the Black River courtesy New York Public Library.

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The Hypnotized Bride of 1908 – Madelon Kenmore Looker Coburn Le Compte

In 1908, police in New Hampshire drew up a complaint against Madelon Kenmore, a woman they knew as Madelon Coburn. The charge was bigamy.

Born in 1878 as Madelon Kenmore, she claimed English heritage but grew up in Astoria, Long Island. In 1905, at just 17, she eloped to Albany with Irving Looker, a young son of a diamond merchant. So why, the police wanted to know, had she married a New Hampshire minister named William Coburn in 1908?

Rev. William Coburn ran a sanitarium in Wakefield, N.H. where he sold patent medicines and treated certain patients. He was financially successful. But perhaps not too wise in the ways of love.

A widower, Coburn fell in love with one of his young patients, Medelon Kenmore. However, Madelon did not inform Coburn that she was already married. She had threatened divorce, even hired private investigators to catch Irving Looker having an affair. But she had not completed the process.

When confronted with the charge of bigamy, Madelon at first denied it. She swore she had never married Coburn. Coburn’s sons supported their father’s claim.

Further, the Rev. Orrin Baker swore that he had performed the marriage ceremony. Not only that, he said, he had received a letter from a woman calling herself Madelon Looker, asking that he destroy all records of the marriage because her husband was accusing her of bigamy.

The Love Triangle

Soon, Madelon was at the center of a standoff. William Coburn declared that he still loved Madelon. He would make their marriage legal if she would go ahead with her divorce from Irving Looker. Irving said virtually the same thing. If she would drop the divorce matter and have her marriage to Coburn annulled, he would gladly reunite with her.

Then Madelon’s lawyer changed her story dramatically. She had, in fact, married Coburn. The evidence was clear. But the marriage happened when she was being treated at his sanitarium under hypnosis. He had married her while she was completely under the spell of hypnosis and could not recall any of it.

Whatever evidence she had was enough to persuade New Hampshire’s Gov. Charles Floyd to drop any attempt to extradite Madelon to face bigamy charges.

Gov. Charles Floyd

Having cleared away the New Hampshire charges, Madelon’s lawyer returned to the court to announce her decision. She was pressing ahead with her divorce from Irving Looker. She presented evidence that he had been at a hotel with another woman.

Finally in April of 1909 the court found for Madelon and she won her divorce. They cleared the way for Madelon to return to Rev. Coburn.

The Bumpy Road to Love

Not so fast, her lawyer said. His next stop was New Hampshire where he intended to have Madelon’s marriage to Coburn annulled. It would give her a fresh start at age 30.

Rev. Coburn took a prolonged trip west to avoid additional embarrassment, though it’s doubtful he outran the story. The hypnotized bride made headlines across the country.

Madelon Kenmore Looker Coburn made one more trip down the matrimonial aisle. This time she married an engineer from Long Island, Edward Le Compte, whose wife had left him for their chauffeur. Madelon’s first marriages were tame compared to the Le Compte union.

Madelon was a wealthy woman, both in her own right and because of her husbands. She drove in a bright yellow limousine and lived well.

But her relations with Edward quickly grew tense. They fought over a house he gave to his first wife. They were arrested for arguing so loudly in the street that they were declared a nuisance and sentenced to 30 days in jail each.

The Last Lawsuits of Madelon Kenmore

In 1912, the couple began slugging it out in court for a divorce. Edward managed to convince the court to lock Madelon up in an insane asylum. After three days she was released and proceeded to court to charge he was dishonest and scheming against her.

While locked away he had stolen furniture and silver from the house. Madelon accused Edward of trying to strangle her. Her father bailed his son-in-law out of jail.

Postcard view of Wakefield (Sanbornville is a village within the town)

Madelon’s family, meanwhile, said they felt she was mentally unsound. A psychiatrist said she suffered from “litigating paranoia,” a disease that prompted her to incessantly file lawsuits against others. He also noted that Madelon relied heavily on patent medication with ingredients that could explain some erratic behaviors.

The couple tried a brief reconciliation, and Madelon borrowed $6,000 to help Edward relaunch his career. Edward absconded with the money. He would return home later, sick with tuberculosis. Madelon nursed him for several months until he was so sick he had to be hospitalized. He died in the hospital, though not before he wrote to her and asked forgiveness.

If you liked this article, you might enjoy In the Gilded Age, Marriages Began in NY and Ended in RI, America’s Divorce Capital. This story was updated in 2022.

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The Revolutionary Holidays You May or May Not Celebrate

Revolutionary holidays didn’t start and end with Independence Day.

When the Revolutionary War ended, Trumbull, Conn., celebrated with A Great Jubilee Day on May 26, 1783. The grand event featured militia maneuvers, feasting, prayer, speeches and toasts. The town was then called Stratford, and the holiday is now called Memorial Day.

Historic reenactment at Mount Independence

Holidays used to be local affairs, and they often moved around the calendar. For many years, the entire United States celebrated only two annual holidays: Washington’s Birthday and the Fourth of July. Much of New England, of course, didn’t celebrate Christmas.

Early Thanksgivings happened when state or local officials decided it happened. In 1816, for example, Massachusetts celebrated Thanksgiving on November 28, while New Hampshire observed it on November 14. It wasn’t until 1941 that Congress passed a federal law making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.

New Englanders continue to celebrate Revolutionary holidays that commemorate events in the war with Britain. They tend to happen in the summer, often to attract tourists to their craft fairs, parades and reenactments.

Revolutionary Holidays in RI and Vermont

The Burning of the Gaspee by Charles deWolf Brownell, c1892

Since 1965, Pawtuxet Village in Warwick and Cranston, R.I., has celebrated Gaspee Days around Memorial Day. The festival commemorates Rhode Island’s version of the Boston Tea Party, when patriots burned a British customs schooner in 1772.

Celebrations of the Gaspee Affair in 2018 include a road race, parade, party, fireworks and reenactment of the ship burning.

In Vermont, Bennington Battle Day is celebrated every August 16. Vermont is perhaps the only state to commemorate an event that happened in another state. The Battle of Bennington, an important victory in the American Revolution, took place in 1777 in New York.

Bennington Battle Day happens every year with a battle reenactment, but the local historical society holds events throughout the summer. The 2018 Bennington Battle Celebration includes a road race, a ceremony at the memorial and a fashion show of historic costumes.

Powder House Day

New Haven celebrates Powder House Day every year to commemorate the events of April 22, 1775. Then Capt. Benedict Arnold and his Governor’s Foot Guard were eager to help out during the Siege of Boston. So they demanded the keys to the powder house so they could actually use their weapons.

Benedict Arnold celebrated in one of Connecticut’s revolutionary holidays.

Town Meeting had voted against sending help, but the Foot Guard ignored the vote.

Arnold sent a message to the selectmen that if he didn’t get the keys in five minutes, his men would break into the power house. He got the keys.

In 2018, New Haven celebrated Powder House Day on April 21 with a memorial service at the Center Church on the Green. Then a re-enactor playing Arnold marched across the Green and demands a key from the mayor. (Click here for the script.)

The day also featured carriage rides, a parade and tours of the new trees planted on the Green.

Margaretta Days

The first naval battle of the American Revolution took place in Machias, Maine (then Massachusetts). Today Margaretta Days is still one of Machias’ Revolutionary holidays.

During the Siege of Boston, British authorities asked Ichabod Jones, a Loyalist merchant in Machias, to help obtain supplies for the army. In June 1775, two of Jones’ vessels and the Margaretta, an armed British sloop, arrived in the harbor. The townspeople tried to arrest Jones on June 11 and went after the Margaretta’s commander, who escaped. The townspeople then seized one of Jones’ ships, armed a second and chased after the Margaretta. A short battle resulted in the death of the commander and several others, as well as the capture of the Margaretta.

In 2018, Machias celebrates Margaretta Days on June 16 with a reenactment, children’s activities, period foods and artisan demonstrations.

Hack Holidays

The Massachusetts Statehouse

Eighty years ago a state law gave two holidays to state and municipal workers in Boston and the rest of Suffolk County, but not to anyone else. Government workers could take off March 17, Evacuation Day, which commemorates the day British troops and Loyalist sympathizers began to leave Boston. They can also take off June 17 to observe the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Critics say the Revolutionary holidays reflect Massachusetts’, shall we say, overdeveloped government bureaucracy. They ridicule the ‘hack holidays’ that occur once a month except for August, when government employees take long vacations anyway.

Massachusetts hack holidays include New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King Day in January, Presidents Day in February, Evacuation Day in March, Patriots Day in April, Memorial Day in May, Bunker Hill Day in June, Independence Day in July, Labor Day in September, Columbus Day in October, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving in November and Christmas in December.

Revolutionary Holidays That Disappeared

One of the Revolutionary holidays that disappeared was Boston’s Massacre Day.

Patriots celebrated the holiday every March 5 from 1771 to 1783 to commemorate the 1770 Boston Massacre. Each year a prominent patriot delivered a speech, which would then be printed. When 1783 brought the end of the American Revolution, Boston officials decided to replace Massacre Day with Independence Day.

Fast Day wasn’t one of the Revolutionary holidays until it became one.

Since at least 1670, New Englanders regularly set aside fast days to, well, fast, attend church and ask God for blessings.

Massachusetts celebrated Fast Day until 1894, when the Legislature changed it to Patriots’ Day to commemorate the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Maine jumped on the Revolutionary holidays bandwagon and did the same in 1897. New Hampshire clung to the Fast Day tradition until 1991, when it became Civil Rights Day in January.

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George Berkeley, World-Famous Philosopher, Moves to the Wilds of RI in 1729

Bishop George Berkeley was a world famous Anglo-Irish philosopher by the time he stepped onto dry land in Newport, R.I., on Jan. 23, 1729.

Berkeley famously asked the question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” His answer: Yes, because God heard it.

George Berkeley by John Smibert

Not every 18th-century philosopher agreed with Berkeley’s argument that reality isn’t separate from perception. But today philosophy professors rank him up there with his contemporaries, David Hume and John Locke.

So what was he doing in colonial Rhode Island?

He came to America because he intended to open a college in Bermuda. He believed the Protestant religion had lost ground, and America was the likeliest place to make up for what was lost in Europe.

George Berkeley

George Berkeley was born in his family castle in County Kilkenny. By the time he arrived in Rhode Island, he had already established a lasting reputation as a philosopher, taken holy orders in the Church of Ireland and been named Dean of Derry.

George Berkeley and his new wife bought a farmhouse in Middletown, R.I. When he enlarged the home he called Whitehall, he remodeled the door case in Palladian style. By doing so he introduced Palladianism to America.

Trinity Church, on Queen Anne Square in Newport, R.I., founded in 1698. The current building was built in 1726.

Berkeley in America

While Berkeley awaited funds for his college to arrive, his wife gave birth to a son, who survived, and a daughter, who didn’t. They buried Lucia Berkeley in the Trinity Church yard in Newport.

While in America, Berkeley wrote a book, preached at nearby churches and founded the Philosophical Society, which became the Redwood Library. Fittingly, he also wrote the poem, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.

The Redwood Library, courtesy Library of Congress.

The money for his college never arrived, so he departed for England in September 1731. He gave his library and Whitehall to Yale College, stipulating the income from the property support three Yale scholars. Yale named one of its colleges after him.

Yale rented the building as an inn for many years. The portrait painter Gilbert Stuart’s grandfather ran it and Dr. Alexander Hamilton stayed there.

Whitehall today

Whitehall fell into a state of neglect until 1899, when the Colonial Dames of America got a 999-year lease on it. They commissioned Norman Isham to restore two rooms. Today it is the Whitehall Museum House, at 311 Berkeley Ave.

For information about visiting hours in the summer, call 401 846-3116 or email [email protected].

And yes, Berkeley, Calif., was named after Rhode Island’s prominent visitor.

Images: Whitehall By JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23611134. Trinity Church By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21777526. This story was updated in 2022.

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