Historic leaves, volume 7, April, 1908 - January, 1909

[40] an average attendance of twenty. In consequence of this decrease, the committee voted at its meeting, held June 27, that Milk Street Primary be discontinued after the summer vacation, and that two assistant teachers be employed, one at the Prospect Hill Primary, the other at the Franklin Primary.

At their meeting held July 13, the Committee voted ‘to recommend to the Selectmen to offer suitable reward for the apprehension and conviction of the person or persons who caused the destruction of the Milk Row Primary School on the night of the 11th instant.’ July 31 Clark Bennett (of the Committee) was authorized to clear up the ruins and put the fence in order. In their annual report for 1849 is the following allusion to this event: ‘The school on the borders of the Burial Ground (Milk Street Primary), much to the surprise and indignation of our community, has fallen by the torch of the incendiary. The scholars most of them were transferred to the Prospect Hill School with their teacher, who continued there until the semiannual examination in the autumn.’

If indignation got the better of the School Committee and the community in general, we know for a fact that there was one sincere mourner when this, the one historic school of Somerville, was reduced to ashes never to rise again. From her immediate family we learn that Miss Adaline Louise Sanborn, daughter of David Ambrose and Hannah Adams (Stone) Sanborn, was born in Charlestown, January 11, 1824. The house where she died is still standing, being No. 253 Washington Street. She was educated in the schools of her native town, and besides attending the Female Seminary on Austin Street, Charlestown, where so many Somerville girls finished their education in those days, she received instruction in the French language from Rev. Henry Bacon, who resided for a time on Walnut Street. She died of typhoid fever November 16, 1850, aged twenty-six years, ten months.

In closing this history, which is not so complete as I could wish, I cannot help expressing the hope that some time the Somerville Historical Society may be instrumental in setting up a memorial tablet or marker near where, this old schoolhouse