NEW KENT ACADEMY.

THIS School will be continued next year at St. Peter's Church, New Kent. The first term will commence on the 3d day of January. Tuition as heretofore, 35 dollars per year for the higher branches, and 35 dollars per year for English studies, due at the close of each term. Boarding 80 dollars per year, beds excepted The superior qualifications of my Assistant Instructor will enable me to present to the youth who attend my school, advantages for literary and scientific improvement, which flatter myself are not exceeded in any Academy in Virginia:- and parents may rest assured that the morals and deportment of the youth who attend the school, will claim our particular regard. To recommend my school to public patronage, I depend on the improvement of those who enjoy its advantages.                                                JON SILLIMAN.
New Kent, Dec. 18                                                    69-4t

-Richmond Enquirer, 21 December 1824

Jonathan Silliman was born in Chester, Conn, July 22, 1793, and died in Cornwall, N.Y., May 13, 1885, aged nearly 92 years. He was the son of Deacon Thomas and Huldah (Dunk) Silliman and the grandson of the Rev. Robert Silliman (Y.C. 1737.) 

He studied theology in Andover Seminary, teaching meantime for one year in Phillips Academy and finishing his professional studies in 1821. He soon went South and labored as a home missionary in eastern Virginia, being ordained on October 8, 1823. In 1830 he was settled over the Presbyterian Church in New Kent, Va., and on September 5, 1832, he married Anna, daughter of the late Rev. Dr Amzi Armstrong of Perth Amboy, N.J., and widow of Mr. Jared Mead; she was a woman of remarkable intelligence. As both his own and his wife's health suffered from the Virginia climate, they returned to the North in 1835, and in the same year he was installed over the Canterbury Presbyterian Church in Cornwall, Orange County, N.Y., where he labored in the ministry until his voluntary retirement in 1862. He continued his residence among his former people, and his benign presence was felt as a benediction. 

His wife died January 24, 1882. Their only child a colonel, in the Union army, died at Beaufort, S.C., in 1864.

-Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University ... Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Alumni 1880

School Report of 1839- Part II

Some more information pertinent to the early "public" schools of New Kent post of April 2.

A)The post mentioned the "200 poor children in county." The 1840 Census luckily breaks down by race, sex and age. To give you and idea of what percentage of the county's children were considered poor. Looking at school age children, for New Kent it gives a total of 359 white males aged 5 through 14, and 307 females the same age.(The school system of course was only available to whites.)

B)Some background on the public school system, such as it was, of the time.

Charity or Public Schools-  . . . The lack of funds, as we have seen, was the cause of the failure of Jefferson's [education] plan of 1796, and this law[school law of 1810] said that all money coming into the state treasury from fines, forfeitures and certain other sources should be set aside to provide schools for the poor children in every county. The money thus set aside was called the "Literary Fund." In 1816 the money loaned by Virginia to the United States government in 1812 to help carry on the war with Great Britain was repaid to Virginia, and the General Assembly added this money, amounting to over $1,200,000, to the Literary Fund. Beginning in 1818 $45,000 each year was paid out of the interest on this fund for schools. Later on the amount increased as more fines came in. 

Only the children of poor white people could get the benefit of this money. In 1825 for instance, 10,226 children went to these schools; in 1851 31,486 were sent, and in 1859 54,232 were sent, the money coming annually from the fund for the schools being about $160,000. The schools were charity schools and wrongly called public schools. They were open only about three months in the year and nothing but reading writing and arithmetic were taught. Especially in the eastern section of Virginia it was considered a disgrace to be so poor as to have to go to the "public schools" and long after they had ceased to be charity schools and had become schools for all classes, rich and poor alike, and good enough for the richest as well as the poorest boy and girl, the "public school" was looked down upon in some parts of Virginia because the old idea of charity school still stuck.   

-School History of Virginia- Edgar Sydenstricker, Ammen Lewis Burger-1914

School Report of 1839

ABSTRACT OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS REPORTS FOR THE YEAR 1839 

NEW KENT- The teachers patronized by the school commissioners are of good moral character and qualifications. The children progress as well as children generally do and some beyond mediocrity The school commissioners take the liberty of suggesting an opinion, that if the price of tuition were raised to six cents per day, more good might be done. Most of the common school teachers would not take them in their schools, but for philanthropic feelings, and the more efficient teachers, who reject them now, might be induced to take them in their schools.

-9 common schools

-200 poor children in county

-56 attending per diem

-5384 days attended

-rate of tuition 4 cents a day

-$250.88 annual expenditure 

Play Ball

     Base-ball and Commencement Exercises

           [For the Dispatch.] 

The people of New Kent and James City counties had the pleasure of witnessing at Barhamsville on Tuesday the 13th one of the finest games of ball ever played in this section, it was between the West Point and Lofty Academy clubs. The academy boys won by a score of 6 to 5, Mr. Diggs, of the Point, being umpire. 

The night following (14th) about six hundred persons assembled at Liberty church to witness the closing exercises of the academy. It was a most enjoyable occasion, such as Major Vaiden always gives, and the immense crowd present attest their popularity, Fauquier county carried off most of the prizes, Master E.L. Childs getting an elegant cup, while Messrs. Shumate, Holtzclaw, and Coates won beautiful premiums.       A PATRON

-  Richmond Dispatch- June 17, 1888

"Under the Management of Competent Teachers"

             
                                             NEW KENT FEMALE SCHOOL

THE exercises of this School will be resumed on the 16th October, under the management of competent teachers,and will close on the 15th of August, 1849.

Board and Tuition in the English branches, $100 

French,                                                       10

Music, and the use of Piano,                         25

One half of the Board and Tuition will be expected to be paid when the scholar enters the school, or the 1st January, and the other half on the 1st May.          

                                                                           R.T.LACY.

-Richmond Enquirer, 22 September 1848

A Repeat: The Barhamsville School Controversy, Pt. 1

While doing some blog "house keeping" I came across theses postings from March of 2011, and thought that after tidying them up they might bear repeating . . .

FIERCE FEUD ABOUT SCHOOLS

New Kent Community Wrought Up.Two School-Houses Burned.

The citizens of New Kent county, in the neighborhood of Barhamsville, are greatly wrought up over school matters. Two school-houses have recently been burned, both, under very unusual circumstances, as the superintendent of the county schools himself states. And two neighborhoods are waging a fierce tight against each other. They have done so for nearly ten years, and the settlement is apparently further off than ever before. Superintendent George  Fisher, of the New Kent Schools, was in the city yesterday to lay the matter before Dr. Southall the Superintendent of Public, instruction. He makes a lengthy report to Dr Southall stating that he is in a serious dilemma, and asks for advise as to what is best to be done.

INVOLVES PROMINENT PEOPLE.

To give a history of this trouble, which involves some of the most prominent people in that section of the county, is to give the history of the two neighborhoods of Barhamsville and Bradenham for ten years past. The feud started, between two families many years ago. A member of one family was supposed to have said something ugly about a prominent member of another family. Later this family wanted a school in their section of the county, that is, down near Plum Point. This is the Weir Creek district. The other family, with all that was in them, opposed it. A Board of Reference was called and the new school was decided upon. This became the "Bradenham" School. But the other family and their friends who lived at Barhamsville have fought the school ever since. Mr. Fisher says that it has been the "bone of contention" ever since it was built.

FEUD BREAKS OUT AFRESH.

And so matters went on, the two neighborhoods nagging at each other until the fresh break came last fall. The Bradenham and the Barhamsville schools are only a mile and a half apart. All the children at Barhamsville and between the Bradenham school and Barhamsville have been attending the latter school, no parent deigning to send a child to the Bradenham school. All the patrons of the Bradenham school lived down the county on the other side of Bradenham. Matters took a curious turn as a result of the feud. The patrons of the Bradenham school wanted the school moved into their neighborhood. The Barhamsville faction would not hear to this, and determined to fight it with all their might.They didn't send their children there,but they were not willing to see the school moved on the ground that the locality to which Bradenham people wanted to take it was not healthy, etc. So matters stood and the question of moving had not been settled. It was apparently settled, however, just before the session, was to begin last fall, by the Bradenham schoolhouse being burned in the night. Mr Fisher says that no fire had been built in the house for months.

FEARED ANOTHER FIRE.

In due time a new schoolhouse was begun. But so strong was the suspicion of the incendiary origin of the fire and so certain did some feel that the new schoolhouse would also be burned that the persons who sold the lumber to the building contractor refused to deliver it until he had taken out a builder's insurance. About the middle of last month patrons of the Bradenham School sent a petition to Mr. Fisher asking for a Board of Reference to determine whether or not the new school-house, which was then half finished, should be moved to the place they wanted!. The board decided that it should be moved. The leader of this movement is recognized to be Mr. W. Jackson Taylor. But the contractor said that he was employed to build the school-house there and there he would build it. Just at Christmas the Barhamville patrons sent a petition to the Board of Reference asking it to reconsider its action. Mr. C. Sylvanus Goddin is said to be the leader here.

OTHER SCHOOL-HOUSE BURNED.

Close upon this petition, just-ten days ago the school-house at Barhamsville was burned to the ground. Mr. Fisher admits that he is at his wits end to know what to do, and wants the advice of the State superintendent.

- The Richmond Times, January 22, 1902

The Beginnings of the George W. Watkins School . . .

 The beginning of the funding that would transition the New Kent Training School to the George W. Watkins School.

Virginia County Votes Negro School Bonds

New Kent Courthouse, Va March 22 (AP)

Citizens of New Kent County today overwhelmingly endorsed a  proposed $120,000 bond issue for the construction of a new Negro school near Quinton. Citizens from six precincts voted 272 in favor of the bond issue and 48 against it.

Plans call for the construction of an 8-room school with auditorium and modern sanitation facilities on the site of the present school, on Route 33, about 8 miles west of here.

-Washington Post, March 23,1949