Exploring a Site: #5 Hackleboro School

History

To begin with a deep look at the history of this lot, we note that generations of the original settlers occupied this land for 13,000 or so years. Because this land was not much favored for growing crops or settling in villages, we believe that while the hunting may have been very productive here, little other activity took place. Thus for the first hundred years of European settlement here in the Western World, little changed in these hills for the indigenous people. However, through disease, warfare, and treaties the area became “open” to the new settlers as the British royal owners began laying out towns further and further from the Atlantic Coast.

The early history of this site is documented on page 1 in “History of the Town of Canterbury” by James Otis Lyford, 1912. So here we go, back to Lyford’s rendering of the original 14 May 1727 charter of the town given by the representative of King George II, when Royal Lieutenant Governor John Wentworth gathered 199 men at the meeting house at Oyster River Falls in the town of Durham. By the end of that meeting these men became the Proprietors (owners) of 121 square miles of frontier country, later known as Canterbury, Loudon, and Northfield. That day Paul Gerrish, Paul Wentworth, and John Smith were appointed to be the first selectmen. However, the next step needed to open the land to occupation by people of European ancestry didn’t occur until four years later, 27 May 1731, when the Proprietors “drew lots”.

That meant that the numbers 1 thru 199 were placed in a container and each man drew a number, which became his lot. In this case a “40 acre Home Lot”. The record shows that by then (1731) the survey and division of the prime land of the town had been completed. While the team that surveyed and marked out the lots on the ground were charged with making the lots to be 40 acres each, either by happenstance or choice, when we look at a modern map we can see that sometimes the acreage was not actually 40 acres. So while we do know who the first Proprietor was for your lot, we can state with no certainty the actual size of the lot. Without further research there is no explanation for this discrepancy.

More History

This school sat on land conveyed from Moses Brown to Edmund Greenleaf in 1811 (RCRD Book 211 Page 163), which reserves the school site, located where Lyford shows the Hackleborough School District #5 as on the northeast corner of the Hackleboro Road junction with Briar Bush Road, Page 433. The school seems to have been built around 1820 (Lyford p. 434-435), and replaced an earlier structure. Which for much of the time must have been filled with children from the Foster clan who had been in the neighborhood for at least 40 years! Again referring to Lyford, the school was apparently closed in 1889 as he cites on page 397 that the Hackleborough District school closed and the students were sent to attend the newly opened Kezer Seminary on Baptist Road.

Lyford further explains that “In accordance with prevailing customs…..this school district had lyceums, debating clubs and singing schools……which stimulated new thought and interest…… .and constituted a large part of the social enjoyment of the inhabitants”. In fact, these activities may have continued for some time after the building was no longer used as a public school.

What we found

Without a cellar hole, this “flat” foundation, while only 11 feet from Briar Bush Road, is hidden by dense brush and unnoticed by us all. After very little removal of fallen branches and some raking, we determined that the footprint of the school is probably 18’ east/west, and 32’ parallel to Briar Bush Road. We were unable to find clear evidence of  foundation stones at the S.W. corner. So it could be that the “main north part” was 16’ by 18’ with a southerly entry way 8’ by 16’. Our guess is that overall it was 18’ X 32’.

Some Artifacts

At the south end of the foundation is a shallow depression which may represent the entryway. It seems to have attracted the attention of “treasure hunters” sometime many years ago. In excavating in this disturbed ground near the middle of that south line, the foot of a ceramic bowl was recovered with the following inscription: “T.J & J. Mayer’s/Berlin Ironstone”. A quick look at Google presents “A Closer Look At The Berlin Swirl Ceramic Pattern  February 28, 2017”. This British article indicates that the first Berlin Ironstone appearing under the maker’s mark TJ & J Mayer was in evidence by the 1840s.

Additional artifacts from that location included several cut nails of at least three sizes, heavily encrusted, with several bent, and some fragments. Clear glass shards, and another piece of white glazed ceramics were also recovered. As was a bit of charred wood. This excavation reached about 14” below grade.

Where the original foundation sill is now evident, we find the top course of stones to be very flat on top, and often accompanied by smaller, very flat rocks that appear to be the shim stones from the “missing” quarried and cut granite blocks that cap most ancient foundations in Canterbury. These we assume were hauled away just after the building was razed.

 In the North West corner, inside the few foundation stones there, we find a large mound of brick fragments from half bricks to tiny fragments just beneath the duff layer, about 8 feet in extent, and mixed with many fragments of charred firewood, small chunks of what appear to be mortar and others that seem to be plaster,  an occasional glass shard, and one metal object ( a food container?), a broken metal file about 7” long, and a couple of nails. We suppose that the unbroken bricks were also hauled away. We interpret this area as the probable location of the iron heating stove and chimney.

More Conclusions

There is mixed evidence regarding the disappearance of the building. Charcoal around the area of the supposed location of the stove and in the same area as the bricks leads this writer to wonder how the charcoal got from the stove to be mixed with the brick fragments.

The great abundance of nails leads to the conclusion that the building was dismantled or torn down. Yet the evidence of charcoal at the opposite end of the building from the chimney leads to the premise that the building burned. However, none of the glass we found had been melted, which supports the idea it was razed.

As of this writing (July 2025) we have no information about the layout of Briar Bush Road. And because the students carried water from home, there is no well associated with this site. The outhouse may have been in a separate structure.

Our conclusions are subject to revision should new information about the School be discovered, either on the ground, or in the historical records.