A Trip to The Washburn-Norlands Living History Center
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On a cold and gray Monday morning in January, students in third and fourth grade piled onto two Breakwater buses to journey up to Livermore for a true lesson in history. Throughout this year, these students have immersed themselves in a study of what life was like in the 19th and 20th centuries. While studying the history of our neighborhood, Nason’s Corner, students found themselves engrossed in information about farming, trolleys, canals, and Wabanaki history. Learning about what life was like “back then” is a developmental stage for these 8 and 9 year olds. Alicia, 3/4 teacher, comments: “It is an important part of this age group’s learning - to picture things from “long ago.” Fortunately for these students, this trip was not so much a lesson on picturing life long ago, but actually living it.
Upon their arrival, students first got to view a collection of old farming equipment kept in an open-air shed, which intrigued those who spent months earlier this year studying farming in Maine. This collection included a hay bayler, a large rake, hitches, horseshoes, old chains, and other farming novelties. After continuing on to the Washburn Mansion, they were greeted by “Aunt Sally” dressed head to toe in period clothing. She introduced herself as a housekeeper that spends her time cooking and cleaning in the mansion to help the blind Mr. Washburn live more comfortably. She asked the students if they had a nice trip in their wagon. They must have traveled by wagon after all, since there “really isn’t enough snow for your sleigh today.”
Aunt Sally then led the students into the large main kitchen where she encouraged them to ask questions about what they saw in the room. Our students pointed out things like the large Queen American stove in the center of the room (that made the room so warm, a door or two had to be opened!), the lack of running water, oil lanterns, and the various containers of tin or porcelain under the one counter. Aunt Sally generously spoke about how women worked in this kind of kitchen and how everyone working in the household and on the farm had to work together to make the house run smoothly. “I’m not a servant,” she said, “but Mr. Washburn’s children hired me to oversee the kitchen and make meals for Mr. Washburn.” She was also amazed to learn about things like electricity, faucets, microwaves, and dishwashers that students shared about from their modern everyday lives. What a treat for Aunt Sally! She then pulled out an old weathered card from her apron pocket and asked the students if they would like to bake a gingerbread together. The card listed ingredients that were foreign to most of the students (and teachers too!) - from treacle (molasses) to saleratus (baking soda). Students took turns adding wet ingredients and sifting dry ones while playing a guessing game about which ingredients came from the farm, and which ones came from the local store.
While the gingerbread baked in the wood-fire stove, students played an “artifact game” with Aunt Sally. She broke the students up into five different groups and then handed each group an artifact. The students’ jobs were to try to guess what each artifact was used for and if they thought it was used by men or women. The students did an amazing job hypothesizing the use of each piece and some were even able to correctly identify their artifact or come up with a really creative way that one might use it. It wasn’t easy! The five artifacts in the game were: a pot scrubber, an ox shoe, a maple spial, a sock darner and a soap saver. See if you can identify those artifacts from the pictures above.
Students took a break from the kitchen to take a tour of the back of the house: a second kitchen and dining room “where we do most of our cooking,” Aunt Sally explained - and then out to the newly restored barn. Students were able to ask questions about an assortment of saw tools, hay bales, animal stables and an icebox dug into the ground behind a door where ice is kept in the summer. She explained that the ice was collected from nearby Bartlett pond every winter. They learned about the cider press and the structure designed to put ox shoes on the oxen. Then: lunchtime!
Just after lunch and warm homemade gingerbread, Aunt Sally reminded the students that it was time to go to school, but “be sure to mind your manners over there,” she warned, “They can be pretty strict.” The students thanked Aunt Sally for her time and ventured out into the cold for a short walk from the mansion, past the library, to the one-room schoolhouse at the bottom of the hill.
Upon arrival at the school house, a stern looking Master Briggs greeted the students and teachers at the door. Immediately, he began barking commands, “Boys line up on the left; Girls line up on the right!” “Stand up straight!” “Arms at your side!” He said that he expects students in school to behave appropriately, to only speak when spoken to, to bow or curtsy to him when entering the schoolhouse and lastly, “ladies are ALWAYS first.” The students walked quietly and solemnly into the school, the girls putting away their ‘cloaks and lunchpails’ on hooks, and then the boys. Students were expected to always sit up straight at their desks with their hands clasped. If they had something to say, they would have to raise their hand and stand up to deliver the question or comment. Once everyone was seated (hands clasped), Master Briggs said “Welcome class.” he pointed to cursive letters on the board, “Today is January 27, 1853.”
After writing four lines of verse on a small chalkboard with a “slate pencil,” students were then called up to the front of the room where Master Briggs would require them to “toe up to the line” and recite their verses from memory. He also quizzed them on content one by one, and required them to spell certain words from the verse. Once one group was finished, another one nervously approached the front. While one group was reciting verses, Fitz drew a caraciture of Master Briggs on his chalkboard (pictured above) and when Master Briggs saw it, he was none too pleased. Master Briggs would then go on about how students would have to stand in a corner or even “find a ruler across their backside!” Fitz sat up straight with his hands clasped after that. When some of the girls giggled, he said that he would find a small block of wood that they would have to hold between their teeth for fifteen minutes! Aunt Sally wasn’t kidding about the strict environment at school!
“It was scary! I thought he was really going to put a piece of wood in my mouth! ”
Once learning who the “school marm” was during arithmetic, Master Briggs asked Yazi an arithmetic problem. Yazi (who is always clever) answered the question correctly - one of the few teachers who managed to do that in all of Master Brigg’s classes. (Go Yazi!) Check out the pictures above for Yazi’s sigh of relief.
“The old schoolhouse was fun but if schools were like that now, I would call it TORTURE!”
The students were then asked to exit (after bowing and curtsying) the schoolhouse for a brief recess where they could run around and release some of their nervous energy. Upon his call, students again lined up boys on the left and girls on the right, to complete their final lesson of the day: handwriting. Every student received a small jar of ink, a quill pen, and a piece of paper with the words “Duty before pleasure” written neatly across the top. They were then asked to write the date (January 27, 1853) on the upper left and their name on the upper right, then write the sentence six more times down the paper EXACTLY like the original. The students quickly realized that writing with a quill and ink is not an easy task. Ink got over all of their hands and even with an ink blotting pad, the ink smeared all over their neatly scribed words. Master Briggs assured them that if the girls “did the dishes tonight for their Ma” and the boys “helped their Pa cut and stack wood,” the ink would come right off in that process.
“The old schoolhouse was cool but Breakwater is better! ”
“The only part I didn’t like was imagining going to school on a Saturday! Also, I don’t like duty before pleasure. ”
It was an incredible day. We already knew this but, it turns out that learning through doing and in this case through being, is really a remarkable way to learn. Thank you to Norlands Living History Center for a memorable day and for teaching us what it’s like to be a child in rural Maine in 1853. To learn more about the Norlands Living History Center, please visit: https://norlands.org/index.html
