Item #5825 [Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].
[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].

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[Manuscript archive relating to Beverly Academy].

[Beverly, Essex County, Mass., 1835–1865.].

An archive of Beverly Academy materials, including a volume of manuscript proceedings covering the founding and operation of the Academy; forty-six issues of the manuscript student newspaper Academy Register; and a scarce Act of Incorporation pamphlet.

Archive contents, as follows:

Beverly Academy Trustees. Beverly Academy Records [spine-title]. Beverly, Mass, 1835-1865. 4to (11.5” x 9.25”), full brown calf with blind-stamped floral border on covers, red leather lettering piece at spine. 93 pp. of manuscript, 86 blank leaves.

Beverly Academy was incorporated in 1835. These manuscript records include the notice for the first meeting of the proprietors followed by eleven articles of the Act of Incorporation covering the following matters: officers and how they are chosen; meetings and how attendees are notified; property being divided into thirty-two shares; proprietors’ entitlements to vote; transfer of shares and how they may be transferred; the duty and power of trustees; duty of the clerk and the treasurer; alteration of the by-laws, and so forth. The articles are followed by minutes and reports for each year between 1835 and 1850, with many of the following recorded: annual reports of the Trustees; a series of votes to elect the clerk, treasurer, chairman and five directors; transfers of shares; a committee to examine treasurer and reelect the Academy’s officers; annual meetings; special meetings convened by the Academy’s proprietors; teachers’ reports of the studies of the academy’s pupils; amendments; the Academy’s curriculum (books, exercises, subjects, etc.), and so forth. Also included is a copy of the deed for the Academy land from John Lovett to the Academy’s proprietors, and a copy of the deed to the corporation.

Part of an entry on 3 Feb. 1845 reads: “The tuition of the first and second classes to be six dollars for common English branches and seven dollars per quarter for all others. It is proposed to admit a third class of younger and less forward scholars at a lower rate, some abatement is recommended where pupils are detained from the Academy for a considerable length of time or on account of sickness.” The text concludes with a Record of the Proprietors of the shares in the Beverly Academy spanning from Jan. 1844 to Nov. 1850, and a table of finances which covers rent of building, chalk, wood and sawing, painting bucket, paper, chemicals for experiments, etc.

[with]

Abbot, Martha, Caroline Leach, et al., editors. Academy Register. Beverly, Mass.: No. 11 Washington Street, 21 July 1849 to 4 Jan. 1850. 4to (13” x 8.25”), half black leather with marbled paper over boards. 46 issues, 214 manuscript pp., 1 issue laid in, and a few partial sheets of paper tipped-in.

Academy Register was published every Saturday by the students of Beverly Academy. The various editors and authors are both male and female, but in numerous issues all of the listed contributors are women. Included in these issues are many subjects and themes common in school newspapers: the commencement of the term, word puzzles, holidays, vacation, items for sale, season changes, letters from correspondents, “grammatical witticisms,” curiosities, smoking (“this is a very vulgar habit”), weekly reports, Latin puns and jokes, etc. Some of the more substantive subjects include sailing excursions; shipwrecks; a letter written from California; a cattle show in Salem, Mass.; a voyage from Constantinople to Malta; a visit to New York; short biographies of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin; a visit to the Indians; “a comparison between the young men of past times & those of the present,” and so forth. Titles of some of the articles include “A Letter from the East” (offering an account of traveling in Maine); “The Importance of Learning the ‘Dead’ Language”; “President Taylor’s Visit to the North”; “A Brief Account of the Life of Socrates”; “A Short Sketch of Henry 8th”; “A Leaf from my Diary”; “On the Usefulness of Trying to Keep Umbrellas”; Description of the Battle of Bunker Hill”; “Disadvantages of Playing Marbles”; “Which is the most useful accomplishment singing or dancing?”; “Autobiography of a penknife” and “History of a Pin.” Some of these articles are serialized and appear across multiple issues.

CONDITION: Very good, contents very clean, partial split to the binding.

[with]

The Act of Incorporation of The Beverly Academy. Passed January 30th, 1835. And the By-Laws and Regulations of the Institution Gloucester, Mass.: Charles W. Woodbury Printer, 1835. 12mo, original plain blue wrappers. 8 pp.

This pamphlet includes the two sections of the Act enacted by Massachusetts legislature, lists its trustees, and outlines eleven articles that constitute the institution’s bylaws. OCLC records just one copy, at the Huntington Library.

CONDITION: A few and light foxing, partial losses to a few words due to several small ink stains.

Item #5825

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