The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1884 — John Shaqi
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1884Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1884
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
After having thus lived in Ipswich eleven years, Mr. Cheever removed,
in 1661, to Charlestown, Massachusetts, to become master of the school
there at a salary of thirty pounds a year. The smallness of this salary
astonishes and suggests much to the modern reader; but when he is
informed that the worthy teacher was obliged during his teaching there
to petition the selectmen that his "yeerly salarie be paid to him, as
the counstables were much behind w'th him," the whole matter becomes
pathetic. Mr. Cheever also asked that the schoolhouse, which was much
out of order, be repaired. And in 1669 he is again before them asking
for a "peece of ground or house plott whereon to build an house for his
familie," which petition he left for the townsmen to consider. They
afterward voted that the selectmen should carry out the request, but as
Mr. Cheever removed in the following year to Boston, it is probable that
his successor had the benefit of it.
When Mr. Cheever entered upon his work as head master of the Boston
Latin School, in 1670, he was fifty-seven years old; and he remained
master of this school until his death, thirty-seven years later. The
schoolhouse was, at this time, in School Street (it was not so named by
the town, however, until 1708) just behind King's Chapel, on a part of
the burying-ground. It has been said that the building was of two
stories to accommodate the teacher and his family. This seems probable
when we read that Mr. Cheever was to have a salary of sixty pounds a
year, and the "possession and use of y'e schoole house." But if he
lived in the building at all, it was not very long, for he is later
living in a house by himself; and in 1701 the selectmen voted that two
men should provide a house for him while his house was being built. The
agreement which the selectmen made with Captain John Barnet with
reference to this house is given in such curious detail in the old
records, and suggests so much, that it is well worth reading. It is as
follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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