Send an E-Postcard of:
"Select School at Buckland"

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

Robert B. Hall's "Select School" did not last long enough to appear in the school board records that survive in Buckland. Hall would probably have been the sole instructor of this school. His salary would have been paid for by the tuition of his students. He was all of 19 years old, but this was not unusual: very few elementary teachers in that era had more than a secondary education. Hall came from one of Ashfield's more established families, and he eventually was ordained a Methodist minister. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1876. Buckland had been the starting point for one other interesting young school leader: Mary Lyon (1797-1849), born in Buckland, operated a "select school" there from 1824 to 1830. She went on to found Mt. Holyoke College, the nation's first institution of higher education for women.

top of page