Category Archives: Acquisitions and Discoveries

William Brooks Cabot Writes Home

By Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist

Recently, through the generosity of Mr. Eric Brothers, the Archives acquired two letters written by William Brooks Cabot, class of 1876, to his mother in Brattleboro, Vermont.  In August, 1874, Cabot had just arrived at Williston Seminary, and was enrolled in the Middle Class — the equivalent of the modern 11th grade — in Williston’s Scientific curriculum.   The following transcriptions retain William’s occasionally idiosynchratic punctuation and free-form sentence and paragraph structure.  He was, after all, just 16 years old and, in fairness, somewhat ahead of his peers (then and now) in matters of spelling.

Detail of Cabot’s first letter, Sunday, August 30, 1874, on school stationery (Click all images to enlarge)

It was a Sunday.  William had just moved out of a dormitory and into a boarding house where he had already arranged for his meals — the school had no dining hall of its own at this time.

Easthampton, Aug. 30th [1874]

Dear Mother

I am sorry father was not at home to decide what course I should take with regard to my studies.  I shall take Geometry, Drawing, Zoology, & German, though if possible I shall take Latin instead of Zoology.

We have changed our rooms & are now boarding where we take our meals.  I only pay $5 $6.00 per week in all, which is about twenty five cents more than I paid – or rather, was to pay at the Sem.  It’s much more convenient for meals & we have carpets & towels, & do not have to do our own chamber work, as we did at the Sem.  We paid our tuition yesterday.  My bill was $26.00.

We have to attend chapel at a little before nine in the morning.   We do all our studying in our rooms, which I like very much.  At 7:30 P.M. the chapel bell rings, and we must go to our rooms immediately.  Once in a while a Prof. will happen around after dark, to see if we are all in our rooms, but we have not been honored by a visit as yet.

We are living at a Mrs. Embury’s, where there are five of us.  One is from Moline, Ill. & another from Scranton, Pa.

William’s housemates can be identified as Frederick William Keator, class of 1876 Classical, from Moline, and Edwin Hunter Lynde ’76 Scientific, from Scranton.  For a newly-enrolled kid who had, to this point, grown up in southern Vermont, these may well have seemed like exotic places.  As he would no doubt later discover, while the majority of students hailed from the Northeast, in 1874 Williston enrolled students from as far away as Louisiana, Alabama, and the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). Continue reading

Dong Kingman Painting Comes Home

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist

Dong Kingman (1911-2000) was a respected Chinese-American watercolorist, one of the leading figures in the “California Style” school of painting, and the father of Dong Kingman Jr., Williston Academy class of 1955.  In 1953 he and his wife Janice visited the campus.  While here, Kingman painted this picture of the east end of the Recreation Center, today’s Reed Campus Center, and presented it to Sarah and Headmaster Phillips Stevens.  It was hung in the Homestead (at that time, the Headmaster’s residence) and, according to Phillips Stevens Jr., went with them to every home.

Peter Stevens with Dong Kingman’s painting

Last year, on behalf of the Stevens family, Phillips Stevens Jr. presented Kingman’s painting to the school.  It has been conserved, re-framed, and added to Williston Northampton’s permanent art collection, and is displayed in the west end of the Reed Campus Center, which it depicts.

At right, another member of the Stevens family, Peter Stevens ’60, admires the Kingman painting in the Reed Campus Center, March 30, 2019.  Peter was visiting with his wife, painter Linn Bower, for the opening reception of her exhibit, The Passionate Hands of the Sun, in the Grubbs Gallery, just down the hall.

More information about the life and work of Dong Kingman may be found in a variety of online sources, and several books, including Dong Kingman: an American Master, by Monte James (Twenty-Second Century Film Corporation of America, 2000), and Kingman’s own Portraits of Cities (Twenty-Second Century, 1997) and Dong Kingman’s Watercolors (Watson-Guptil, 1980).

Northampton School, 1926

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist
Northampton School students on the steps of Montgomery House, 1926. Jean Bigelow is in the 3rd row, third from right. (Please click images to enlarge.

Recently the Archives acquired a photo album kept by Jean M. Bigelow, who attended Northampton School for Girls in 1925-26.  Since Northampton School had just opened a year earlier, in 1924, the contents of the album represent some of the earliest images we have.

We don’t know much about Jean Bigelow — in fact, her identification in the photograph above is based on an ambiguous caption on another copy of this photo given us by Elva Minuse, class of 1927 (that’s Elva in the second row, second from right), and comparison with uncaptioned family photos elsewhere in Jean’s album.  Beyond her academic transcript, she left no paper trail in our alumnae records.  According to Social Security records, she was born in 1907 and died, aged 78, in 1986.  She attended Vassar College, class of 1930, and lived in Worcester, Mass.

Some of Jean’s friends. Elva Minuse is at the bottom.

And that’s about all we know.  But the photos capture Northampton School for Girls at its very beginning, so this is a significant addition to the Archives.

Commencement, 1926. Jean is in the back row, center.

Continue reading

Albert Kiesling at Williston

by Rick Teller '70, Williston Northampton Archivist
Albert Kiesling next to the Easthampton Congregational Church, working on a view of Shop Row.
Albert Kiesling next to the Easthampton Congregational Church, working on a view of Shop Row. (Easthampton Historical Society) Please click images to enlarge.

Anyone familiar with Easthampton in the ’40s through the ’60s is likely to recall a taciturn gentleman with an easel and paintbox, often engaged in capturing a town landmark or rural scene.  Albert Kiesling (1885-1968) was born in Clinton, Mass., and moved to Easthampton to work in the textile mills.  He was a protégé and friend of the American expressionist painter Oscar F. Adler (1868-1932), another Clinton native.  In fact, Kiesling and Adler often painted the same scenes together.

In the summer of 2016, Easthampton CityArts+, in association with Albert Kiesling’s family, mounted an exhibition and sale of a large group of his paintings, at the Mill Arts Project (MAP) Gallery at Eastworks in Easthampton.  The following video, from Easthampton Media, is an excellent introduction to Kiesling’s work.  (Alumni from certain eras may recognize some of the people interviewed.)

https://vimeo.com/173671869

There are five known Kiesling paintings of Williston scenes.  One had been on campus since 1945.  Following the CityArts+ exhibit, Williston Northampton was able to obtain the other four, through a combination of alumni generosity and purchases.  They are:

The Old Gymnasium

The Old Gymnasium

The Old Williston Seminary Gym, with its distinctive tower, was built in 1864, the first free-standing athletic building in any American secondary school.  It stood on High Street, at the rear of the original Williston campus.  Rendered largely obsolete by the construction of the Recreation Center (now the Reed Campus Center) in 1930, it was razed following the school’s consolidation onto the present campus in 1951.  Kiesling painted the scene in 1952.  Williston Northampton was able to acquire the painting through the generosity of Patricia Zavorski Coon ’61.  This painting currently hangs in the office of the Director of Athletics.

Kiesling at work on the Gymnasium painting
Kiesling at work on the Gymnasium painting

The Button Mill

The Button Mill

The painting of the original Williston Button Mill, Easthampton’s first factory building, was commissioned in 1945 by Charles Johnson, class of 1875, Treasurer of Easthampton Savings Bank, and presented to the school by the Class of 1905, one of whose members, Guy Richard Carpenter, was instrumental in tracking down and preserving many of the documents and memorabilia that now comprise the Williston Northampton Archives.  The rendering of the building, erected 1846-47, is accurate, but Kiesling has placed it on the site of the so-called “Button Building” on Union Street.  That structure, which still stands, was erected in 1861-62, while the original button factory remains as part of the mill complex on Cottage Street.  One of the workers’ tenement houses beyond the mill also survives, now home to the Easthampton Diner.  Kiesling added a couple of historical touches to the background: the spire of the Payson (now Easthampton Congregational) Church and, in front of it, Williston’s original (1841) White Seminary building.  This painting hangs in the front parlor of the Head of School’s Residence.

The Old Campus

The Old Campus on Main Street.

This undated painting now hangs in the Advancement Conference Room in the Williston Homestead.  Purchased in 2016 via the Archives Fund, it shows the pre-1951 campus from the intersection of Main and Union Streets, from the vantage point of the Congregational Church’s front lawn.  The buildings, from right, are South, Middle, and North Halls.  All these structures were torn down after the move to the New Campus in 1951, but a portion of the distinctive iron fence remains in place.  Also visible are the Maher Fountain, which remains today, and the First Congregational Church, which succumbed to fire in 1929.

The Old Campus, from a vantage point a bit to the left of the painting.
The Old Campus, from a vantage point a bit to the left of the painting.

Payson Hall

Payson Hall, formerly Hill’s Mansion House

In the mid-19th century, Hill’s Mansion House was Easthampton’s grand hotel.  Even then, it housed Williston students able to pay the premium rates.  The huge wooden building stood at the top of the hill on the corner of Main and Northampton Streets.  In the early 20th century, when the hotel business had fallen off, the school bought the building and renamed it Payson Hall.  It was used as a dormitory, dining commons, and for many years, the home of the Williston Junior School.  From the early 1950s on the structure, in increasingly fragile condition, hosted inexpensive apartments.  It burned in the early 1970s.  Kiesling’s 1963 painting, part of the 2016 purchase, is now in the office of the Director of Alumni Engagement.

The Mansion House in the late 19th century
The Mansion House in the late 19th century

The Williston Birthplace

The Williston Birthplace
The Williston Birthplace

Here the subject is the Payson Williston parsonage, also known as “The Birthplace,” on Park Street, opposite the Homestead.  Dated 1968, thus one of Kiesling’s last paintings, this seems less successful than the others – something in the perspective is not quite right. The artist has set the building well back from the road and included a nonexistent mountain.  Also part of the 2016 purchase, this painting presently hangs in the Williston Birthplace, now a faculty residence.

The Williston Birthplace, ca. 1880.
The Williston Birthplace, ca. 1880. Note the kid on the tricycle!

Finally, if you watched the video, you’ll recall that Kiesling was also an enthusiastic creator of snow sculpture, often of epic proportions.  On Saturday, February 10, as part of the 5th Annual Easthampton Winterfest, the Nashawannuck Pond Steering Committee will host the First Annual Albert Kiesling Snow Art Competition. Please click the link for details!