Williston Northampton and Local History . . . Your History!
All posts by Rick Teller '70
Rick Teller grew up on the Williston Academy campus and is a member of the illustrious Class of 1970. He studied music, religion, and history at Vassar College ('74) and librarianship and ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan (AMLS, '78). He is a former librarian at Williston Northampton and, from 1995 until his retirement in 2020, the school's archivist.
Williston Seminary in 1841, at the time of its dedication. The single school building, the neoclassical “White Seminary,” is at right. Next to it is the “Town Hall,” formerly the Meeting House, but no longer functioning as such since the construction of the First Congregational Church, at left, in 1836. At this time there were no buildings on the west side of Main Street. The Village Green and Seminary Grounds extended down to the Manhan River.Mark Hopkins (National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 1892)
On December 1, 1841, Williston Seminary opened its doors to its first group of students. For the dedication address, Samuel Williston invited the Rev. Mark Hopkins (1802-1887), President of Williams College, Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, and one of the nation’s leading thinkers on education and educational reform. Hopkins was known as a gifted teacher, who favored Socratic engagement over lectures. One of his Williams protégés, President James A. Garfield, commented that an ideal college comprised “Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.”
True to the oratorical tradition of the time, Hopkins spoke for well over an hour. His subject was the condition of education in the United States, of the need for a variety of reforms, and how Williston Seminary, of which he was a founding Trustee, might address them. It is a fascinating and valuable document. (Readers who wish copies of the full text may email the archivist.)
One passage, on pages 7 and 8 of the printed speech, concerns the importance of an educated citizenry, arguing that anything less constitutes a danger to democracy itself. It is reproduced below. Notwithstanding the optimism of the last excerpted sentence, Hopkins’ words continue to resonate, 176 years after he spoke them.
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.)
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
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.
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 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. Note the kid on the tricycle!
Finally, if you watched thevideo, 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!
(Note: this article was originally posted on December 23. In the ensuing five days, new information came to light, notably (see the comments at bottom) concerning the year “Christmas Soup” was introduced at Williston, resulting in this revision, posted December 28, 2017. — RT)
A couple of years back a comic arrangement of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” performed by a certain a cappella ensemble from Indiana University, had a sudden surge of popularity. Apparently unbeknownst to them — despite the presence of the author’s signature on the last page of the score — the “Twelve Days of Christmas” parody was sung by the Williston Academy Caterwaulers of 1967-68. It was composed by their director, longtime (1961-2004) Williston fine arts teacher Richard Gregory. Dick founded the Caterwaulers in 1965, as an evolution from the former Double Quartet, long attached to the Glee Club. The name is a play on the school’s “Wildcat” mascot, and a line from the English version of a once-popular Haydn vocal catch, “You caterwauling rogues, be gone.”
The Caterwaulers of 1967-68, the first civilians to sing “Christmas Soup.”
“Christmas Soup” (the real title of Dick’s arrangement) stayed in the Caterwaulers’ repertoire for nearly three decades. Dozens of former Caterwaulers went on to college singing groups. Many took copies of Caterwauler arrangements with them, well within the collegiate a cappella tradition that also brought arrangements by the Baker’s Dozen and Whiffenpoofs — Dick’s groups at Yale in the early 1950s — into the Caterwaulers’ repertoire. “Christmas Soup” was actually performed and even recorded, with proper attribution, on multiple occasions around the country before Straight, No Chaser picked it up. And to their credit, they now perform it (I am told) with appropriate acknowledgment of the author.
But, Dick Gregory points out, “Christmas Soup” didn’t originate with the Caterwaulers. From 1957-1960, Dick was a lieutenant in the United States Navy. For most of that time, he was stationed on Guam, where he created “Christmas Soup” for a group of his fellow officers. Since they were members of a communications unit, they called themselves the “Seven Nicators.” They stuck with that until three of their members were rotated out, and the remainder deemed the name inappropriate for a quartet. Dick made some minor revisions for the Caterwaulers, but only the ending was new.
Dick Gregory, concluding his last Williston class in 2004. He is retired and living in Easthampton.
Straight, No Chaser’s performance breaks off abruptly and segues into “Christmas in Africa.” I once found this baffling, until I came across a recording by a group from Ball State University, also in Indiana, that shifts gears in exactly the same place. Suddenly, all was clear: the copy of the music that was being passed around between Bloomington and Muncie was missing the final page. And that’s why no one there knew that Dick had written it, or when.
At a Williston Alumni Reunion in June, 2009, a large gathering of former Caterwaulers got together to rehearse and perform “Christmas Soup” and a number of other favorites. If the following video lacks the polish of more professional renderings (and I can’t help noting that it sounds pretty good for a bunch of underrehearsed old guys), it has the distinction, not to mention authenticity, of including several of the singers who originated it, and Dick Gregory himself directing. You can’t get more authentic than that!
Principal Luther Wright, who believed in law, order, and quiet.
Williston Seminary’s first Principal, Luther Wright (served 1841-1849), was reputedly a great believer in the order of things. Early on, he had printed placards, posted in every student room, which quickly became known as the “23 commandments.” This set of regulations was considered so comprehensive, of such educational and moral impact, that they remained on the walls, contents unaltered, five Principals and four decades later. Professor Henry Alvord, who had strong opinions about most things, had cause to comment in the 1880s.
In his History of Williston Seminary (1917) Principal Joseph Henry Sawyer (taught from 1866; Principal, 1896-1919) commented that “they are rules which all schools must have,” but even Sawyer, a master of tact, marveled at the level of what adolescent boys must have considered petty detail. One of Wright’s placards survives to this day:Here are the two sides, in more readable detail. (Click on images to enlarge.)One can imagine the students’ attitude toward the prohibition of gathering in groups on Saturday night, or might wonder whether most sixteen-year-olds could sit without tipping their chairs.It should be no surprise, then, that by 1846 Mr. Wright’s “young gentlemen” had produced a wickedly funny parody of the school catalogue. (This, incidentally, gives us a “no later than” date for the Regulations placard.) Not only did the parody capture and inflate the moralizing and rather effusive marketingese of its model, but the typography and layout were such that the fake could easily have been mistaken for the real thing.Wright’s 23 commandments had expanded to 25. Together, they suggest aspects of day-to-day Williston that he probably preferred had gone unrecorded.For further exploration of administrative attempts to regulate student lives, please see “Thou shalt not . . .” (Because, boys and girls, it’s good for you, and you’ll thank us later.)
