Kissing Cod, Walking 3 Miles, and Searching for the Naughty Sam Slick
At the Somesville Schoolhouse, History Gets Real
SOMESVILLE—The third graders sat in hard pews, heads down, and focused. Their fingers clutched the chalk as they scraped it along the slate boards balanced on their laps.
In front of them, stood a schoolmarm dressed in the garb of 1895.
If you go to the mercantile, she asked them, and you have two gumdrops, five peppermints, and 7 pieces of butterscotch, how many pieces of candy do you have?
Hands shot up, but nobody spoke out of turn. The schoolmarm asked one of them to stand. In her class, you only speak when the schoolmarm allows it and then you must stand first.
“Please stand. Address me,” the schoolmarm reminded them all.
“Fourteen!” came the answer from one student.
It was right, but it was also wrong.
“What do you say first?” Mrs. Haynes, also known in 2024 as Wendy Littlefield, asked the children who were segregated by boys and girls, sitting on different sides of the one-room classroom. Previously, they went into the building via separate doors as Littlefield rang the bell on the front lawn.
“Ma’am. Ma’am, it’s fourteen.”
“Perfect!” Littlefield enthused. And she quickly moved on to other lessons in elocution, spelling, etiquette, and mathematics, replicating a typical school day in 1895.
She was helped by Caroline Cotter, Brendan O’Keefe, and Andrew Simon of Barn Arts Collective. The trio also participated in the three-hour field trip to the old school house in Somesville as a music teacher, school superintendent, fishing brothers, and quarrymen. Children from different schools visited all last week. Some, like the students from Pemetic Elementary dressed up in appropriate garb. Some drank water out of glass jugs because there wasn’t plastic water bottles back then. And there weren’t cellphones or video games either. Instead, they entertained themselves with giant hoops and the stories that Simon and O’Keefe spun and the teaching that Littlefield and Cotter bestowed before they headed outside for games with old-fashioned equipment.
Axe said, “I loved playing with hoops and graces and it was exciting when the big hoop came back to me.”
It's a program that’s incredibly valuable, Pemetic third-grade teacher Susan Raven said.
The students’ reactions, from glee to wide-eyed amazement, to mock-horror, show how engaging and engrossing the program can be.
Lily said, "My favorite part of the day was when the superintendent and Sam Slick were chasing each other!"
Sam Slick is a notorious ragamuffin in the Mount Desert Island school district of 1895. And both Superintendent Somes (played by Simon) and Mrs. Haynes spoke of Sam in horrified and indignant tones. Sam was truant; he was a mischief maker who ran around barefoot, visiting and causing havoc on the islands multiple schools. Twenty-two by one count. Thirty-three by another. The goal, back then in the late 1800s, well before talks of school consolidation, was to have enough schools that no child had to walk more than three miles to attend. And they wanted the students to attend.
Sam Slick was a big antagonist to Dr. Somes, the school superintendent. Just that morning, Mrs. Haynes arrived at the school house to find it full of smoke. Someone had stuffed the chimney with newspapers. Who could that have possibly been?
Sam Slick. It had to be.
The students looked for Sam all day as they heard fish tales from a pair of brothers, learned the serious business of schooling from the somewhat strict Mrs. Haynes and the joys of outdoor games on the school house’s front lawn. They learned about how quarrying and ice making were important, and even how where the schoolhouse is now, surrounded by trees, was once a farming area.
Things were strict in 1895, Mrs. Haynes told them. A punishment for interrupting a “chatty” child might be standing in the corner holding a block of wood in their mouth. And things weren’t the same for men and woman. A woman’s average weekly wage was $2. A man’s was $7.50.
Antics helped split the time between lessons and those occasionally poignant moments of just how different life was 130 years ago.
“I loved how we all yelled that we saw Sam Slick outside and Mr. Somes didn't believe us and everyone was yelling,” Brady said. “It was so fun.”
The fully immersive day had an elocution lesson, spelling, learning the 16 counties of Maine by rote memorization, but also just being fully immersed in how school was back then. The third graders lived it for those hours.
Penelope really liked the singing.
“I loved it when someone asked, ‘Do you kiss the fish?’ and everyone laughed,” Zac said. Kissing the fish happens after you tickle the fish, which happens after you catch the fish. It’s an important marching of events in the life of one cod-fishing brother.
Maggie said afterward, “It's important to have a trip like this because you can learn about the 1890s.”
Her classmate, Rory, agreed, saying, “It's important for us to know about how it would be for kids back then.”
And some of the students, like Aniyah, even related events from the 1895 school day to their own modern learning.
“My favorite part was how we sang the song that Superintendent Somes didn't like, and he changed his mind. It was like our persuasive writing we've been doing,” Aniyah said.
“It’s about community and learning, but having fun along the way, and holding onto some of the heritage,” Wendy Littlefield told WABI5 about the day.
The program began approximately 20 years ago.
According to the Mount Desert Historical Society website, “Vintage classroom is a free program offered to all Island area third grade classes. Students are transported back to what life would have been like in a one room schoolhouse in 1895. This beloved program teaches children about the history of education, the types of jobs that would have been available to them at the time, and responsibilities and expectations for behavior. It has become so popular that adults are asking for the opportunity to experience the program as well. Collaborating with Barn Arts Collective, students experience a mix of fun and old-fashioned discipline with a strict schoolmarm, guest fishermen, quarrymen, musicians, and games.”
What that fails to say is just how memorable an experience the program is.
“I had a student approach me this morning that went on the trip two years ago who said, ‘That was my favorite field trip ever, I really wish I could go again!’” Raven said.
And in all the hijinx and joy and serious moments of teaching, there are these epiphanies that happen, poignant moments as the students strive to make connections, to be recognized, to be heard.
“Cod. Tickle. Kiss. Cod. Tickle. Kiss. Tickle. Kiss,” Simon re-enacted the fisherman’s system of catching the fish. “Tickle. Kiss.”
The children fell into hysterics and then the “brothers” explained how many cod there were around the island waters in 1895.
“What if you catch all the cod and there’s no more cod?” one girl asked.
“Then, I’ll never kiss a cod, again!” Simon bemoaned.
The brothers even passed out bits of salted cod. “It’s like jerky,” someone said. One boy loved it. Another discreetly asked for a trash can.
“As a teacher, I find this so valuable because the students get so engaged in history,” Raven said. “They do a lot of research independently about when various things were invented so they can plan their lunches and their costumes, and some of them talk about how their older siblings or parents did the schoolhouse experience and loved it. The way the historical society weaves in stories about fishing and quarrying, and imports and exports works perfectly with our unit focusing on MDI and Hancock County as we will soon visit Hall Quarry and the Maine Quarry Museum, and we are focusing on geology in Science currently where students understand why MDI has so much granite and how that fueled the economy of our area.”
That on-site learning continues for the Pemetic students.
“Soon we'll go to a local ice pond and look at old photos of the ice operations and how schooners transported ice and granite and brought back other goods to this area,” Raven said. “All of this helps us develop a timeline of Acadia, including learning about the rusticators, the carriage roads, the Rockefellers, the Hudson School artists, the Fire of 47, current economics of tourism and so much more. I just love helping students understand the past and how it's continuing to influence the present and their futures.”
This year’s “Vintage Classroom” was made possible by a gift from Machias Savings Bank and private donations from the society’s membership.
All photos by Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story except for the the one below, used with permission from Susan Raven.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Mount Desert Island Historical Society
More on the Sound Schoolhouse itself.
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