Noyes Academy Part 6
- Alisa Kline
- Feb 21
- 9 min read
Come to Canaan, Bring an Ox
The men of Canaan had failed Jacob Trussell. The scurrilous perjured Masons and their school still stood, despite his vigorous efforts to rouse the town to violence. But he was not to be thwarted again. He called in reinforcements. Particularly from the towns of Enfield, Dorchester, and Hanover. They would add might to Trussell’s army and stiffen the spine of the Canaan warriors.
Page 271
He had twice before led the Canaan mob up to the door of the building with weapons in their hands, but the sight of our good natured Dr. Tilton, standing there as a magistrate, to take down their names, for future use, restrained them even in the presence of their leader, and caused them quietly to disperse.
And when having invited the people from the neighboring towns to participate in the move, he knew his third attempt would be successful, for with his “legal town meeting” and these foreigners to back him, he was satisfied that Campbell, old Cobb, the Pattees, Burpee, and others would not fail to be there.
He was not disappointed and our village is sad and gloomy with contending emotions.
Wallace relates only one prior attack on the school, on July 4, 1835. I don’t know why the author of the above letter refers to “two” prior attacks. Perhaps there was an event Wallace failed to chronicle or perhaps the writer was mistaken. Either way, Trussell had his victory. The “legal town meeting,” had declared the school a “nuisance” the remedy for which was to move the school!
I would like to pause a moment and reflect on the delicacy of the solution decided upon. On the one hand, we are presented with a mob in the grip of righteous fury, and on the other, a plan not to destroy the building, or burn it to the ground. Instead, the outraged assign themselves the laborious task of pulling the Noyes Academy building from one end of Canaan Street to the other a distance of nearly a mile.
This was the solution to the nuisance. It’s abatement. The opponents of the school were concerned not to break the law. They didn’t want to destroy property, there’s no defense for that. They wanted to do something they could get away with. They chose what would come to be known as “the great hauling.” Men from surrounding towns and men from Canaan filled Canaan Street, and they didn’t come alone. They brought oxen.
Page 273
The whole world will soon be awake to the transactions here. Since the 31st every cloud has been black with rumors. Upon the wings of every breeze was blown an account of coming events. From the tongue of every tattler escaped a direful foreboding.
This is from a letter dated August 15. Whoever wrote it really loved words. I believe it was Wallace’s brother James, but I don’t have enough evidence to make that claim firmly.
Emaciated groups of human forms, were to be seen in sheds and secret places, plotting and planning affairs for the 10th. Sometimes a silence not unlike that which precedes the earthquake prevailed. Scandal, “damnable innuendoes,” hell-engendered lies, were eagerly received by the loquacious humor of this public. This is not a vision. It is a fact.
But I pass now to the 10th. The day dawned, the sun never rose with more loveliness. Its meridian splendor is not an apt comparison in dog days. In the morn we greet him, at noon we flee from him. The cloud that had so long hung threateningly over us, now assumed a most fearful aspect.
The people led by villains were mad, and in their madness had become destroyers. I was standing at my desk writing. Saw a man, Mr. B., pass with an iron bar. Soon I saw several more pass with bars and axes. Now a wagon loaded with chains hurries along.
I looked out at the door. The street was full of people and cattle in all directions. A “string” of fifty yoke are just turning the corner by the old Church, all from Enfield. William Currier at their head. Thomas Merrill was also a leader. The destruction of that beautiful edifice has already begun.
I doubt the writer bothered to count the oxen. I believe fifty yoke are one hundred oxen, in a single string, turning the corner from the “old church,” which was the meeting house. Did they all come from Enfield? Did they march as a yoked unit? How long did it take? They were not the only cattle. They were joining the cattle already present on the street.
Word had gone out. Come to Canaan on August 10. Bring an ox. Bring two.
Trussell was the first man on the ground. He is Captain of the gang. His features show the smile of satisfied revenge. He thus addressed them: “Gentlemen, your work is before you. This town has decreed this school a nuisance, and it must be abated. If any man obstructs you in these labors, let him be abated also. Now fall to, and remove this fence.”
And they did. Fell to and removed the fence. Above is Wallace writing. The letter writer will pick up again below.
Page 274
The first blow was struck by Benjamin Porter, who seized an axe and attacked the fence. He was an active lieutenant of his master and was everywhere present encouraging the lookers-on to labor.
Benjamin Porter appears exactly twice in Wallace’s History. He was there leading the men moving Noyes Academy, and on July 4, he also led the mob that tried to destroy the school and were turned away by Dr. Tilton. Tilton met this mob, too. We will see in a moment that he was not effective. I imagine Mr. Porter was quite the forceful henchman for Trussell.
Stephen Smith was at work for Sheriff Blodgett that day. Mr. Blodgett stayed at home. He would not by his presence, show sympathy with the brave band who were working for applause from the South, but was interested in the progress of the work. He sent Mr. Smith up to bring him reports.
Mr. Smith said that he stood looking at the wreckers, thinking what a pity to see that beautiful edifice destroyed! The master came around that way and seeing a man idle he spoke out promptly: “Smith, here take that axe and help clear away that fence.” Mr. Smith seized the axe and when the fence was cleared away, wondered why he had allowed that man to influence him to do that bad work. Many others have worked under the same subtle influence, and had no regrets until the will of the master was accomplished.
After the world saw Germany, a hundred years after Noyes Academy, fall into lockstep behind Hitler, social scientists did seminal work on the ability of people to be induced to do things they know are wrong. The Milgram experiment, the Standford Prison Experiment (Google if you're not familiar) documented the painful truth that we are easily led. One of the things I find so compelling in Wallace is that he wrote without benefit of learning that came after him, but human nature is largely unchanging, and Wallace was a good student.
When they first appeared and seized upon the front fence to pull it away, they were met by Doctor Tilton, who, as a magistrate, commanded them to disperse and begun to read the riot act. There was a perceptable hesitation when Trussell stepped forward, seizing an axe and exclaimed: “Well, we have heard all that before, but it won’t pass with us today. Boys, fall to here! If that man interrupts you any more remove him.” Then striking the first blow, he encouraged his crowd to deeds unheard of before in this town.
I know it’s nit-picking, but this is the second first blow. The first first blow was by the otherwise-never-mentioned Benjamin Porter.
I need not say that there was sadness among our friends. We were sad at the unappeasable madness of the people, who blindly followed that revengeful man, but in the days to come there will be reaction. The reading of the riot act by Doctor Tilton was the only obstruction offered by the friends of the school. They chose to suffer affliction and the destruction of their property rather than shed the blood of these misguided men.
Or, they had the good sense not to get themselves physically beaten as well. They were out-numbered and out-oxed.
There is so much drama in the events of August 10 and 11, 1835. And I love a good story (which this is), but I don’t want to move on before considering further the decision to move the building a mile down the road. To modern ears, it sounds ridiculous. We don’t move buildings around as much as we did once. We got good enough (and cheap enough) at building them that moving them from place to place wasn’t really worth it. But to the citizens of New England in 1835, a building wasn’t something you just tore down.
They moved buildings around rather frequently. Walking down Canaan Street today, I can point to where the old Wallace barn sits: Across the street from where the Wallace family lived and a few hundred feet south from where it was moved long ago. Part of the one of the houses in the North end of the Street was originally on the other side of Canaan Street Lake, people have differing opinions about which house. Whichever hosue it was, they slid it across on the ice. The little red house next to the Historical Museum (which is the 1839 replica of Noyes Academy) was originally a one-room school house. It was moved behind the Meeting House, and then moved once more across the street to where it is today. Part of The Lucerne barn was dragged down Roberts Road where it still stands today.
Even the lumber was too precious to waste. The trees were felled here, by men who worked and lived here. Those boards were milled in a water-driven mill (perhaps at the outflow from Canaan Street Lake) perhaps down in Factory Village. You didn’t just throw away all those man-hours of labor. Only a fool would destroy a building and Jacob Trussell was never a fool.
Also, the weird decision to relocate the school is very much in keeping with their genuine desire not to go to jail. They were breaking the law, no question. But could they get away with it? Their argument boiled down to what we today might call Civil Disobedience. They deliberately broke the law in a way that was kind of acceptable in order to make a much larger point.
Before they took action, they consulted with lawyers who all told them that this was formally illegal, but that they were very likely not to get prosecuted. Just as today, they were able to make use of respected men who would give cover to obviously bad acts by lending their own respectability to the cause.
It is said that the selectmen were never averse to the advice of Mr. Weeks and Mr. Blodgett, who did not appear as open advocates of violence, but whenever any suggestion or motive particularly diabolical was offered, these men would give it strength and courage by clothing it in legal language.
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They got the shoes under a little past 12 at noon. Trussell stands upon the front to give orders. The team is attached. Ninety-five yoke of cattle. It is straightened. The chains break. They try again and again the chains break! Almost in vain do they try.
Thermometer ranges at 116 in the sun. At half past 7 they had succeeded in drawing it into the road, when they adjourned till next day. The cattle were in the meantime driven down to William Martin’s meadow, where they were turned loose for the night. I need not tell you of the band of earnest philanthropists,— men and women,— who met together in secret that dark night and wept and prayed because of the destruction that had befallen their beautiful hopes.
A hundred yoked oxen
I couldn't imagine what a huge string of oxen moving something would look like, so I asked the Internet to cough up some old images. These two were my favorites. The first shows a house being moved by a double string of oxen. There is a string of 12 (six yokes) on the left and a string of 12 on the right for a total of 24 oxen. It was hard to count, so it might be 10 on a side for a total of 20 oxen.
No one has suggested that they used a double string on Noyes, but it might make sense because one of the limiting factors when moving things by ox is turning radius. I have spent way too much time on the internet reading about ox-driven haulage. I'm terrible at three-dimensional modeling, but I imagine that a single string of 50 yoked oxen (roughly 400 feet long) would have a larger turning radius than a double string of 25 each side for an overall length of 200 feet.
Noyes Academy had to be moved forward to the street and turned to go down the street, on skids. I'm assuming turning radius would come into play.
The photo below is a string of 22 oxen (again, best count I could get) and it is so much longer than the string of 20 or 24 above.
I don't have anything in particular to add, but it is so outside my frame of reference to have a bunch of cows put to work as house movers that I had to get a look to really believe it was a thing.
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