By Cary Brunswick
News in January 1926
Stephen Joyce, of the Board of Trustees of the Bellows Free Academy Fund, addressed the St. Albans Chamber of Commerce and told members that 1926 was to be a year of major significance to the community.
Why? In 1876, Hiram Bellows of Fairfax and St. Albans made a will in which he left his residence and 2.5-acre lot on North Main Street in St. Albans, and his holdings of New York Central Railroad stock, for the establishment of a free school on that lot to be known as the Bellows Free Academy.
Bellows wanted the academy to be kept free from religion, though morals and rectitude and right living were to be taught and encouraged. He said a board of five trustees created to administer the fund should not include any clergy and that no two members should belong to the same church.
At the present time, Joyce said, the fund amounted to $270,000, and the stipulated 50 years hence expires in October 1926. The will directed that money remaining after school-building construction was to be safely invested and revenue derived therefrom be used for teacher salaries, equipment and operating costs.
“Today, St. Albans wants and needs a modern and adequate building to take the place of the present high school building (on Church Street), which is inadequate, wasteful and old-fashioned,” Joyce told Chamber members, adding that Mr. Bellows would want his will to meld with the wants and needs of the community.
Joyce laid out the complexities involved in dropping the current high school and sending students to the new academy, and insisted it was vital for the Chamber, the PTA and other civic groups to get on the same page with a plan, because October was approaching.
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Citing three major tasks facing the city in a speech to the Rotary Club, Chamber president Steve Cushing first echoed Joyce, saying the city’s factions must come to an agreement on the best way to use the Bellows fund to benefit high school students with the establishment of a new academy.
Cushing also asked whether profit from the city’s reservoir plant could be used for the establishment of a municipal forest that would ensure the purity and quantity of the water supply.
In addition, he said the city ought to be planning for “a proper method of sewage disposal to replace the current Stevens Brook open-air system that is offensive to health and the city’s best interests.”
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Fossilized fish have a new meaning in St. Albans since “Howell’s dawn fish” was discovered here and set back the scientists’ clock some millions of years.
B.F. Howell, a Princeton University researcher, found the fossilized fish plate in St. Albans last summer and he and other scientists have dated it back to the Cambrian period from 50 -100 million years ago.
Will of Hiram Bellows could launch new high school
The former middle- and high school building is pictured on Church Street Today it is owned by the St. Albans Museum.
Leslie Truax of St. Albans says he’s been scouring the local shale deposits for decades, and he believes some fish remains in his collection are similar Howell’s discovery.
Truax said he has contributed numerous archeological specimens, including some relics of Native American civilization or earlier, to museums around the country.
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News was received that former resident Harold Sault has accepted a spot in the orchestra of the “San Lorenzo” ocean liner and left New York City for Cuba and Porta Rico. S.J. Godfrey will manage the orchestra while Sault is away.
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The Barlow Street School PTA voted to present “The Wizard of Oz” at the Bellevue Theater in March. It was noted that the picture is very funny but permissible for children to see.
From the Classifieds: Help Wanted – Male, Good milker. P.F. Pelkey. Help Wanted: Pin boys at Clarke & Paquet Alleys.
Cary Brunswick, of St. Albans is writing a regular column of local history for The Messenger. He can be contacted at brunswick@earthling.net.