Wendell — Schools
Extracted from "History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, Volume II," by Louis H. Everts, 1879.
The record of the first annual town-meeting, held March. 1782, refers to the existence of a school-house in the town, on the site, probably, of the present north school-house. Twelve pounds were raised that year for schooling, and in the autumn of the same year measures were instituted for the division of the town into four school squadrons or districts. In 1791 the will of Major William Erving gave to the town a school lot of 120 acres on Whetstone Hill, about a mile east of Wendell Centre. The donor in his will set forth as a reason that, "thinking it of the highest consequence that learning should be preserved, for fear, from the great inattention thereto, that the people might relapse into a state of barbarism, he bequeathed." etc.
In that year, too, the town voted £200 for building school-houses, of which it appears there were to be five,—north, south, east, west, and centre. In 1827 the number of districts was raised to ten, but since then it has returned to the old standard,--five. The schools are now known as the Centre, North, Mormon Hollow, South, and Southwest schools. The average daily attendance of scholars in 1878 was 198, and the amount raised for school expenses $772, exclusive of $209 received front the State. A social library was established in the town in 1824, and has since then continued to prosper in a gratifying way
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