In 1831 the proprietors of the "female seminary in Springfield" bought of Charles Stearns a lot of land on Maple street, four rods by eight rods, for $300, on which the following year they erected the house 77 Maple street, now occupied as a private dwelling. The house when originally built was three stories in height, and was heated during the winter by placing a cast-iron box-stove in the cellar and tin-pipes up through each floor to conduct the heat from pine wood used as fuel. On the opening of the seminary, about the year 1834, Miss Judith Hawks (who had established a private school in "Carew's hall," also called "Masonic hall," on the corner of Main and State streets, over the drug store of the late J. T. Webber) was engaged as its principal. After about two years of successful management she retired, and was succeeded by Misses Mary and Celia Campbell, former pupils of Miss Hawks.
George Eaton a graduate of Harvard College in 1833, a gentleman of scholarly attainments, succeeded the Misses Campbell, and conducted the school with marked success until the year 1843. Although the school was intended for the education of girls, Mr. Eaton introduced a new departure by permitting boys to enter. A number of the stockholders sent their boys to the school. It was not agreeable to some of the boys to be obliged to attend school where girls were to be their schoolmates, but they soon became reconciled to the change, under the encouraging sympathy manifested by the girls for their bashfulness. Mr. Eaton had for assistant teachers his sisters, Misses Mary and Sarah Eaton. Children of parents living
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