Moses C. Mitchell
Moses Campbell Mitchell was the founder and for some forty years the proprietor of the Mitchell Boys' School, a boarding school for young boys that he brought to Billerica in 1879 and that his son and grandson ran until the early 1940s. He graduated in 1862 from Waterville College, now Colby, taught in academies in Maine, and about 1870 opened a private school for boys at Edgartown, Massachusetts.
Early in 1879 Mitchell moved the school to Billerica. After brief stays on Boston Street and Andover Street it settled in 1880 in the large building that had replaced the old hotel, burned in 1877, at the south corner of Andover and Main Streets across from the meeting house (the Mitchell Boys' School on the site of the Fletcher Hotel). His wife, Mary Hanson Mitchell, bought it in her own right on April 7, 1880 for $7,500 from Albert R. Richardson, "the large street lantern at the corner of the house" included, the Mitchells giving Richardson a $5,000 mortgage, and the school moved in that May. It was a home school limited to twenty-four boys, at $400 a year for all expenses.
In May 1887 Mitchell bought for $1,500 from Dudley Foster the "Shed Place", a farm of about 49 acres on the road to Bedford (now Concord Road). When the school building at the Centre burned on January 11, 1888, the boys were boarded with townspeople and taught in the basement of the Unitarian church, and in August the Mitchells sold the bare corner to Dr. Albert C. Lane for $3,000. The school reopened on October 8, 1888 in new buildings on the Shed Place, the Mitchell Boys' School on Concord Road. By 1908 it was the Mitchell Military Boys School, limited to fifty boys, with Moses C. Mitchell, A.M., as proprietor and his son Alexander H. Mitchell as head master; about 1911 he handed the management to his son. Its motto was "A Wholesome School for Wholesome Boys", and a later building, Campbell Hall, was named for him.
Mitchell was on the list of Billerica voters in 1880, served on the Finance Committee in 1910, and was a vice-president of the Billerica Board of Trade in 1911. He had died by 1914, when the town fire reports refer to the M. C. Mitchell estate. His widow, Mary H. Mitchell, had the school land surveyed as "Mitchell Estates" in 1935 and deeded it to her son and to the Mitchell School corporation; part of it later became the town's athletic fields on Concord Road.
References
- Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 258: Professor M. C. Mitchell moves his boys' school to Billerica early in 1879
- Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 259: graduate of Waterville College 1862, boys' school at Edgartown, the building at Andover and Main Streets occupied May 1880
- Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 314: list of voters in 1880, Mitchell, Moses C.
- Billerica Public Library, local history: the Mitchell School, 1879-1943
Deed References
| Date | Type | Grantor | Grantee | Summary | Property | Recorded |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 10, 1880 | Warranty Deed | Albert R. Richardson of Billerica (Caroline E. Richardson releasing dower and homestead) | Mary Hanson Mitchell of Billerica, wife of Moses C. Mitchell | His wife Mary Hanson Mitchell buys the corner school building, 1880 | Fletcher Hotel Mitchell Boys' School Town House |
138/488 |
Dated April 7, 1880. For $7,500, the same one and a half acres "with the buildings thereon ... in the centre of said Billerica nearly opposite the Unitarian Church", the Blanchard and Bruce lots, "Also the large street lantern at the corner of the house on the premises", being the premises conveyed to Richardson by Joseph Warren Green on April 1, 1879. The buildings are the Mitchell Boys' School, which the Mitchells had moved to Billerica.
Title from:
Title passed to:
|
||||||
| April 10, 1880 | Mortgage | Moses C. Mitchell and Mary Hanson Mitchell his wife, in her right | Albert R. Richardson of Billerica | With his wife mortgages the corner property to Albert R. Richardson, 1880 | Fletcher Hotel Mitchell Boys' School |
138/489 |
Dated April 7, 1880. Purchase-money mortgage for $5,000 on the same one and a half acres in the centre of Billerica "nearly opposite the Unitarian Church", the Bruce lot and "the large street lantern at the corner of the house", "this mortgage being given to secure a portion of the purchase money of said premises". Discharged in the margin by Richardson at Lowell, March 1888.
Title from:
|
||||||
| June 3, 1887 | Warranty Deed | Dudley Foster of Billerica (Mary P. Foster releasing dower and homestead) | Moses C. Mitchell of Billerica | Buys the Shed Place on the road to Bedford from Dudley Foster, 1887 | 189/55 | |
Pages 55-56. Dated May 25, 1887. For $1,500, "a certain parcel of land known as the 'Shed Place', situated in said Billerica, containing forty-nine acres and eighty-one rods, more or less", beginning at the northeast corner at land formerly of Samuel Whiting and "the road leading to Bedford", westerly and southwesterly by that road to "the road leading by the grave yard to the Isaac French Place", southerly 30 rods to land formerly of the heirs of Cyrus French, around their land and land formerly of Hannah French to "the Causeway lot, so called", and northerly by land formerly of Josiah Bowers, Jacob Norton, John Eames and Whiting to the beginning. "Being the same premises conveyed to me by Charles E. Gorham deed dated May, 1887" (book and page left blank). Mitchell moved his boys' school here after the 1888 fire.
Title from:
Title passed to:
|
||||||
| September 1, 1888 | Warranty Deed | Mary Hanson Mitchell and Moses C. Mitchell her husband, of Billerica | Dr. Albert C. Lane of Billerica | With his wife sells the burned corner lot to Dr. Albert C. Lane, 1888 | Fletcher Hotel Mitchell Boys' School Dr. Albert C. Lane House Town House |
199/442 |
Dated Aug. 28, 1888. For $3,000, "a certain parcel of land situate in said Billerica containing one and one half acres more or less located in the centre of said Billerica nearly opposite the Unitarian Church", bounded north by the Andover and Tewksbury road, east by land formerly of Lyman Haynes, later Matthew Carey "and now by said Moses C. Mitchell", south by land formerly of Samuel W. Baldwin "and at present by J. F. Bruce", and west by the Boston and Lowell road, the Blanchard and Bruce lots, "being the same premises conveyed to Mary Hanson Mitchell by Albert R. Richardson by his deed dated April 7th 1880". No buildings are mentioned: the school had burned earlier in 1888. Lane built his house and office here.
Title from:
Title passed to:
|
||||||
| August 26, 1892 | Warranty Deed | Dr. Albert C. Lane of Billerica (Estella J. Lane releasing dower and homestead) | Eliphalet W. Tyler of New York City | Named in the title recital of Dr. Lane's sale of the corner, 1892 | Fletcher Hotel Dr. Albert C. Lane House Town House |
235/499 |
Dated Aug. 11, 1892. For $8,000, "a certain parcel of land situate in said Billerica containing one and one half acres more or less, located in the centre of said Billerica, nearly opposite the Unitarian Church", bounded by the Andover and Tewksbury road, Moses C. Mitchell (formerly Lyman Haynes and Mathew Carey), J. F. Bruce (formerly Samuel W. Baldwin) and the Boston and Lowell road, with the adjoining Bruce lot, "being the same premises conveyed to said Albert C. Lane by deed from said Mary Hanson Mitchell and Moses C. Mitchell dated August twenty-eighth, eighteen hundred and eighty-eight". The price, against $3,000 in 1888, reflects the house Lane had built. Mrs. Lane's release of dower was re-recorded as a correction in Book 240, page 545.
Title from:
Title passed to:
|
||||||
Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.