Charlestown Female Seminary and First Baptist Church, 1850 - Charleston, Boston Mass.

Charlestown Female Seminary and First Baptist Church, 1850. This is said to have been the first boarding school for girls in the state, and almost the first in the country. The seminary was instituted in 1831 by the First Baptist Church of Charlestown, and was chartered in March, 1833, with a board of trustees of which the Rev. Henry Jackson was president and the Rev. William Phillips vice-president. According to the Charlestown directory of 1833, "the location of the seminary is a favorable one, the buildings are situated on Union and Lawrence Streets, consisting of one of Grecian architecture 80 ft. by 36 feet, . . ., and another two story building connected with the former . . ." The directory for 1840 lists eight teachers, including Dr. Albert J. Bellows, lecturer on anatomy, physiology, hygiene, etc. In this year, the school procured "a very expensive and complicated orrery . . . and other valuable philosophical apparatus . . ." By this time 2000 graduates of the seminary had been sent forth, some of them to found "other flourishing female seminaries." Two boarding houses were connected with the seminary, one at 13 Austin Street, in charge of some of the teachers, and where the cost for board was less than two dollars a week, including washing, fuel and lights. The other boarding home was simpler and assisted by the ladies of the community, so that board and tuition together did not exceed $1.50 a week.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library