by Terry Thornton
One of my favorite places to shop in the Hill Country is a thrift store in Tupelo. The thrift shop supports a local Children's Home known affectionately as the Children's Mansion.
I
enjoy looking at the never-ending variety of items donated to the
thrift shop --- there I once turned down a huge church-sized electronic
organ complete with multiple keyboards and a full set of bass pedals --- and more organ stops that I could count.
"Why
you can have it for $25.00," the clerk said anxious to have the large
piece out of the shop. The only reason I don't have that huge organ in
my garage is that I had no way to haul the bargain home.
Shortly after Christmas 2007, I was at the thrift shop rummaging through the collectibles and
glassware and ran across an old decorative/commemorative item. The
plate-like wall hanging caught my eye as a possible interesting curio
to add to my growing pile of curiosities. It is a small
(6.5 inches across) hand-painted chalk decorative wall plate. It looked
ancient and was so unusual that I decided to buy it. It was marked
fifty-five cents.
Fifty-five cents was a bargain, I thought, for an antique piece that offered the possibility of some historical research with the probability of some genealogy research thrown in for good measure. This purchase combined the best of all worlds: bargains, curiosities, history, geography, educational history and the challenge to figure it all out.
The commemorative plate, as you can see in the pictures below, has some dings and pings (or chigger bites as we say in Mississippi). But I thought the piece was interesting and intriguing --- and I got to thinking "How did a commemorative plate for a school in Fall River, Massachusetts, end up in a thrift shop in Tupelo, Mississippi?"
All
of the various questions that raced through my mind about the plate
made the fifty-five cents small ticket to pay for the adventure that
was sure to come.
So
I bought the plate and came home and started my research. What an
adventure I've had --- I've gone from Lizzie Borden to Emeril Lagasse
to George Stephanopoulos in Fall River to one of the older and
wealthiest families to milling cotton cloth to a young man who died
young to a memorial school built
in his honor to a retrofitted and updated county court house. But I
still don't have a clue as to how a school plate from Massachusetts
ended up in Mississippi!
The school was built as a memorial to Bradford Matthew Chaloner Durfee -- hence the name B.M.C. Durfree High School.
On
the back of the plate is embossed "Made in Austria" and the penciled
numerals 79 and 15. The chalk-ware is unpainted on the back of the
piece; the small double loop of silk cord used to hang the plate is
shown although one of the holes is broken.
Fall
River was the epicenter for the cloth weaving industry in
Massachusetts. Cotton fabric was made there by the tons. Because of its
textile milling history, Fall River was once considered one of the
wealthiest towns in the United States. Much of that wealth was
concentrated under control of a few ruling families.
I
learned that Bradford Matthew Chaloner Durfee was the son of one of the
leading families in Fall River. His father died when Bradford Matthew
Chaloner (B.M.C.) was a baby leaving the bulk of his fortune to him.
B..M.C. Durfee himself died as a young man (at age 29). His mother
offered the local town
authorities a school built in her son's honor at her expense. Yes,
there were some strings attached but not so restrictive that the state,
city, and county didn't jump at the gift (see Memorial Book referenced below).
The
resulting school was magnificent. Dedicated in the 1880s, the school
served the needs of Fall River until recently when a new high school
was built to replace it. Today, the old building has been remodeled and
serves as a courthouse for Bristol County.
Photo
of B.M.C. Durfee High School, Fall River, MA, circa 1890s. Copyright
(c) by Keeley Library, B.M.C. Durfee High School 1996-2006. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
For twenty pictures of the B.M.C. Durfee High School, most made in the 1890s, click this link to Keeley Library collection: http://www.sailsinc.org/Durfee/fallriver.htm#schools
There are several excellent photographs of the interior and exterior of
the building and of specific use areas within the building. [Editor's Note: You owe it to yourself to look at these 1890s photographs to see what public schools could be like if money was no problem!]
Drawing
from the cover of B.M.C. Durfee High School Building, 1889 Memorial
Volume. PDF file from Keeley Library, B.M.C. Durfee High School, Fall
River, MA. Copyright (c) by Keeley Library.
In
1889, a memorial volume was printed about the school (drawings, floor
plans, speeches at the dedication, resolutions, letters, etc) entitled
B.M.C. Durfee High School Building, Fall River, Mass. (Press of Almy
and Milne 1889). A PDF file of that book is available at http://www.sailsinc.org/durfee/bmcdurfee.pdf
The text offers a unique look at the history of the school, the persons
involved at all levels in the gift of a school to a community, the
general floor plan of the building, drawings, down to a transcription
of the speeches given at the dedication of the new building. I found
the discussion about the telescope installed in the school most
interesting! The line drawing above is from the cover that that
memorial volume.
How
did the commemorative plate get to Tupelo? Unknown! But, oh, the fun
I've had learning about Fall River, about Bradford Matthew Chaloner
Durfee and the high school built to honor his memory.
Thanks to Ronald Bettencourt, Cataloger, Keeley Library, B.M.C. Durfee High School, Fall River, MA for his kind assistance.
ADDITIONAL READING:
Fall River, Massachusetts. Wikipedia. Good historical and current overview of the city and region.
For an interesting account of The Cotton Mills of Fall River, click here. Of interest are the accounts of The Mill Workers and The Mill Owners. B.M.C. Durfee and his family are discussed.
3 comments:
I collect cookbooks, and on occasion, someone's name will turn up on the inside cover of one. It sends me on a wild goose chase every time, and not once have I ever found the person! But, like you, I've had fun on the hunt. :-)
I'd venture to say that with cotton being grown in Mississippi and cotton fabric being manufactured in Fall River, that would be the most obvious connection. But why a high school commemorative plate?
Lee, It is fun the wild goose chasing, isn't it?
Thomas, The best mystery of all is how a high school "plate" from Fall River MA ended up in Tupelo MS.
TERRY
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