664 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

In the paragraph on school buildings there appears this
reference: ‘The Hemenway building for whites is well ar-
ranged and well supplied with comfortable seats. The Union
building, in White District No. 2, is comfortable, but in every
other respect it is entirely unfit for school purposes. After
many years of waiting and vexatious delay, the committee hope
to have a handsome building ready for occupancy next fall.”
This wish was realized, as the following extract shows: “In
1886, the pupils were moved from the old school into the hand-
some new Union building at the northwest corner of Sixth and
Ann. It contained eight large schoolrooms and a beautiful
hall.”

In the spring of 1891 the fire alarm sounded “48,” and it was
the Union School building on fire. It caught from a defective
flue and burned to the ground. The new structure was built
upon the foundation of the old one, and on the first Monday of
the following October the new building, as you see it today,
was occupied. In 1889, a building like the Union was built
upon a lot running through from Fifth to Sixth, between Chest-
nut and Walnut, which had been purchased through the earnest
advice of Mr. Horace Bagg.

On Saturday night early in the summer vacation of 1897,
some one set fire to the new Hemenway, and the next morning
this beautiful building was a mass of smoking ruins. ‘This
school was at once rebuilt, and turned over ready for the open-
ing on the first Monday in October in that year.

DECADE 1890-1990—-GROWTH OF THE HIGH-SCHOOL IDEA.

The high school as an organic part of the public-school system
had its origin at a very recent date. Previous to 1890 most of
the graded-school reports show provision for primary and
grammar grades only. The superintendent’s report for Wil-
mington, 1886, shows a provision for six grades only. No refer-
ence is made in this report to a high school. It was evidently
intended that the private schools which had flourished in the
towns and cities for a long time should take care of advanced
work, and in fact by many it seemed to be regarded as their
rightful heritage and possession.

During this decade there was an aggressive opposition to the
public high-school idea. In Raleigh, so determined was this
opposition, in the interest of the existing academy, that some of
its citizens had a law passed forbidding the teaching of high-

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school subjects in the public schools. Later, the Raleigh Acad-

emy gave way to the high school, its principal becoming the
principal of the high school.

In Wilmington, the idea began to take shape in the mind of
the superintendent soon after the schools were moved into the
new Hemenway and Union School buildings, for he began grad-
ually to add high-school subjects and thus to enrich the course
of study.

The school committees, with prophetic vision, saw the neces-
sity for it in order to close up the gap between the grammar
school and the State University. As evidence of their faith in
it, they bought at this time a lot at the corner of Third and
Market Streets, where the Colonial Inn now stands, and moved
the advanced classes from the lower schools into the little one-
story schoolhouse just south of the courthouse, on Third Street.
This remained Wilmington’s high school until the year 1897,
when the advanced classes from the Hemenway, Union, and
Third Street Schools, numbering in all one hundred, with four
teachers in charge, moved into the Tileston Normal building.
The city came into control of this building by a lease obtained
through the personal efforts of Mr. James H. Chadbourn, then
chairman of the joint committee. The following May the first
graduating exercises were held and certificates were given to
three girl graduates. Each year there were gratifying increases.
The class of 1914 numbered 30, bringing the total number of
graduates up to 315. In 1910, nine more rooms were added
and a faculty of fourteen teachers and a principal employed.

1900-1914.

On January 5, 1899, Mr. John J. Blair succeeded Mr. Noble
as superintendent. .A few leading events of this period are

enumerated below:
In 1901, by deed of gift, the Tileston building and half of

that city block became the property of the city of Wilmington.

In 1904 an addition of foufteen rooms was made to the Union
School, and just previous to this, eight rooms were added to the
Hemenway. 3

In 1909 a local tax of fifteen cents on the one-hundred-dollar
valuation was voted by the entire county, and New Hanover was
the first county to become a special tax district.

In 1910, under an enactment of Congress, eleven city blocks
of land back of the Marine Hospital were secured by the Board
of Education for park and school purposes.