LINCOLN COUNTY MAINE BIOGRAPHIES
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LINCOLN COUNTY MAINE BIOGRAPHIES |
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HASKELL, Miss Harriet Newell, educator, born in
Waldborough, Maine, 14th January, 1835. Her father was Bela B. Haskell, a
banker and ship-builder and a-conspicuous citizen of Lincoln county. He
served two terms in the Maine legislature and was collector of customs of
his district under President Taylor. Miss Haskell was educated in
Castleton Collegiate Seminary, Vermont, and Mount Holyoke Seminary,
Massachusetts, from which school she was graduated with honor in 1855. An
unlimited capacity for fun is one of Miss Haskell's prominent traits, and
is one of the points in which her nature touches that of a school-girl,
making her relation to them one of unbounded sympathy. She has never lost
this characteristic in all the serious responsibilities of her life, and
therefore she holds the very key to the school-girl's heart. She is a fine
scholar, an able critic and also preeminently a Christian woman. Her first
experience in teaching was in Boston, in the Franklin school. Afterwards
she was principal of the high school in her own town, and later in
Castleton Collegiate School. It was while in that school the Rev. Truman
Post, D. D., president of the board of trustees of Monticello Seminary,
wrote to a friend in Maine, asking him if he could recommend to him a
woman to take the then vacant place of principal of Monticello, who was a
scholar and a Christian, a woman of good business capacity and a good
educator as well. The friend replied that there was only one such woman in
the world, and that was Miss Haskell, of Castleton College, but that she
could not be removed from the State of Vermont. After three years of
solicitation, Miss Haskell became principal of Monticello, in 1868. The
last years of her father's life were passed with her in the seminary. He
died in 1887. The Monticello Seminary was destroyed by fire in November,
1888, just as the institution was beginning its second half-century.
Through Miss Haskell’s energetic efforts a temporary building was put
up, and the school was re-opened with eighty-nine of the one hundred and
thirty young women who were in the institution when the fire came. In less
than two years the present fine buildings were erected. The cornerstone of
the new building was laid on l0th June, 1889. The Post Library was given
by friends of Dr. Post, of St. Louis, Mo., who was for thirty-six years
the president of the board of trustees of the seminary. The Eleanor Irwin
Reid Memorial Chapel was given by William H. Reid, of Chicago, Ills., in
memory of his wife. The new seminary was opened in 1890, with one hundred
and fifty students, and is now in successful operation, equipped with
every modern appliance, and managed by Miss Haskell, whose ideas dominate
the institution in every detail.
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