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History
Rehoboth was first established in 1643, originally a part of the Plymouth Colony. Currently, it is a small suburban town located in southeastern Massachusetts with roughly ten thousand residents. Rehoboth was the birthplace of public education in North America and today still has an excellent educational system.
The largest settlement in the town is Rehoboth, a pretty hamlet in the center of the town, containing a store, grist mill, market, blacksmith shop, a Congregational church, the Goff Memorial hall (elsewhere described), and the new car barns of the Brockton, Providence and Taunton Electric Railroad company, which passes through the village and has recently been opened for travel. A newspaper, called the Rehoboth Sentinel, is published here by Samuel Fiske, which is one of several in the county, all containing the same general news, with a change of heading and local news in each. A Baptist church stands about a mile northeast of the village, a Methodist church in North Rehoboth, and a Baptist church at South Rehoboth. The old Irons church still stands near the Attleborough line, but is not in use. The store in Rehoboth village was formerly conducted by J. C. Marvel, who was preceded by his father, William Marvel 2d. There is a saw and grist mill two miles north of Rehoboth village at a place called Perrysville, which was operated many years by Otis Perry. There is also at that point a wooden ware manufactory operated by Charles Perry & Co., an done mile west of the village is a jewelry manufactory recently established. The town almshouse is situated two miles south of Rehoboth on the Harris road. The town contains fifteen schools which were well maintained.
Harris is a mere settlement where there is a post-office and a store. The post-office takes its name from Congressman B. W. Harris. There was formerly quite a flourishing hamlet here, around the old Orleans Mills, which were burned.
At the site of the North Rehoboth post-office there was formerly a large general mercantile business carried on, which extended over a considerable territory; it was conducted by Granville Stevens. At Annawan there is a little settlement where there is a Baptist church and a hotel.
Mixed farming is carried on in this town, but the principal agricultural interest is market gardening, raising strawberries and producing milk, all of which go to the Providence market.
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Perryville Dam
This site was originally known as Butterworth Falls when the area was settled in the late 1600's. John Butterworth constructed a sawmill at the north side of Danforth Street prior to 1690. Butterworth owned a large farm that included what is now the nearby Rehoboth Country Club.
The Carpenter family owned and operated this mill through the Revolution and up to the 1850's, when it was purchased by the Perry family. That family operated a large turning mill on the south side of Danforth Street that produced tool handles as well as bobbins for the cotton manufacturing industry in the Blackstone Valley. This business lasted until the 1890's. A sawmill and gristmill operated on the site until the mid-1930's.
Hornbine School
The first school in the Hornbine District # 10, was built at the curve in the road on Spring Street near the Cole Brook Cemetery. It was called the Cole Brook School. When Hannah Baker, grandmother of Florence Piece of Swansea attended this school in 1825, sessions were held during the winter months only.
Lizzie Baker Cole, daughter of Lizzie Douglas Baker, who taught here in 1868-1869, stated that the land was given by her grandmother, Mrs. Nathaniel (Susan Pierce) Baker and that the school was built in 1847. Lizzie attended school there in 1848 and her teacher was Julia Willington.
The wooden shutters still on the Hornbine School were used as shutters in the early years. Mrs. Amelia Horton Carpenter who taught here before the turn of the century wrote , “every night after school it would require at least 20 minutes to go outside, unlock shutters, go inside, open the window, hook the shutter, close the window, place a stick over the lower sash. Why it was necessary I did not know, some days not a person passed the school.”
Originally the building had two windows on the south and two on the north sides, a chimney on the back with flanking windows. The early Town Reports referred to District #10 as South East School. The town purchased additional land for the school house lot from Lizzie Baker for $50. in the 1890’s. An outhouse building with a boys and a girls side with a wood shed in the middle was built at this time. In 1923 the building was extended 14 feet in the back, and two more windows were added to each side leaving no windows on the back. Attendance was as high as 49 pupils in 1928 with eight grades. Ester Hopkins was the last teacher. The school closed in 1937 and the 14 pupils left were sent to Swansea Box Street School. The school had been named the Hornbine School in 1882.
The building was sold and changed hands several times. During the 325th Anniversary or Rehoboth in 1968, the school was purchased by the Hornbine School Association through the efforts of many and given back to the town. Under the jurisdiction of the Historical Commission the school is now operating as a one-room school museum by The Hornbine School Association.
from "Rehoboth’s One Room Schools"
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