School Photos


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Sewall School, Kindergarten, 1892
275 Cypress St., building still standing. For the 1891-1892 school session Harriet E. Hart was listed as the principal; Mary A. O'Hearn, Annie M. Utley, Dora T. Maine were listed as teachers.

There are seven student names listed on the blackboard, five girls and two boys. They are all children who lived within a few blocks of the school in the neighborhood known as "The Point", all from families of fairly-recent immigrants (4-5 from Ireland, 2 from England). Remarkably, all five of the girls appear to have remained living with family members throughout their lives, never marrying. The children named are:
  • Mary T. Mahoney. The family lived at 18 Roberts St. and her father was a laborer who emigrated from Ireland. A dressmaker, she never married and lived her entire life with family members within a few blocks of that address.
  • Willie Herbert may be Wilwyn Bret Herbert whose father emigrated from England in 1880 and later lived elsewhere in Brookline but there is no other supporting evidence for his identity.
  • Gertrude F. Burns lived until the age of about 29 with her family at 55 Franklin St. She later worked as a domestic nurse but there is no more information about her after 1915.
  • John Lally lived at 23 Roberts St. His father emigrated from Galway, Ireland in 1872 and worked for years as a coachman for the Henry Poor estate on Walnut St., a few blocks away.
  • Sarah May McAdams lived at 5 Roberts St. Her father’s father emigrated from Ireland, her father worked as a carpenter. One of ten children, she later worked in a factory as an armature winder, lived with her parents until their deaths, and never marrying.
  • Nellie Beverley is most likely Frederica Beverley who lived on Chestnut St., directly across the street from the Charles Sargent estate where her father worked as the butler. Her eight-year-old sister, Lena, would have been too old for this class but cannot be ruled out as the match. Frederica remained unmarried, living with family members in Brookline for the remainder of her life.
  • Mary Ellen Nora McMahan lived on Cypress Court. Her father had emigrated from Dublin and was a herdsman at the time after having been a coachman for several years. She lived with family members for years and remained unmarried.


Page 8, plate 7283. From an album of fifty photographs of Brookline schools, classrooms, and examples of clay modeling, wood-working, and cooking. Produced for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
incl. Streets

Image Courtesy the Brookline Preservation Department