Bicentennial Moments - Hannah Kimball, Founder of the Female Department 1839-40
Cyrus Richards, a recent graduate of Dartmouth College, was a young man of enormous ability and character and had just been appointed principal of his alma mater, Kimball Union, a school gaining in reputation but only in its 21st year of existence. Besides himself, he had one other instructor to educate 45 known members of the senior class alone, including just three women. At that time one of the most influential people of the church and community, in fact, the widow, now 77 years old, of the founder and great benefactor of the school, Daniel Kimball, lived across the church green from the Academy. This person, Hannah Kimball, was known to have kept a “lively and motherly interest” in Kimball Union throughout her lifetime.
We will probably never know if this was an easy alliance or not, or what influences Hannah Kimball might have had on the young principal. We do know from her Last Will and Testament, that her thoughts were taken up with her long-held plans to found a Female Seminary in Meriden. She stated in her will that since most of her husband’s large estate, with her blessing, was signed over to the trustees of KUA for “the benefit of a certain class of male students” that she had, in her own words, “… since his death been desirous of leaving a portion of my small property for the benefit of females at an institution in this place.”
To raise the initial, necessary funds for her enterprise, she approached friends and neighbors with the proposition that she would give $1250 for a Female Seminary if they would raise the same amount. She added that she would leave the principal part of her estate to the school as long as she had the right to choose its location. Her proposition was accepted and the money was raised. She had already found a building site not a quarter mile west of the Academy on land owned by KUA Treasurer and Trustee Samuel B. Duncan of Duncan House.
The trusteeswho realized that their current building “… was inadequate for the greatly increased patronage under the new regime,” met with Hannah Kimball to consider a new plan. Although bricks and other material were already at her building site, the new plan was to unite the two schools under the same board of trustees but with separate but equal male and female departments. Hannah Kimball, who, upon consideration, may have realized that her great undertaking had a better chance of success with an established school behind it, agreed to the plan, but with firm instructions for the benefit of her young women. The trustees’ report of the agreement noted that “… by enlarging the present buildings and procuring additional and suitable instruction for females … she does not contemplate a distinct and separate institution but expect both males and females as heretofore to be under the Superintendance of the principal of the Academy with the understanding however that the board will in addition to the proper number of male teachers provide such female instruction or instructions as may be necessary in their opinion for the best education of the young women who may wish to enjoy the privileges of the institution … and in making such provision as will most certainly answer the great purposes to which her husband and herself have devoted their estate and most effectually subserve the improvement of society and the glory of God.”
The corner stone for the new building was laid on May 8, 1839, and classes with a fully organized Female Department, began in the autumn of 1840. KUA had come from a school with a handful of female students each year to 21 in the class of 1841. Hannah Kimball died on June 17, 1847, at age 89, after a long life of service to the youth of Kimball Union Academy.
Next time: Cyrus S. Richards, the abolitionist Principal
For weekly updates, and to view past postings created by KUA Archivist Jane Carver Fielder, visit KUA's Archives Blog
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We will probably never know if this was an easy alliance or not, or what influences Hannah Kimball might have had on the young principal. We do know from her Last Will and Testament, that her thoughts were taken up with her long-held plans to found a Female Seminary in Meriden. She stated in her will that since most of her husband’s large estate, with her blessing, was signed over to the trustees of KUA for “the benefit of a certain class of male students” that she had, in her own words, “… since his death been desirous of leaving a portion of my small property for the benefit of females at an institution in this place.”
To raise the initial, necessary funds for her enterprise, she approached friends and neighbors with the proposition that she would give $1250 for a Female Seminary if they would raise the same amount. She added that she would leave the principal part of her estate to the school as long as she had the right to choose its location. Her proposition was accepted and the money was raised. She had already found a building site not a quarter mile west of the Academy on land owned by KUA Treasurer and Trustee Samuel B. Duncan of Duncan House.
The trusteeswho realized that their current building “… was inadequate for the greatly increased patronage under the new regime,” met with Hannah Kimball to consider a new plan. Although bricks and other material were already at her building site, the new plan was to unite the two schools under the same board of trustees but with separate but equal male and female departments. Hannah Kimball, who, upon consideration, may have realized that her great undertaking had a better chance of success with an established school behind it, agreed to the plan, but with firm instructions for the benefit of her young women. The trustees’ report of the agreement noted that “… by enlarging the present buildings and procuring additional and suitable instruction for females … she does not contemplate a distinct and separate institution but expect both males and females as heretofore to be under the Superintendance of the principal of the Academy with the understanding however that the board will in addition to the proper number of male teachers provide such female instruction or instructions as may be necessary in their opinion for the best education of the young women who may wish to enjoy the privileges of the institution … and in making such provision as will most certainly answer the great purposes to which her husband and herself have devoted their estate and most effectually subserve the improvement of society and the glory of God.”
The corner stone for the new building was laid on May 8, 1839, and classes with a fully organized Female Department, began in the autumn of 1840. KUA had come from a school with a handful of female students each year to 21 in the class of 1841. Hannah Kimball died on June 17, 1847, at age 89, after a long life of service to the youth of Kimball Union Academy.
Next time: Cyrus S. Richards, the abolitionist Principal
For weekly updates, and to view past postings created by KUA Archivist Jane Carver Fielder, visit KUA's Archives Blog
