Erving — Schools
Extracted from "History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, Volume II," by Louis H. Everts, 1879.
Education does not seem to have received in Erving that attention usual with the early settlers in a majority of New England towns. The first public appropriation for schools was made in 1815, when the grant was divided into three school districts, and $30 raised for schooling. "Aunt" Lucretia White, who died in 1876, aged eighty, was the first school-dame, and taught school at Erving village in 1815, or earlier. The youth were taught, perhaps, previous to that year, but educational advantages then, and for some time thereafter, were exceedingly limited. Schools occupy at the present time a satisfactory standard of excellence.
There were in the town, in 1878, six schools, two at Erving village, one of these being a grammar school. In that year $1500 were appropriated for schools, at which the average daily attendance numbered 160.
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