For the first three-quarters of
the 19th century, the south side of Portland Street was almost entirely
open countryside. From young Sarah Orne Jewett’s doorway at the Jewett-Eastman
House, she could cross Portland Street to climb into the fields on Butler’s
Hill to discover a bubbling spring or a sentinel pine.
Portland Street, South Berwick, about 1860.
Much of this property belonged to Francis Raynes and his wife Harriet Goodwin. The Raynes farmhouse stood across from the Burleigh mansion, on land extending along much of the length of Portland Street. At the Corner, near the Odd Fellows Block, Raynes operated a shoe-making business that stood approximately where a gas station stands now.
A purchase made by the Raynes family at the Jewett family store
To children like young Sarah, her sisters and her friends, by far the most important member of Raynes family was their daughter. Miss Olive Raynes, born July 6, 1833, was a Portland Street legend, as evidenced by newspaper articles written at the end of her life. She taught school in South Berwick for over 60 years—from the 1850s, when Sarah and her sisters were pupils, into the twentieth century.
Miss Raynes briefly taught at other schools, likely at the Schoolhouse
No. 5 farther down Portland Street, where in 1842 her father had been
on the building committee, and at Berwick Academy. By the 1850s, however,
she ran her own school, for the families of the elite.
Sarah
Orne Jewett as a pupil of Miss Raynes
During Jewett’s childhood, Miss Raynes held classes upstairs in two buildings connected to the family shoe manufacturing business near the Corner. Among the classmates of Sarah and Mary Jewett were Mary Allan, Mittie Allan, Ephraim Allan, Albert Bailey, Eva Clark, Frank Colcord, John Colcord, Sarah Colby, George Colby, Fred Cromwell, Herman Grant, Maria Grant, Mattie Grant, Hattie Harriman, Henry Harriman, William Huntress, Frank Lord, Lizzie Neally, Elizabeth Plaisted, George Plaisted, Charles N. Raynes, Kate Sanborn, Lizzie Sanborn, Carrie Sanborn, Edward P. Sanborn, Louise Sanborn, Mary Thompson, Lizzie Trafton, Nellie Whitehead, John Whitehead, Charles Whitehead, Rebecca Young, and Nellie Young.
In 1861, about the time that Jewett entered Berwick Academy as a teen, Miss
Raynes moved her school into the building that is now 96 Portland Street,
the Century 21 office.
Olive Raynes died unmarried on February 23, 1923 in Arlington, MA. From "Daniel Goodwin of Ancient Kittery, Maine and His Descendants by John Hayes Goodwin, 1985."
For more on Miss Raynes’ School:
Miss Olive Raynes
Other links:
Portland Street Walking Tour
Main Street Walking Tour
Old Berwick Historical Society Homepage