Woman of the Century/Harriet Newell Haskell

2278123Woman of the Century — Harriet Newell Haskell

HASKELL, Miss Harriet Newell, educator, born in Waldborough, Maine, 14th January, 1835. HARRIET NEWELL HASKELL. Her father was Bela B. Haskell, a banker and ship-builder and a conspicuous citizen of Lincoln county. He served two terms in the Maine legislature and was collector of customs of his district under President Taylor. Miss Haskell was educated in Castleton Collegiate Seminary, Vermont, and Mount Holyoke Seminary, Massachusetts, from which school she was graduated with honor in 1855. An unlimited capacity for fun is one of Miss Haskell's prominent traits, and is one of the points in which her nature touches that of a school-girl, making her relation to them one of unbounded sympathy She has never lost this characteristic in all the serious responsibilities of her life, and therefore she holds the very key to the school-girl's heart. She is a fine scholar, an able critic and also preeminently a Christian woman. Her first experience in teaching was in Boston, in the Franklin school. Afterwards she was principal of the high school in her own town, and later in Castleton Collegiate School. It was while in that school the Rev. Truman Post, D.D., president of the board of trustees of Monticello Seminary wrote to a friend in Maine, asking him if he could recommend to him a woman to take the then vacant place of principal of Monticello, who was a scholar and a Christian, a woman of good business capacity and a good educator as well. The friend replied that there was only one such woman in the world, and that was Miss Haskell, of Castleton College, but that she could not be removed from the State of Vermont. After three years of solicitation. Miss Haskell became principal of Monticello, in 1868. The last years of her father's life were passed with her in the seminary. He died in 1887. The Monticello Seminary was destroyed by fire in Noveml)er, 1888, just as the institution was beginning its second half-century. Through Miss Haskell's energetic efforts a temporary building was put up, and the school was re-opened with eighty-nine of the one-hundred-thirty young women who were in the institution when the time came. In less than two years the present fine buildings were erected. The corner-stone of the new building was laid on 10th June, 1889. The Post Library was given by friends of Dr. Post, of St. Louis, Mo., who was for thirty-six years the president of the board of trustees of the seminary. The Eleanor Irwin Reid Memorial Chapel was given by William H. Reid, of Chicago, Ill., in memory of his wife. The new seminary was opened in 1890 with one-hundred-fifty students, and is now in successful operation, equipped with every modern appliance, and managed by Miss Haskell, whose ideas dominate the institution in every detail.