Boston: Archaeologists survey the earliest years of the South End's Dwight School

This fall, the City of Boston Archaeology Program will conduct an archaeological survey to investigate the former location of the c. 1851 Dwight Primary School privy. Historical atlases show an approximately 90-foot (27.5-meter) long brick structure along the rear property line until around 1895, when the Boston School Committee voted to phase out the use of outdoor privy vaults.

Archaeologists aim to locate and document any remaining features or deposits related to the school's privy block. If the privy remains are found, this project proposes to move into a second Site Examination survey to document the feature's contents.

The proposed excavations serve four primary purposes:

1. To document the history of the parcel through archaeology before redevelopment
2. To determine the presence or absence of privy deposits related to the 1851-1912 Dwight Primary School
3. To engage the community in the archaeology of Boston
4. To provide the proponents with archaeological and historical data to inform future alteration decisions related to the property

The earliest history of the property at 35-43 Rutland Street is nebulous. No record could be located detailing the acquisition of the land by the City of Boston, and it is likely that unclaimed salt flats, marshland, and other undevelopable land was, by default, considered to be property of the City. It appears that the land was first divided up for public services, and then sold off to individual landowners by the City. For instance, in 1845, the Boston Children's Friend Society received the parcel on the southern side of Rutland Street. In 1851, the Dwight school district primary school was constructed on the project site on Rutland Street, not to be confused with the Dwight Grammar School first on Concord Street and then on Springfield Street.

The Dwight (or Rutland Street) Primary School taught children aged 4-8, both boys and girls, and maintained an average enrollment of approximately 50-60 students. The curriculum included subjects like writing and arithmetic as well as woodworking for boys and sewing or crafting for girls. The students used a large privy block behind the school building, abutting West Haven Street. The structure served as the rear of the school's enclosure wall. Measuring about 90 feet in length, the privy would have contained several stalls.

The floor plan for the "new" Dwight Grammar School constructed in 1856 on West Springfield Street shows a 90-foot long privy containing 32 stalls. These are referred to as "water closets" in the accompanying text, indicating that they likely had a flushing apparatus that was manually operated by the janitor at regular intervals. The text mentions a urinal that must also be flushed out, which is illustrated along the privacy fence outside the boys' half of the privy block in the plans shown below.

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Two sinks in the basement are visible in the Grammar school plan, and the shadows of sinks removed from the basement of the Primary school were observed during a site visit conducted on August 4, 2026. The Grammar school yard and privies were divided into boys' and girls' sides with walls and fences. It is possible that the Primary school was also divided this way, as the school has two separate entrances in both the front and back, though this is not confirmed in school documents as it is for the Grammar school.

One entry in the 1885 Proceedings of the School Committee of Boston includes a Board of Health report on the state of the "vaults" at the Rutland Street school and describes the privy thus:

"On Wednesday last I inspected the Rutland-st. Primary, and found no nuisance existing at the time; the teachers on the upper floor reported that sometimes an offensive odor was perceptible at the sinks, though I could detect none. There were no traps under the sinks, there being a main one in the cellar, which answered for all

The vaults are in the yard, and were not offensive at the time I was there; but teachers say that there are times when the odor is quite offensive, even in some of the school-rooms.

A properly-constructed flushing-vault, with sufficient water to flush both it and the urinal, would, with proper care, entirely abate this nuisance. Nothing else was complained of at this school (87-88)."

This indicates that as of 1885, the Primary school was still using a traditional non-flushing vault privy, unlike some of the newer school buildings. Waste management appears to be a theme for the School Committee around this time (the Bowditch School in Jamaica Plain was drying and burning its privy vault contents out in the open!), and it seems that this report marked the start of the slow process of phasing out the use of privies and transitioning to flushing indoor water closets. The privy block for the Primary school does not disappear from the atlases until 1908, though it is unlikely that it was used for that entire period.

In 1912, Dwight Primary was renamed the Frances E. Willard School and a new curriculum adopted to exclusively accommodate children with special needs (BPS Superintendent's Report 1913: 60). It retained this function until approximately 1945, when the City decommissioned it as a school and sold the building and property to Boston Disabled Veterans, Inc., a group ostensibly formed to serve military veterans returning from World War II (City of Boston 1947).

In 1948, Boston Disabled Veterans sold the building to Kalil "Charlie" Shibley, uncle and brother of the current owners. Following the sale, Charlie Shibley, and his younger brother, Fred, established a print distribution center in the school building, The Mid-Town Journal. The Shibley brothers and their sister, Gladys, were the children of Lebanese immigrants, Moses and Emma (née Abraham), who immigrated to the United States in the 1880s.

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Born in 1905, Fred Shibley was a colorful figure, having performed as an acrobatic dancer in vaudeville shows as Fred Hayes. He named his publication after the Midtown section of New York City where he had spent time during his life as an entertainer, working with the likes of Eddy Cantor and the Ziegfeld company after dropping out of school at 15. Eventually, Fred decided to put his sense of humor and penchant for entertainment to use and started writing about everyday goings-on in the neighborhood, including a police blotter. The paper gained popularity as a "scandal sheet," growing to a maximum circulation around 60,000 in stores as far as Providence in the 1950s (The Harvard Crimson 1968). His pen name was Iben Snupin. Fred's daughter, Penelope, describes the use of the school building as follows:

"The newspaper production offices were located in the first floor of the building, with the  upper two floors serving as rental units, at one time commercial, and later as apartments. Desks, telephones, a counter, a hot-lead linotype machine and other newspaper  equipment were located in the first floor office. A loading dock at the back of 39 Rutland  allowed delivery access. While the lead-embossed type mats were prepared by linotype  machine at the Rutland Street site, actual printing occurred elsewhere, for a period of  time by the publication offices of the Jewish Advocate" (Shibley 2021: 2).

As Urban Renewal efforts took off in Boston, the loss of small newsstands and corner stores began to impact Shibley's ability to distribute his paper. Despite public outcry and protest against urban renewal, much of it published in The Mid-Town Journal, Shibley was ultimately forced to close down the paper in 1966. In 1967, he began renting the distribution operation at the school to the publisher of a well-known counterculture magazine called The Avatar. Even more risqué than The Mid-Town Journal, The Avatar's offices were raided by the FBI that same year, who confiscated copies of the publication, which had been flagged as obscene (The Harvard Crimson 1967).

After Fred Shibley's death in 1970, printing operations at the school building ceased. Charlie Shibley transferred ownership of the building and property to Fred's wife and children. The first floor was briefly occupied by the new non-profit, The Project Place, which operated a shelter for runaways and the first emergency drug abuse hotline in the U.S. before moving across the street.

The building's newest owner as of Fall 2026, Peter Georgantas, plans to continue using the building for residential purposes following the construction of the rear addition. On July 7, 2026, the proposed project was presented to the South End Landmark District Commission (SELDC) for an Advisory Review to gather feedback on the proposal. Additional details about the project will be provided as they becomes available.



To follow along with the archaeological excavation in real time, follow the Archaeology Program on social media @bostonarchaeo.

Special thanks to Richard Shibley, Penelope Shibley, and Estella Shibley-Phipps for sharing their incredible family history. Thanks to Peter Georgantas for letting us dig up the backyard.

This article was prepared by Nadia Kline, Public Archaeologist.

All Photographs:

Photo 1: View of the Francis E. Willard School, formerly the Dwight Primary School, from Rutland Ave. Courtesy City of Boston Archives.

Photo 2: "Primary school, class II. Dwight District." 1892, Augustine Folsom. BPL via Digital Commonwealth.

Photo 3: Plan of the 1856 Dwight Grammar School on W. Springfield St. showing a 90-foot privy block and sinks or water closets in the basement, similar in layout to the Dwight Primary School. City of Boston 1902.

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