"At other times he would knock the heads of the whisperers together with a force which made the sufferers feel as if their brains were knocked out."

The victims of this violent physical assault, criminal by today's standards, were mid-19th-century students at Salem's famed Hacker School. The perpetrator was their headmaster, Daniel Galloupe, a strict disciplinarian, who was also not above using a strip of hard cow skin or a ruler to keep his young students in line.

Despite it all, they absolutely worshipped him.

Galloupe was just one part of the mystique that grew up around the Dean (now Flint) Street school. Established in 1785 as one of three town grammar schools, the Hacker was known as the West School until being renamed in 1850 after its first headmaster, Isaac Hacker. The tiny school would be home to generations of students including Goodhues, Peabodys, Allens, and Pittmans who lived in or near what is now the McIntire Historic District.

Much of the aforementioned Hacker School mystique was generated by a series of annual reunions held by former students beginning in 1888. The honoree at the inaugural event was none other than Daniel Galloupe, and the love shown the headmaster by his former students on that occasion was eclipsed only by some of the anecdotes shared by attendees.

Joseph Dennett, for example, recalled that recess time was often utilized, at least in season, for raids on the garden of their neighbor, Captain Samuel Cook. Apples, currants, and other ill-gotten fruits would be smuggled into class and consumed while Mr. Galloupe was looking in the other direction. There was an element of risk involved, of course, and occasionally a student would get caught by the eagle-eyed instructor. When confronted on one such occasion by Galloupe, Dennett, who was chewing on the pit from a piece of fruit, planned to say nothing. But a funny look or remark from a fellow student broke him up, and Dennett coughed up the pit, which hit the teacher squarely in the eye.

After school that day, an irate Capt. Cook stormed into the Hacker School and demanded justice for the theft of his fruit. Poor Dennett, serving his first day of detention, took the brunt of the abuse, but caught a break when Cook offered to forgive him if the young man could recite a verse for him. Two stanzas later, Dennett was free and clear.

Another former student, George Harris, remembered being lined up outside the school waiting for another of his many thrashings with a ruler — and entertaining himself watching the neighborhood wharf rats scrounging for food.

Because the school was located just a few yards from the North River, the students often took advantage of the entertainments it offered at recess. In summer that meant swimming; in winter it meant roaming the ice-covered river looking for pieces of ice that had broken free. These became rafts, and long poles were used to steer and propel them through the water. Occasionally students engaged in this activity would drift too far downriver and have to be rescued.

Other charming tales about the Hacker School community would surface at reunions held in later years. One great source of stories was Hacker alum George Arvedson who gave talks at the 1906 and 1908 reunions under the title, "Walks to School 60 Years Ago in Salem," and who also contributed a brief history of the school at the 1888 gathering.

Collectively, Arvedsen's talks served as a "who lived where" tour of the surrounding area, with the focus on the residences of former Hacker School students.

He recalled the era when the circus came annually to Vinegar Hill at the head of Hathorne Street, when the part of North Salem just opposite the river from the Hacker School was called "Paradise," and when a neighborhood gang known as the "Rangers" made the walk to school a bit stressful for him and his classmates.

The "good boys," Arvedsen noted, hung at the corner of Federal and Dean streets just a few feet from the Hacker School.

But even they eventually wore out their welcome; and an unnamed resident of the house whose steps they used as a bench finally chased them away for once and for all by dousing the gang with a bucket of cold water.

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Jim McAllister of Salem writes a weekly column on the history of the North Shore. Contact him at jim@nii.net