Benefit Street
From Worcester Activist wiki
Also LAGRANGE and HAMMOND STS.
Worcester County Manual Training School was the name of Worcester Academy when first founded in 1834.
The founders had planned a school governed by Baptists. There boys could learn the manual training, and lack of means would not stand in the way of a liberal education.
The school began on a 60-acre farm on the south side of Main street. Lagrange and Hammond streets now flank the section.
Needy boys at the school were paid eight cents an hour for farm work, provided “they had arrived at years of manhood.” If not, they were paid amounts according to their labor. Board was $1.50 per week-without tea or coffee, $1.30.
Students who worked sat at one table and non-workers at another. The only difference in the food was that non-workers ate doughnuts and the others didn’t.
The panic of 1837 began to affect the school which closed for lack of funds in 1844. About a year later a fund of $6000 was raised and in addition $5000 “for tuition of pious, indigent young men of the Baptist denomination.”
About this time, property of the school south of Southbridge street was sold. Shortly after, land between Southbridge street and the Norwich & Worcester Railroad also was sold.
A street was cut through the property. The school treasury profited. The Street was named Benefit street in 1853 because the school had benefited.
The core of this article comes from A History of Your City Streets.
