Love notes and ‘raw’ drawings found in Maine high school after 150 years

Blast from the past.

150-year-old love notes written by high school students were found on the floor of a Maine school, according to the Bangor Daily News.

Preservation contractor Lee Hoagland began working on the University of Southern Maine Academy building in 2022, and over the course of a year he found letters hidden in a space between the first and second floors of the building built in 1806.

The papers included love letters between former students of what was once a private college prep school for children ages 10 to 17 for upper-class families.

“Ada, wouldn’t you like to swing by after school? I’ll stop if you want. Will you? Write and say!” says one of the notes.

“My dear, why…” read another note.

Another note said that a student named Belle Worcester “is a [prissy or pretty] girl.”

Worcester is mentioned several times in the notes, including one that said, “We had a great time (meeting?) last night because Belle and I passed notes. We didn’t last long though, because Mr. Lord was right behind us.

Hoagland also discovered math equations, English conjugations, and pen exercises on the school floor.

He saved the papers and gave them to Associate Professor Hannah Barnes.

Pupils also wrote slurs and insults about their teachers on the cards – proving that teenage behavior hasn’t changed a century and a half later.

“The past is not as distant as we think it is,” USM historian Libby Bischof told the Bangor Daily News.

Bischof also addressed how a note featured a drawing of a teacher, Mrs. Stevens, with a long, cartoon-like nose.

“What really struck me was the Miss Stevens cartoon because it was so raw. Not raw in an embarrassing way, but raw like a really bad sketch,” she explained. “And I might say that Miss Stevens had very large eyes, for that is the defining feature.”

While students wrote things about their classmates and teachers on paper back then, nowadays “it’s all text and Snapchat,” Bischof noted.

“We won’t have this for generations to come,” he added.

According to the Bangor Daily News, the old papers are currently being held at USM’s Art Department. There are plans to archive the notes in the school’s Special Collections.