It’s back to school in a few days for thousands of young people in our part of the Androscoggin Valley, and in some ways I feel like I will be going along with them.

This is the year leading up to the 50th Edward Little High School reunion – Class of 1958 – for my wife, Judy, and me. It’s also the freshman year at ELHS for our grandson.

Being a writer is a lot like being a teacher, so … just who is this Squire Edward Little?

It’s not enough to say he was a prominent man in Auburn’s early history, or that he founded the Lewiston Falls Academy that would one day bear his name. The roots of the Little family go deep in Lewiston and Auburn.

Col. Moses Little of Newbury, Mass., who was Edward’s grandfather, was in the battle of Bunker Hill and several other Revolutionary War engagements. He was one of the owners of part of the Pejepscot territory called Lewiston Plantation. It included about six of this area’s present-day towns and cities.

His son, Col. Josiah Little, inherited the territory, and in those days the real estate business was extremely wild and woolly.

As told by James Leamon in “Historic Lewiston: A Textile City in Transition,” some early Lewiston settlers were angry about delays in confirming their deeds. A group attacked a house where Josiah Little was staying. Shots were fired, stones were thrown and Little lost some teeth, but survived.

Another time, some ledge needed to be blasted from rapids in the Androscoggin River below Lewiston. Josiah Little lost a hand in an accident with the black powder.

It was Josiah’s son, Edward, who made this area his home.

Edward Little was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and he was a respected lawyer – hence the title of squire. He was about 50 years old when he came to Auburn around 1826.

According to accounts published in “Auburn Landmarks,” many of the Little family holdings had been sold off. Edward managed the waterpower and mill rights that remained, and he decided to establish his final family home in Auburn. It was at the corner of Main and Vine Streets, and it had clear farm fields for a considerable distance around it at that time.

Letters between Edward and his aged father in Newbury, Mass., show that the old man believed the house plans were too extravagant, but Edward built it anyway, and the building is still a showpiece in a much different downtown Auburn of today.

Edward Little helped establish churches and meeting houses, he aligned River Road from Auburn to Durham, and he farmed the land around his house.

In 1834, he gave seven acres of his rye field and added $3,000 for the construction of Lewiston Falls Academy. It became Edward Little Institute by act of the Maine Legislature in 1864.

There’s an often-told story about a night when the school bell sounded loud and long. Expecting a fire alarm, Little and some neighbors filled leather buckets and ran to the school where they found a very intoxicated man pulling the bell rope.

“Where’s the fire?” they asked.

“Fire? What fire? I guess it’s here,” the man said, and Squire Little replied, “Then this should cool it off,” as he dumped his bucket of water over the man.

Edward Little died in 1849. His several sons and grandsons also were prominent L-A businessmen and civic leaders.

A bronze statue of Edward Little, erected at the corner of Main and Academy Streets in Auburn in 1877, now stands at the present Edward Little High School at Auburn Heights a couple of miles away.

Although the original structure went through fires, reconstruction, expansion, and relocation, the school still bears the man’s name. Nevertheless, those of us who were at the old site in those final years around 1960 will always feel that was a very special ELHS.