USA > Iowa > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I > Part 83
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As early as 1851, a private incorporation under the name of the Maquoketa Academy, had erected on the five acre plot where now the high school building stands, a one story brick building of two rooms. For those days, it was consid- ered very fine indeed. I am told it had a row of lofty white columns on its west front, and it was held to be a veritable temple of learning. The late Dr. P. L. Lake was installed as the first principal. Here students could pursue the higher studies and be fitted for college entrance. A little later a three story brick building, containing four schoolrooms .on the ground floor, was prefixed to the one story structure in the rear. This front building was constructed under a partnership agreement, the "Academy" owning the ground floor, and Mr. John E. Goodenow owning one half of the second and third stories, and Mr. C. Miller the other half. The expectation was that students would be attracted from far and near to the advantages of the "Academy," and so the two upper stories of the building was divided up into two rooms for the especial use of such students.
When the writer hereof first visited this building in 1856, its condition as to the two upper stories was shocking. Students from abroad had not flocked in in crowds as was expected, the rear building seemed to be ample for all demands; the four rooms in front had none of them been finished or furnished, and were catch alls for all manner of rubbish; upstairs some of the doors had been torn from their hinges ; the fine walnut balustrade in the main hall, leading to the upper stairs was half wrecked, and the rooms above were filthy in the extreme and unfit for occupancy. All this condition of things grew out of the fact that the institution was ahead of the public demands of the times. The "Academy" corporation was bankrupt and overwhelmed with debt. It had borrowed money which it could not pay. A mortgage given on the property to secure its debts, in whole or part, was finally foreclosed, and the entire property fell into the hands of the independent district by purchase for a comparatively small sum.
On gaining possession of the property, the independent district finished up and furnished and occupied the four ground floor rooms; the old brick school property on West Platt street was sold for two hundred dollars ; the brick school- house and lot in the old No. I was sold, both being no longer needed. Up to about this time the district had been renting a room for the lower grade pupils of the northeastern part of the city. A lot was purchased and a brick one story building was erected in the First ward, where the present First ward primary now stands.
In 1859 a want was felt for a school of higher grade than those already established, and the original academy was rented for that purpose and Mr. C. D. Mead was employed as the first teacher of the new school. He also acted as principal of all the schools. For some reason, Mr. Mead did not give entire satisfaction to the board of directors, although a scholarly and very excellent man in every way. He is still living in Vermont, in declining health and retired, after having spent a long and useful life as teacher of high grades. The writer hereof succeeded Mr. Mead as the second principal and mounted the pedagogical throne in the fall of 1861, at the munificent salary of forty dollars per month. As illustrating the economical ideas of those days in connection with school
J. W. ELLIS, MUSEUM
ELLISONIAN INSTITUTE, MAQUOKETA
8542
SECTION IN THE ELLISONIAN INSTITUTE
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY
management, it may be added, that the principal was required at that time to conduct and teach a large school of sixty or seventy pupils and to superintend the conduct of all other schools at the same time. He had to purchase at his own expense the lump chalk used on the blackboards of his room, for chalk crayons were then a new invention, costing seventy-five cents a box, and deemed a luxurious extravagance. He had to sweep the floor of his own room or cause it to be done; build his own fires and ring the school bell; and for this janitor work he was allowed twenty-five cents a week, which sum was all the janitor service the district paid for. For some time last past the district had been paying one thousand, one hundred and eighty-five dollars per year for janitor work alone, and it pays for all the blackboard crayons used besides, don't you forget it. I think the old three story square "Academy" building with its square tower, was the most unsightly public structure in an architectural point of view, to be found on the western continent; and yet, no doubt, its builders pointed to it with honest pride. One day in about 1865, fortunately, the lightning struck that tower, and knocked it into more or less confusion. Regarding that tower in a philosophical way, there was always some question what it was originally constructed for. It was a square box in the center of the roof. I have heard it suggested in the old days, that the "Academy" trustees intended, when a pro- fessor of sufficient learning could be had, to use it as an astronomical observa- tory. That eminent professor never came and no one knows what the world of science has lost thereby. When the lightning struck this tower, there was doubt whether the bolt was intended as a signal of Divine wrath at the untoward pride of its designers and builders, or merely a condemnation of the negligence of the trustees in allowing the lower end of the lightning rod to hang dangling for some years by the side of a third story window instead of being buried in moist earth, as authorities, like Downing, of Andrew always insist on.
It is certain that the school trustees deemed that tower as well as the third story of the building neither ornamental nor useful and caused both to be removed, also the one old one story structure in the rear. The second story was fitted up with two large rooms, and the "Academy" building thus remained until torn down in 1876.
The first record book of the Maquoketa school district contains its records to February, 1863. The present writer has carefully inspected its pages, and finds that of all the persons who in any way participated in any of its proceedings up to that date, as officers, teachers, or voters, only two are living in this vicinity ; one, this writer, and P. A. Wolff, formerly a director, now living at Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
MAQUOKETA HIGH SCHOOL.
It is a fact within the memory of men now living, or near enough to the truth for my present purpose to be a fact, that where now stands our high school building "the Indian wooed his dusky mate, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared." This remark is not original with me, but I might say that if Judge Story had not said it before me to another audience, and fifty thousand school boys had not declaimed it from the stage since his day, it might be original here and now.
The development of anything, from its first feeble beginning to a condition of high maturity, is always interesting. The devoted student of nature, after sowing the seed, delights to witness the growth of the plant from the tender sprout to the full developed flower. The student of history intently follows up the history of a nation's life, from its origin, through the period of its con- stitutional development, to the time when it stands a peer among the proudest nations of the earth. The history of the educational work of this community, though covering a period of less than a half a century, is full of interest; and I am called on today, as in some sense a Nestor, with wide experience as teacher and officer, to speak; and we, gathered as we are tonight, may, with interest and
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perhaps with profit, indulge in some reminiscences of the past in the history of our schools while yet the memory of these things remain in the minds of the living and before the march of time, not to say progress, has bid them lie down in the limbo of things forgotten where sleep peacefully and forever the history of the pyramids, the lost "Atlantis," the glacial period, and the story of the loves and sorrows of the daughters of Tubal Cain. This matter of reminiscence is also pleasant in another way. It interests us to consider the early beginning of anything of personal interest, or that afterward turned out to be more or less famous. I would give a hundred times more to see that little hatchet with which the Father of his Country ruined the cherry tree than I would any other edged tool I know of. I doubt if any of Barnum's museums ever contained that treasure. They 'had the club that Captain Cook was killed with, in several of them, but not the hatchet. I fear it is lost-lost forever. The stories of the boyhood days of such men as Lincoln, Garfield, and Napoleon are brimful of interest and encouragement to the rising generation. It is a pity we haven't more of them.
The writer well remembers the day when he bade a glad and everlasting farewell to frocks and donned his first pair of trousers. They were not the artistic and æsthetic articles that fond parents purchase at the clothing stores nowadays. They were fearfully and wonderfully fashioned by a mature spin- ster who went around the neighborhood doing such things for a consideration ; and when they were first put on she said I was "a little man" and my mother said so too-which settled it. It is true the vest or waist was all cut in one piece with the pants, in front; but then there was bright brass buttons down the sides, more or less-and there were pockets.
When I first came to Maquoketa, in the spring of 1856, it was quite a metropolis. It was then, or very soon became a city. I had the honor of in- ducting into office the first mayor, the late I. K. Millard. He favored us with a written inaugural address, which our later degenerate mayors do not do. Our city had a railroad, with all the usual curves, and grades, and bridges. The exact position of the depot was not yet located, the trouble about that seeming to be that every stockholder was trying to have one located on his own land. But, alas, our road was only on paper.
The present school system of township, districts and independent districts in Iowa was not inaugurated until the spring of 1858. Prior to 1858, what we now know as the free school system did not exist in Iowa.
By the free school system, all the property in the district is taxed for the support of the schools, whether its owner has children to send to school or not. Before 1858 the rate bill plan was in force, by which those who sent children to school paid according to the number of children sent and the time spent in school. The interest of the state fund (the proceeds of every sixteenth section) helped to swell the modest fund raised by the rate bill. In 1856 there were three school districts in the territory of the present city, and three schools were kept after a fashion. In May. 1858, under the new law of the previous March, these districts were consolidated into one union or independent district, and the first meeting of the board of directors was held May 14th. But the beginning of effort for higher education was by several years earlier than this. Among the pioneers of our city were several not at all satisfied with the first log schoolhouse (into which an old blacksmith shop was converted, standing near where the Servatius dry goods store, on Main street, now stands), nor with its successors, with the common school kind. They felt the need of a school of higher order- an academy certainly-that might, perhaps, under favoring auspices, grow into a college, None of these men were learned, or highly educated, and everybody was poor in those days. But John Shaw, president; C. E. Brown, secretary ; John E. Goodenow, treasurer; William Current, Jason Pangborn, Pierce Mit- chell, A. Spaulding and H. G. Haskell, trustees; and perhaps some others whose names I am unable to trace, about 1848, raised the funds, incorporated as an
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academy and erected a building of brick, of one story, commodious for those days, and installed the late Dr. P. L. Lake as principal. In the first announce- ment of the academy I find the following unique exhibit of the advantages of Maquoketa as a site for a school: "This institution which consists of a commo- dious and well finished brick edifice with ample grounds around it, is located on a beautiful eminence in the pleasant village of Maquoketa (formally called Spring- field), twenty miles west of the Mississippi River, and therefore exempt from cholera."
Mr. Goodenow donated the five acres of land to the academy, which then gave, and to this day and for all coming time gives, to this city the finest school site in the State of Iowa. Soon more school room was required, and some private enterprise and public spirit erected a large, three story brick structure, sur- mounted by a tower, that, like our high school building, could be seen across the prairie for miles in any direction. All honor to the men who did the very best they could to promote the cause of higher education. No wonder is it that a state, honored by such pioneers, should in its present development show the smallest percentage of illiteracy of any state in our glorious union.
Even a brief survey of the educational work of those early days in our midst ought not omit reference to another line of work in the same direction-the beginning of the Maquoketa library. A stock association was formed among the pioneers, in which the ladies actively participated, with shares at ten dollars. Its treasury was swelled by the receipts of weekly gatherings at members' houses, at a small admission charge. These meetings were not only of a literary cast, and no doubt brilliant, but had creature comforts, by way of refreshment, added ; for the ancient records show that the committee on ways and means were in- structed to see to it that the members should bring among other things, a plentiful supply of pickles. Doubtless the pickles, aforesaid, were well pep- pered and the vinegar sharp. There were about forty shares of stock in this association, and its library grew to nearly six hundred volumes. Stock and library were finally merged into the Boardman Library Institute.
Statistics, though very strengthening, are apt to be dry fare. Our effort will be not to burden you with them. At the time of the formation of this independent school district, in 1858, as before mentioned, the total number of children residing here, between five and twenty-one years of age, was four hun- dred and thirty-nine, of which just fifty are now living here. This is not quite half the census of 1892. Of this four hundred and thirty-nine only two hundred and eight attended school the first year and the average attendance was one hundred and thirty-three. The total compensation of teachers per month was ninety-one dollars and fifty-two cents. The total monthly pay of teachers in this same district, in 1893, is eight hundred and eighty-two dollars. If the recent gradu- ates applying their vast knowledge of arithmetic compute it correctly, it will be found that teachers' wages here, at the present time, average four times what they did in 1858. Those were happy days for tax payers. In March, 1860, the total tax levy for school purposes for the ensuing year was only three and one- half mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation. In 1892 the tax levy for the same purpose was eleven mills. For reasons which I can not explain the academy did not prove to be a financial success. Like most of our higher in- stitutions of learning, not bolstered up by ample endowment, it became op- pressed with debt. Our public school board saw, at once, that so fine a site for schools should not be allowed to pass into private hands; and so, in 1860, an election was held for the purpose of voting on the purchase of the academy property. At this election only thirty-one votes were cast, a small vote, indi- cating either public indifference, or perhaps, immense confidence, in the wisdom of our school directors.
Of these thirty-one voters only three are now living here-C. M. Dunbar, S. A. Shattuck, and, I am glad to say, myself. The property was purchased and the public schools of the city, so far as the building would accommodate,
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began there December 1, 1860, with a corps of three teachers, the principal, Mr. C. D. Mead, receiving forty dollars per month salary.
In 1866, agitation was commenced for a new school building on the same site, and for ten long years the principal bone of contention at the annual meet- ings of the electors was-what was best to be done? Some favored no high school, nothing but ward schools. One genius, who had seen something of the kind at his "down east" home, loudly argued for a great building, where all the pupils of the city should study in one room, under the eye of the principal, and small recitation rooms for the other teachers adjoining. A part scouted such an idea as that. At last, it was voted that the directors might present plans, at the next annual meeting, for a school building on the hill, provided they furnished the plans at their own expense. Plans-rather crude ones-were presented at the next annual meeting, under those conditions, and in 1876 the present high school building was erected.
With the administration of Superintendent Dudley, who had been at the head of our public schools since the high school building was erected, most of you are more or less familiar. I leave it to others to discuss that branch of our subject. I propose to close my chapter of reminiscences with a brief sketch of the principals of our public schools who preceded him.
Historians of their own times should speak with great discretion. As a rule, it is safer for their skin, bones and pocket to put at least a half century between themselves and the subject of their criticism, unless, indeed, they are prepared to speak in terms of unmixed eulogy. That amount of time will gen- erally be sufficient to put all the subjects of veracious narrative, with their brothers, mothers, sisters, cousins, and other interested relatives into a quietus, where there is no danger of their "jawing back," or suing one for libel. Under these limitations, therefore (for I suppose all those principals are yet alive), and with the sword of Damocles with its glittering edge hanging over my head, and, as it were, "treading on eggs" ( hope you will forgive my mixing metaphors, as this is a festive occasion), I will proceed.
Mr. C. D. Mead was the last principal of the old academy, and the first of our high school. He was about five feet tall, of considerable literary culture, an efficient teacher and a Christian gentleman. His father and mine were neighbors in New York state. I knew Mr. Mead well from childhood, for did I not, many a time when a small boy, steal sour apples from his father's orchard? The application of that remark, as Artemus Ward used to say, "lies somewhere under it." With the June of 1861, the labors of Mr. Mead here as a principal terminated, and entirely to his surprise. Poor man. The axe clipped off his devoted head and he never knew what hurt him. There was no use asking the school board why; they made no explanation.
Mr. Mead's successor took charge of the school from September, 1861, to July, 1866. Of that man's administration, I may truthfully say, with the an- cient Roman, "Magna pars fui." I knew him well, and my wife can truthfully saw, without rousing any jealousy between us, that she knew him better than I did. That was the year the war with the rebellious South broke out. Of course, I did not want to go into the school; I was, no doubt, burning to fight, bleed and die for my country, at the ensanguined front; but I suppose I yielded to the tears of my little ones, and I know I thought it just as safe to stay at home.
The course of study in those years, so far as I am advised, was as high as it has ever since been, but it did not embrace Latin, or German, kindergarten, sloyd, clay modeling, Delsarte, nor any other of the extra accomplishments sup- posed to be necessary in a complete course at the present day. Those were the days of Jeffersonian simplicity in the financial management of our schools, and of an entire absence of the ways of modern extravagance. In those good days, each teacher had to sweep his or her room or hire it done, furnish the blackboard chalk, and see to it that scholars behaved themselves, from the time they left the school building until they were safe in their mother's arms at home. Lump
MAQUOKETA ACADEMY.
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY
chalk was the standard article for blackboard use, and such luxuries as chalk crayons were reserved for the time when visitors came in, or on public examina- tion.
Repairs and alterations suspended the school for a while in 1866. January I, 1867, they commenced again with W. F. McCarron as principal. His reign lasted but two uneventful terms, when he vacated the position-at the earnest request of the board-to became the chief luminary of the Maquoketa Excel- sior, a newspaper that has continued to shine with undiminished splendor ever since.
In the summer of 1867, a Mr. W. F. Eastman, a scholar and a gentleman in every sense of the word, was principal for one term. With this new school year, beginning in September, 1867, began the work of one T. G. Baker, as prin- cipal. The school board hailed his advent with great joy. He was a one eyed man and owed his election mainly to his beautiful letter of application for the vacant position. Unfortunately for the good of our schools, he kept that one eye more on the seductive allurement of Platt street (or, at least, it was said so, and in such cases rumor is as bad as the truth) than he did on the educational welfare of Maquoketa and at the end of one year the board of trustees unani- mously agreed that some other place should enjoy the benefit of his valuable services. By this time it really began to look to the school board that all the successful principals had been killed off in the late war. The only thing left was Hobson's choice, and so, I suppose the writer was recalled to the pedagogical throne he had aforetime so adorned. We modestly leave the history of that administration to future historians, who may possibly be able to do justice to the subject, stating merely that an era of good feeling prevailed for about four years, when the board, getting tired of a good thing, unanimously, I guess, elected W. H. Fort to commence operations in September, 1872. Suffice it to say, for the next two years we had good, well conducted schools.
It was thought, however, by the board, that there was room for improvement and to that end they installed Mr. A. E. Carhart, in the principal's position, in September, 1874. He was a gentleman, a man of considerable erudition and of good influence. I remember him chiefly because he always wore a plug hat; the board of that day remember him for his prosy and interminable explana- tions and suggestions made at their meetings. His reign lasted two years, and until the old school building was torn down. I understand that he is now a worthy preacher of the gospel somewhere in the West.
Having erected a new high school building, the next thing to be done was to se- cure a principal worthy to occupy it. Warned by their experience with that one eyed man, it was decided that a candidate with a written application merely, should stand but a poor chance. The secretary was instructed to notify all appli- cants that the best thing for them to do was to come here in propria persona for visual inspection. There were nineteen candidates for the position of principal. Several of them came. They were scrutinized very closely, indeed. None of the first eighteen filled the bill. One was altogether too tall, another too short, some failed to have the requisite dignity ; some appeared to be not sufficiently learned ; some were women ; some were too dear, and others too cheap to amount to much. At last, the nineteenth appeared. He came, not in response to any notification, but on the invitation of one of our citizens who found him on the cars traveling, and learned that he was a teacher.
This nineteenth man appeared before the board, travel stained and weary from a long journey. He had no plug hat on-indeed, he didn't appear to care whether he ever had one. He had two bright, intelligent eyes. This was cer- tainly in his favor. In conversation with him on educational matters he seemed to know what he was talking about, and the good impression gained. It was learned that he was married, which was considered a good thing for a male principal, if not for a lady teacher. Taking his word for it that he wasn't a gambler, he wasn't a lawyer, nor planning to be an editor, nor expecting to be-
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come a preacher, his business was that of a teacher, pure and simple. Finally he said he came from down east, from the land of steady habits, and had had abundant experiences. The whole thing seemed to be really providential. One of the board afterward sagely remarked-not to the candidate-that he was like a singed cat, there was a good deal more in him that there first looked to be. The result was that our worthy superintendent Dudley was elected prin- cipal, and here he bloomed and blossomed for lo, these many years. And I think I may say it, without flattery, that to his honest, faithful and honorable efforts, in conjunction with the corps of teachers under him, the school system of this city has reached its present efficient state.
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