USA > Iowa > Washington County > History of Washington County, Iowa from the first white settlements to 1908. Also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county, Vol. I > Part 17
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money enough to buy a postage stamp. Once he drove far to marry a pair, and was paid in a big wad of tobacco leaves, and no one knows that he so much as smoked or "chawed." Hard lines, indeed.
The thing most conspicuous now is the amazing division of labor in the churches ; they are organized to death. Some time, when I have a day off, I mean to sit down beside some nice sister in each church and copy her dicta- tion of the various subdivisions of her church, the prayer meeting, missionary societies, leagues, endeavors, B. Y. P. M., "What I Can," circles, mothers' jewel band, Y. P. S .. Sr. and Jr., King's Daughters-that's what I want to join-Helping Hand-is that the sort of hand spoken of above as velvet ? if so, count me in-Ladies' Barefoot Society, if we mistake not the reference, and many more. Of course, this rather hits my funny bone, but no doubt these organizations stimulate interest in church work and keep all the members, young and old, on the qui vive or a-humping for "the cause."
Our every early church had some fad, whim, oddity, or bete noire, such as tokens, prejudice to bells, or to stoves, or secret societies, or to musical instru- ments, etc. Our Methodists were atone in this ?- up to the coming, in 1861, of Pastor Hiram W. Thomas, who afterward became famous through a heresy trial, the sexes sat apart in church right here in Washington, a fashion that George Fox, the leather-breeched founder, set for Quakers in England and America. The absurd theory was, the sexes couldn't be trusted, even in church-shame! Thomas hoped that families might sit together in their spiritual home as in their real homes, and all gladly fell in with it, rather sheepishly wondering why they had all these years done so silly a thing. There was, however, one nice thing about that custom of sitting opposite-admirers and lovers could cast sheep's-eyes and throw significant glances full of elegant and costly freight across the space, without rubber-necking a bit. Eye-beams. heavily laden with love, shot nimbly over the neutral territory, and the innova- tion was not popular with the "spoons." They had had a perfectly lovely time under the old regime.
Our people have enjoyed many crack preachers from abroad, at confer- ences, general assemblies, etc., the United Presbyterians pleased by such Rev. D. D.'s as Moorhead of Xenia theological seminary, McNaugher, R. D. Miller of the United Presbyterian, Harper, J. G. Carson, and the Methodists were built up by Bishop Charles Elliott, president of Mt. Pleasant university, and long before that president of Madison college in Uniontown, Pa., and Sam Russell went to his school. Sam was so diligent a hunter of turkey nests and eggs, he once absented himself a whole week. A mischievous chum of Sam's put Prexie on Sam's haunts,-for one, a secluded barn of the log variety, that could be entered by a ladder leading to the loft. The next time Sam visited it,
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there in the middle sat Elliott, looking grand, gloomy and peculiar, a veritable turkey gobbler. The quick-witted Irishman said, "My bye, we'll say nothing about it-you come to school," and Sam did, and never skipped a session after that. And in our time were Bishops Baker, '61-2, Bowman twice, in '73 and '86, Newman. Andrews, '92, McCabe, finest of all. He was here four times, twice as lecturer on Libby Prison, once at Chautauqua, the year before his (leath. Then the other day, Bishop Anderson.
In late years two delightfully artistic men preached for the Presbyterians, Wilbur Chapman and S. D. Gordon, the latter a gem of purest ray serene, and beautiful as a god, with a voice that was entrancing music.
Easily comparable with any of these is our own Charles R. Brown. On the Pacific coast he stands in the king row of preachers. He gave a series of lectures in the Yale Lyman Beecher Lectureship. Surely, the most eloquent ·tongue we may boast of and delight in as a home product.
There is a miracle about this preaching business. How can a man talk 111 the pulpit thirty minutes and manage to say nothing interesting? How can he dodge all the fine corners? How can he avoid saying something that one can carry away in the hand, as it were, like an orange? Many do it, but it must be awfully hard work.
I must not fail to mention an almost divine talk in the Baptist church by Conwell, the incomparable lecturer on "Acres of Diamonds."
An eastern man, father to a townsman, chanced to hear Bishop Bowman here on "Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever." Returning home, he heard the bishop twice more on the same theme, at different conferences. After the third rendering, he heard a bell toll one morning, and when his com- panion asked what that meant, he said, "Peter's wife's mother must be dead." I hope he attended the funeral.
Speaking of funerals as a means of grace, there was a woman goaded by a passion to go to every and any funeral, near or far, whether she knew the mourners or not. She was sure to go early to be sure of a seat, and she warmed a chair in every house of grief. Finally, she herself died. A witty Montana girl, back here visiting, said of "the remains," "so many came to return her many, many funeral calls, the floor sank, and all slid into the cellar." Fact, too.
As showing the scarcity of money, as late as the early '6os, collections in our churches were called "penny collections," even as evening holy time was known as "early candle lighting." Before that, there was no cash to throw into the hat, bag or saucer. Judge Charles Negus, of Fairfield, who has published much about early times, says at a Methodist quarterly meeting there. not a cent was taken : no one had ready money ; but they threw in hams,
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bacon, corn, etc. At least one hundred and fifty were present ; some had come from long distances, afoot, horseback, in wagons, men in buckskin clothes, women in lindsey, handkerchiefs on their heads instead of bonnets, or wearing hoods and sun-bonnets. What they threw hams, etc., into he does not state, but, certainly, not into hats or plates-must have been bushel baskets and coffee sacks. Now that all have money, they are bored to death for holy backsheesh at every service by church beggars-they call it an "offertory," if they want to be stylish, and the parson solemnly prays over the long- handled sacks, telling the Lord it is only returning to Him His own funds lent to us as trustees, whereas the fact is, the Lord never coined a silver or gold bit, or issued a paper bill, or put out a shin-plaster from the beginning of eternity. It must have been nice to live in a time when currency was so shy, that one had to hit the plate with a panfull of home-made sausages or a ham not sugar-cured.
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATION
CHAPTER XI.
SCHOOLS-EDUCATION.
The pioneers believed in schools, too, but the building of better school- houses did not become an industry till '46 when lowa became a state. The settlers would make claims, build log cabins, break sod, scratch in corn, sow wheat, and then break out in a rash of schools and churches. It was as inevitable as children's mumps, measles, chicken pox, etc., just had to have them, for they were catching and every settlement was exposed sooner or later.
Schoolhouses of logs, of course, at first, and communal built. Logs un- hewn : notch the ends and lay the logs at right angles, each log having a neck rest like a victim in the groove of a guillotine ; floor of split logs smoothed with an ax, called puncheons ; cracks between the logs battened and chinked and daubed with mud : windows rare, but holes left and stopped with greased paper to admit light and keep out rain, wind and cold ; fire places built up of logs several feet, lined with rock, and gormed with mud, and the upper chim- ney a stick-and-mud affair, quite as if the swallows had done it, or it was laid up with blocks of sod like adobe ; benches of slabs without backs, standing on pegs-split a log, smooth it, stick four or six pegs under it, set it level side up, clap a boy on it, and the fattest boy had the softest seat ; put a book in his hand, tell him to dig in, keep a g'ad in full view, and that was primitive education.
The pupils did not wear near as many spectacles as ours now. Probably there was not a child in the county wearing glasses prior to '60 or '70, and they did not complain of headaches. Is this talk of non-focusing a graft?
The benches did two bad things-made crooked backs and sprained the cords in the kids' legs. Lincoln said one's legs should be just long enough to reach the ground. Children's feet in these early school houses did not touch the floor, nor in the churches, either, and they got knee-sprung and had a shambling gait. This defect is noticeable among people who make their chil- dren sit in church at an early age, their feet dangling. When they grow up they have a plunging walk, as if the knees were giving way at each step. It is also due to sprained cords. Seats should always allow the feet to rest on the
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floor. Please notice this defect-you'll be more apt to see it in the families of United Presbyterians, Covenanters. Seceders, and Catholics, than in those of other denominations.
Let's trace this school rash. There is quite a strife among claimants as to first schools and first teachers, and I do not mean to umpire the game and run the Hague Tribunal here, but just state the claim.
First Schools and First Teachers .- Eldridge Reed taught the first school in Brighton, in a log cabin in the east part of town in 1840. The next year the whole settlement built a school house in the west part.
Ralph Dewey, father of Seneca, taught the first school in Clay, in a school house a mile west of the east line of Clay, date not given, but it must have been near this time. In '48 a three hundred dollar school house was built at the first cross roads west of Brighton.
Clarissa Vance, later Mrs. Dr. Yeoman, taught a school in Clay at one dollar and fifty cents per week, and boarded round. She had twenty-five pupils. The school was on the southwest corner of section 35. Then, as now, school ma'ams would throw up a school any time to marry, train and educate a man.
Andrew Wentworth, living on the John Horning farm, moved Fairview school house from the east to the west part of the district, using several yoke of oxen.
George Waters in '42 taught the first school just over the west line of Clay in Keokuk county. It was a subscription affair. He had formerly taught in Louisiana.
Clay and Crawford ran neck and neck in intellectual athletics. Clay pro- duced ninety-five teachers, nine clergymen, nine doctors and seventy-five sol- diers. Crawfordsville, or the township, sent thirteen argonauts to Cali- fornia in '49, five abolitionists to the John Brown border ruffian war in Kan- sas, and furnished twenty-three preachers, thirty-three doctors, eight law- vers, fourteen editors, sixteen druggists, ten statesmen, six county officers, one hundred and sixty-five soldiers. With this last item couple the fifty sol- diers that the Second United Presbyterian church in Washington sent out.
I doubt the statement that Crawfordsville built their first school house as late as '48.
The first school in Marion was taught by John Reed, on section 19, for three months, at two dollars and fifty cents per pupil, date not given. At the close, when paid off. he had to treat the school, or be ducked ; it was the custom to do so. He returned to Ohio. The first school house was built on section 30 by S. Van Wagener for his home, but Franklin district bought
OLD HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING OF WASHINGTON
HIGH SCHOOL. WASHINGTON
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it for thirty dollars. There were no independent districts in Marion, but she has eleven school houses.
The Snake Hollow school was one of the first, if not the first, in English River and Allen Thompson taught the first school there; the house was built and equipped by the voluntary aid of the whole Hollow. He charged two dollars per head for twenty pupils, in '42. Hon. David Bunker furnished the glass for the windows.
Lime Creek's first school was in a log cabin on section 26, and dates from the winter of '43. Nancy Pinkerton taught it, and the rate of pay was left to her patrons. An eighty dollar school house was built on section 25, near Taylor's.
The first school in Dutch Creek, in a log cabin, on the creek of the same name, was taught by Mr. Barker, but there is no date. A second school house was built on John Iam's farm.
Herman S. Guy, of New York, taught the first school in Iowa township, on section 26, as early, probably, as '41, a three months' school of twenty pupils, at two dollars per head for the term; "or its equivalent in trade." A school house was built in common that year by all the people.
In '43, Harry Craven taught the first school in Cedar, in a log cabin on section 29, fifteen kids at so much per head, sum not stated; In '44 the Youngs and Cravens built the first school house in that township on section 28.
Mr. Emmerson taught a school in Harrisburg, Highland, in '54. The Ken- tucky school house, built on section II in '59, was the first in the township.
Mrs. Garret Meek taught the first school in '76, in her own house-six kids. The first school house was built on the northeast corner of section 14, in '60, for fifty dollars.
Not till '79 did Ainsworth get a five hundred dollar graded school.
The Old Schools .- The motto in the old time "deestrict" schools was: "No lickin', no larnin'." The summer schools were taught by girls, and, if they were pretty, they had no trouble, nor in winter, either, for the mean traits of the big, mischievous, ugly boys dissolved in their beauty. But the men teachers wolloped the big boys unless, indeed, the latter basted them. Always a battle. Teachers were hired for their prowess. They had the worst time with the big girls. How can a fellow disarm a bunch of gawky girls who sit, grin, and smile at him, and moon and dawdle around and chew gum and ogle? I don't know what General Sherman would call their tactics of war. The unhappiest six months of my life were those spent in teaching two winter terms in Ohio backwoods. Oh, the bother of grinning girls! You can't punish 'em, they have not violated the constitution ; you can't make love to 'em all at once, can you? What can you do?
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The old schools were about as savage as the old navy, merchant marine and army life, as savage as the old creeds and theologies. Pupils, apprentices and the like were penalized. Teachers put in a deal of time whaling pupils with g'ads, beech and hickory boughs, ferules, straps, fists. They made boys shuck coats, and raised welts on them and drew blood. Boys got education, as their parents got religion, by the slaughter house routes. All was as bloody as altars of ancient sacrifice, including human sacrifice. Without blood there is no remission. No wonder the big boys turned, like animals at bay, barred teacher out, or defied him, and licked him if they could. Shambles in religion, in war, in cut throat business, why not in education? A large per cent of it was lickin'. The old maid teachers, crossed in love and their milk of human kindness clabbered, and mad about it, would thump us kids on the skull with heavy thimbles and raise ant-hills under the hair. Still, we'd sag on their laps as they pointed with hairpins at our letters, and say, "Gosh ! is that W?" People in Paris danced, dined, and were gay even during the Reign of Terror, and pupils managed to get fun out of their persecutions. A bench full of louts at the red hot dragon stove in the center of the room would lunge side ways and shove a clown off six feet onto the floor, his slate jingling like the armor of Homer's heroes as they fell at Troy. Can't you smell yet the oxy- dized stove and the stogey boots redolent of stable and hog pen? Of course, some one got licked for that shove-still, it paid !
There was respite also in two going for drinking water. They would spill half of it en route, and water the live stock with the rest, out of tin dippers or gourds. Every kid would drink as much as an elephant, and laugh, stran- gle, spout and congh. Then, too, the crooked pin had its innings. A lob of a boy would yell out "Ouch!" and lunge forward on the desk and fumble for the dart. Another lickin',-yet it paid !
In February and March there were always sugaring-offs in the maple camps and syrup-coolings and spelling and kissing bees, and those joys made us forget our school woes. It was compensation, too, when teacher was paid off, to make him treat all, or be soaked. That was law, though unwritten. There were consolations also in spelling schools, singing schools, anything to fetch boys and girls together to ogle and lalligag and be hooks and eyes. Bringing one's dinner for noon recess was a fair stand-off for a lot of abuse,- a basket or tin pail full of figure-8 fried cakes or doughnuts. apple pie, sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, a pinch of salt, an apple, pear, peach, etc.
Lots of hardship was atoned for by the stated afternoon for "speakin' pieces," and especially by the closing night exhibition, when the curtain was sure to stick. It was not near as bad as we let on it was to sit on the dunce block, a paper cap on, for didn't we make up faces when the teacher's back
BRICK SCHOOLHOUSE BUILT IN THE 40S Torn down to give place to high school
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was turned? Nor was it real punishment to be seated with the girls, though we pretended it was. We didn't really hate it more then than we did a few years later. A good deal of smart was taken out at nooning, by stoning frogs in the creek, tying tin cans to dogs' tails, and tying up cats' feet in wads of rag, and stealing into the orchard at the brow of the hill and plugging with apples the honest yeomanry driving below. Besides, we could stucco the ceiling with wads of paper pulp, that the flies soon inked. It had to be sly work. to carve on seats and desks names, faces and phallic symbols, and in playing Pom-pom-pull-away. Hi-spy, Crack the Whip, there was alleviation for lickin's. The smallest boy was the cracker, and in sprawling in the dog fennel among the Dutchman's razors, his clothes were likely to be more pic- turesque than Joseph's coat of many colors. Can't you see tow-heads whose hair was sun-burned to terra cotta color, and whose faces held freckles as big as ginger snaps, with the inevitable letter in the post office, walking on the ball of the foot or heel, owing to stone bruises and stubbed toes tied in rags. rolling there in the weeds, shot off at a tangent ? It was not half bad to be a country school boy in the days of Auld Lang. Svne.
There was one discount- the visits of school directors, parents, and espe- cially the minister. These old granny men had to make a few feeble remarks, of course, and it was a bore. The school ma'am was pinked-cheeked with em- barrassment. What hypocrites the kids were! every one so still, good, nice, angelic, as if raised on Pious Row. We took our medicine when the preacher talked shop. He would ask a lot of fool questions out of the catechism, and in answering, the boys would fall down hard, as, "Who was the meekest man?" Some ignoramus would call out "Samson," "Goliath," "Judas Iscariot," or "Zaccheus." The average kid could not pronounce the names "Jehoshaphat," "Methusalum," "Abimelech," et al., and they got "Dorcas," "Sapphira," "Magdalene" and "Jezebel" all mixed up. They hated to have their ignorance exposed. They had no use for the cloth.
The teacher soothed his chronic irritation by that blessed custom of board- ing round. If he hadn't the digestion of a hippopotamus, he very likely got dyspepsia also.
There were no two text books alike, but pupils managed to learn as much as now. If a strange boy came to school, he had to run a gauntlet of chal- lenges, and have a series of fights, to settle his rank. Just the same thing happens when a new cow or other animal comes into pasture, or a new dog shows up. Nature will have it so. Boys and men belong to natural history as truly as other animals.
The old country schools may be parodied but can't be caricatured. We tried to caricature it here in a play, in which Add. White, Deacon Hood, and
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Mrs. Col. Scofield were immense and teacher Kellogg great, but that drama merely approximated the truth of the drollery and fun. The boys nowadays don't know what fun is, going to school. Houses now are so nice you don't dare track in mud, and can't whittle desk or seat, or upset ink, and have to walk softly and mind the bell, and refrain from shoving a pin in to the adipose redundancies of the fellow ahead in line, or tread on his heels and trip him, by mistake of course, and can't wink without permission, and one has to raise an arm, jiggle a finger, snap fingers and ask, "May I g'w'out?" The Golden Age of school-going is surely way back yonder. Don't pity the pioneer kids. They had fun to burn. Those old back woods schools started as smart men as the schools do now, if not smarter. Right or wrong, I believe they got better elementary training then than now. More style now, more show, but not better or fuller substance.
City Schools .- Martha Crawford taught the first school in this city, in a log cabin on Tom Baker's claim, in '40, followed that year by Martha Junkin. Others say that Polly Ashby has the distinction, and got fifty dollars for three months' work, but no one tells what she did with so much opulence. Before this, our children went just over the Henry county line to a school taught by a Miss Smith of New England. Sarah Young taught in the court house in 42, followed later by Norman Everson and Caleb Campbell, and Franklin Everson taught in a school house on the Frank Brindley corner, and all the girls fell in love with him, he was a character so sweet. But that was not what killed him, I hope. He lies in the city cemetery, and violets and pansies spring from his dust. He was a younger brother of Norman.
Ilugh Kendall went to a brick school house on Mrs. Col. Cowles' lot in the early '50s, and recalls as schoolmates Joe Dawson, Robert S., John N .. and Jas. A. Young, children of John, Robert, Jas. H. and Letetia, children of Harvey Young, Calvin, Robert, David, Joseph, Belle Kilgore, Nancy, Pa- tience and Caroline Hayes, Wm., Elza, Jos. Guzman, J. G. and C. N. Stewart, Burney, Fulton and Adaline Donahey, Gerelza and John Yockey, John Ma- ther, Roena Moore, Andrew and Robinson Barnes, Sam. Nancy, Mary and Josephine Mealey, Margaret Orr, Mart Whitcomb and sister, Cordelia Ross, Roll, Geo D. and Nettie Organ, Alex. Lee, Jas. Terry, Gus, Belle and Dode Wright, Samantha and Margaret Curry, Wm. Woods, Alex .. Caroline and Susannah Meek, Jos., George and Martha Dawson, John Brokaw. Arthur R. and Anna J. Kendall, Byron and Lee Parker, Irving and Mary Keck, Emma Anderson, Morris Spillard, Edward Covert. Some of the teachers were Tracey, Parker, brother to Dr. M. C. Parker, Henry, Anderson Duke, Wood- stock, Miss Belle Campbell, now Mrs. A. H. Patterson.
Prof. W P. Johnston
Principal Washington Academy
D. W. Lewis Supt. Washington Schools 1868-1893
Prof. S. E. McKee Founder of Washington Academy
J. R. Doig President of Washington College
PIONEER EDUCATORS
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The first school house, a one-story brick, still standing as a part of a dwelling, was built in '43. In '56 "the old brick" was begun, and finished in '57, a two-story on the site of the present high school. Rev. Mr. White was principal in the upper room in '56-7, his wife his assistant, and Margaret Mel- ville was principal below and her sister Lu was her assistant. In '58 Mar- garet Melville and Celia Chipman taught above and Amanda Fairbanks and Lu Melville below. From '58 to '62 these were the principals, above and below : Messrs. Milliken, J. A. Henderson, V. W. Andrus, Chriswell, Nort P. Chipman, G. G. Bennett and Misses Yates, Axtell, Clara Allen, Helen Chip- man, Ellen Israel, Williams, Hattie Everson.
In '62 Samuel McLane became superintendent and graded the schools ; his high school assistants were Lila Ziegler, Jennie Cleaves, Jennie Hogan. J. K. Sweeney followed him as superintendent from '64 to '68, Mary J. Hamilton being his assistant. In '66 a six room building south of the square was built for thirteen thousand five hundred dollars. D. W. Lewis took charge of the schools in '68 and served them twenty-five years, excepting the years '71-2 under T. H. Smith, Mr. Lewis during that time taking charge of an Indian school on a reservation near Omaha. Mr. Lewis revised the course of study several times, and changed the grading and distribution of the pupils. The enrollment went to eight hundred and twenty. The Centen- nial and Heights schools were built at a cost of eight thousand dollars each.
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