USA > Indiana > Rush County > Centennial history of Rush County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 29
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grammar and geography were attempted to be taught; and when algebra and trigonometry came in, then the climax had been reached. I recollect at one time when I was a full-fledged pedagogue, that one morning one of my patrons came to the school house with his two boys and about the first word when he came in was 'Hackleman, I want you to teach my boys common learning, for I wouldn't give the toss of a copper for all your 'high dick' or for your 'classics.' "'
IN THE DAYS OF THE ACADEMIES
As has been set out, the private school was essential to the development of the community along educational lines in view of the ineffectiveness of the ambling public school system. The first of these private schools seems to have been that established by Dr. William B. Laughlin at Rushville in 1828, and of which mention previously has been made in this work. Doctor Arnold's recollections have it that Doctor Laughlin "impressed with the need of higher education, and being devotedly attached to teaching, erected a two-story frame building on his land and opened a school, where in addition to the common branches there was taught Latin, Greek, higher mathe. matics, history, etc. The upper room was devoted to the advanced pupils and the lower room to the lower grades. The school was conducted with eminent success for two or three years, and gave an impulse to loftier aspirations for learning among the young."
The beginning of the Friends Academy at Carthage was a log cabin, which stood about a square south of where the railway station now stands. In this buildidng Henry Henley conducted a school in 1830 or 1831. The second building was a one-story frame on the farm of Abraham Small, southeast of the village. This building, in 1840, was moved to a lot opposite the Friends meeting house. and later was moved farther up Main street and about 1849 gave way to a more pretentious frame building,
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which in turn was succeeded by an excellent brick build- ing which supplied the needs of the town for school pur- poses until the present admirable public school building was erected. In the days when this school at Carthage was conducted as an academy it was a sectarian school, con- ducted in strict conformity to the somewhat rigid views of the Friends. Most of the pupils were children of Friends' families, and every Fifth-day morning at 11 o'clock were marched across the street to the meeting house to listen to a sermon. This old academy was con- tinned as a sectarian school until its merger in 1878-79 into the joint graded public school. Besides the academy the Friends Meeting supported a school for the children of the negroes who had been brought in there during the days of the "underground railroad," this colored school having been about three miles south of the village. Fol- lowing is given a list of the principals of the old Carthage Academy. in the order in which they served: Henry Henley. Levi Hill, Nancy Henley, George Hunnicutt, William Johnson, Lewis Johnson, Dizah Thornburg, David Marshall, Eli B. Mendenhall, Jemima Henley, Martha Clark, Hiram Hadley. Sanmel Crow, Tristram Coggshell, Hezekiah Clark, Thomas T. Newby, Allen Hill. Edward Timberlake, Samuel H. Macy. Kate Steere, Lydia A. Burson and Edward Taylor.
The Little Flat Rock neighborhood in Noble town- ship early became an educational center through the work and personal influence of Elder Benjamin F. Reeve, a cultured minister of the Disciples of Christ, who came to this county from Kentucky in 1833. Not long after his arrival Elder Reeve had set up a school in the little old Baptist church on Little Flat Rock, later occupying the Gregg school house, and still later a room in the house of Mrs. Nancy Lewis, donated to him for the purpose, but presently he was able to cause the erection of a small frame school house or "academy" adjacent to the Little Flat Rock Christian church which had become the com-
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munity center for that neighborhood, and to which pupils of both sexes came from miles around, receiving from this consecrated man instructions in both the primary and higher branches of learning. It has been written of Elder Reeve that "teaching was his passion and he made this little country school locally famous, awakening in his pupils a thirst for knowledge, while at the same time cul- tivating in them a taste for literature and a high stand- ard of living. In those old years he set in motion helpful influences which have long outlived him and which will endure so long as there remain descendants of his pupils to hand down traditions." This old Reeve school be- came the social center of the community. Elder Reeve had a well-stocked library, which was feely open to all callers and in his home was held the weekly meeting of "The Circle," a literary society which included in its membership the thoughtful young people within a circle of eight or ten miles thereabout. One of the students who thus came under this refining influence was Elijah Hack- leman, who has so frequently been quoted in this centen- nial history, and who there qualified himself as a teacher and for some time conducted a school in that same neighborhood.
The formerly locally celebrated Little Flat Rock Seminary was a worthy successor of the Reeve school. This seminary was erected in 1856, at a point a half-mile to the south of the Little Flat Rock Christian church, and of the old Reeve school and was a two-story frame build- ing, the top floor-as was the custom in those days-being used for the advanced pupils and the lower floor for the primary and intermediate grades. This school was main- tained as an academy for many years, but dwindling at- tendance finally caused it to be abandoned for school purposes, and it finally was sold and dismantled, the ma- terial in it being used to build a barn. Among those whose influence as teachers was felt in this school were John Guffin, Josiah Gamble, Walter S. Tingley, John A.
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Roberts, John R. Hunt. George Guffin, Thomas B. Rob- inson, Selina Culver, Samuel Vandervort, Amanda Hunt. F. M. Hunt, Jesse Robinson, Charles Poston and James Wilson.
Under the act of 1824 effect was given to the consti- tutional provision for the erection of county seminaries, but it was not until nearly twenty years later that Rush county availed itself of this provision. it having been in 1842 that the county commissioners appointed a board of seminary trustees to take steps toward the erection of a county seminary in Rushville. This board consisted of George B. Tingley, Pleasant A. Hackleman, John W. Barbour, William MeCleary and George Hibben and in the following year, at the March term, 1843, reported to the commissioners that they had bought two lots in Rush- ville and on them had erected a brick seminary, 33 by 53 feet, two stories high, "completing the same in order as an institution of learning, with stoves. etc., fencing, sinks, wells, wellhouse, and other conveniences and absolute im- provements," at a cost of $3,673.97. This report shows that the trustees "further state that there are now two schools taught in said seminary, free to all children of Rush county for admission : but no part of the principal or interest of said fund has been expended for tuition," thus showing that it was not a free school. Only the com- mon branches were taught in this seminary. The first principal is said to have been JJoseph Nichols, with John W. Barbour as assistant. When under the new state con- stitution the legislature in 1852 directed the sale of all county seminary property, the proceeds to apply to the permanent school fund. the Rush County Seminary was sold to the independent school corporation of Rushville and was used as a public school building until 1866, when the school board sold it as being no longer serviceable for school purposes and it was converted into a dwelling, still serving this latter purpose, standing at the southwest cor- ner of Third and Julian streets.
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It was in 1843 that what came to be known as Farm- ington Academy was established by Thomas B. Helm, a teacher of wide popularity at that period, at the cross roads, four miles east of Rushville, the school being held in a two-story frame tavern building, which had been erected there by Alexander Luse, of Cincinnati, who had platted at the cross roads a townsite, which he called Marcellus, but which never developed beyond the paper stage. Dr. Jefferson Helm owned the land on which the tavern was located, and Thomas B. Helm was his nephew. Elder George Campbell, a minister of the Christian church, who had been doing missionary work throughout this section of the state, was installed as principal of the Farmington Academy and with his family occupied part of the house, some of his pupils boarding with him. Both Elder Campbell and his wife were cultured people, and their school soon became a social, educational and re- ligious center which attracted many thoughtful young people. Leaders of the Christian church patronized the school, and under such auspices Elder Campbell began a movement for the founding of a college or university to be under the direction of the Christian church. Doctor Helm offered to donate land for the purpose, and site was chosen on a knoll just east of the tavern building, but for some reason the project fell through, and in 1848 Elder Campbell moved to Ohio and Farmington Academy was closed. The next year. however, he returned to become pastor of the Fairview Christian church in this county, and was helpful in promoting the movement which pres- ently resulted in the establishment of the old Fairview Academy. It must be said of Elder Campbell's experi- ment in university work at Farmington that it was not wholly abandoned and that the impulse in that direction there created was revived a few years later by the leaders of the church and in 1852 resulted in the establishment at Irvington, a suburb of Indianapolis, of the Northwestern Christian University, which later became Butler College,
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an institution of much present power which thus is seen really to have had its inception in Rush county.
It was in the winter of 1848-49 that Elder Henry R. Pritchard, of the Christian church, and Woodson W. Thrasher conceived the notion of an academy at Fair- view, on the Rush-Fayette county line, and presented the idea in such attractive guise that $1.200 was raised by subscriptions to foster the plan, a board of trustees of Fairview Academy was elected, with John Shawhan as president, and William and Nancy Shawhan, for a con- sideration of $75, deeded to this board and its successors two and one-half acres of land adjoining the village of Fairview on the Rush county side. Allen R. Benton, an alumnus of Bethany College, was secured as principal of the academy, and classes were begun before the academy building was completed, Dr. Ephraim Clifford's office at Fairview being utilized as a schoolroom. The ministry of the Christian church warmly supported the new academy, a curriculum equal to that of a college course was provided, young people of both sexes were attracted to the academy and in the palmy days of the institution there were as many as seventy students in attendance. Upon the organization of the Northwestern Christian University at Irvington, Principal Benton was called to that institution, and he was followed by Amaziah Hull, who was succeeded in turn by Jasper Hull, Daniel Van- Buskirk, William M. Thrasher and Sterling McBride. The panic of 1857 affected the fortunes of the school, the coming of the Civil war affected it still more, and with the advancement of the public schools it presently was abandoned and the old academy building turned into a dwelling house. The Rushville Republican, in the spring of 1857, carried an advertisement signed by W. W. Thrasher, treasurer of the institution, setting out that "the trustees of the Fairview Academy take this method of announcing to the patrons of said institution, and to all who wish to avail themselves of a good school, that we
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have engaged Mr. Sterling McBride, of Bethany, Va., to take charge of the school-a gentleman fully competent to teach all the branches usually taught in an academic course. We therefore can confidently assure the public that we will fully meet any reasonable requirement. As the school has been in such successful operation for seven years, we think it has fully recommended itself."
In 1849 two institutions for higher education for young women were established in Rushville and both for some years filled an important place in the cultural life of the community. The first of these, established early in 1849, was the Rushville Female Institute, which was organized under Presbyterian auspices with Dr. Horatio G. Sexton, Joel Wolfe, Dr. William H. Martin, Rev. David M. Stewart and Jesse D. Carmichael as trustees. Miss Carrie R. Warner, an Eastern teacher of reputation, was secured as principal of the institute, and classes were held in the basement of the old Presbyterian church. In 1850 Miss Warner was joined by her sister, Lydia ( after- ward Mrs. Leonidas Sexton), who brought with her the first piano seen in Rushville, and these two talented young women conducted the school very effectively for the three or four years it continued. In 1851 the Misses Warner were succeeded in the direction of the institute by Miss A. E. Sherill, of New York, and Miss Jennie Lan- don, of Vermont, and in 1852, Miss Lucretia Cramer, of Granville, N. Y. (afterward Mrs. H. G. Sexton), became principal. In the meantime, late in 1849, a rival to the institute was established, the Rushville Female Academy, the first board of trustees of this school being John W. Barbour, John S. Campbell, Amon Johnson, John Dixon and Dr. Samuel Barbour, who, it seems, were not in sym- pathy with the sectarian views of the other finishing school for young women. This latter school was under the direction of the four sisters Morley, who had come from Somerville, Mass., to take charge of the same, and whose influence in the social and cultural life of the town
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was a happy one. It has been written that "both of these schools were conducted with ability by the accomplished ladies at their head and did good work."
THE OLD RICHLAND ACADEMY
Of all the old time schools which aided in extending the fame and name of Rush county during the '50s and '60s, none perhaps exerted a wider influence than Rich- land Academy. This also was a sectarian school and throughout its course the rigid old Scotch Seceder infhi- ence was manifest in its works. Prior to the union of 1858. when the Associate (Seceder) and Associate Re- formed churches were merged into the United Presby- terian church the school was under Associate Reformed auspices, having been organized by the Rev. A. S. Mont- gomery, who was serving as pastor of the congregation of the Associate Reformed faith at Clarksburg, and whose pastoral charge extended over into Rush county to take in those of that faith who dwelt in the neighborhood of Richland. When in 1855, Mr. Montgomery made a pro- posal to establish an academy in the then new and prom- ising village of Richland the proposal was accepted, stock to the amount of $2,000 was subscribed, the Rich- land Academy Association was organized and until a building suitable for academy purposes could be erected school was opened in the Presbyterian (O. S.) church at Richland. Most of the subscribers to this project were residents of Richland township, but some were from No- ble township and some from the neighboring county of Decatur. Though steps were at once taken for the erec- tion of an academy building. the edifice (a picture of which is presented in this volume) was not completed until late in 1856. From that time on until the operations of the school were interrupted by the Civil war the school flourished. As Mr. Moses has written: "Those were rare days for Richland. The academy inspired a taste for intellectual things. The attendance was above sixty,
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and the presence of so many interesting young people brightened social life and gave it a marked literary tone. Former students still fondly recall the charming old academy days." John McKee, who had succeeded Mr. Montgomery as principal of the academy in 1857, con- tinued until the breaking out of the Civil war, when he recruited a company (K Company, Thirty-seventh reg- iment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry), half of the members of which had been students at the academy, and went to the front, presently to return wounded. Incapacitated for further service at the front he resumed his place in the academy, but in 1864, resigned to take a place in the United Presbyterian College at Monmouth, Ill. His suc- cessors, as shown by old records, were Mrs. Margery A. Rankin, W. A. Pollock, Rev. William Wright, J. C. Gregg, J. M. Craig, Robert Gracey and Robert Gilmore. The Rev. N. C. McDill, for many years pastor of the United Presbyterian church at Richland, also had served as principal on two occasions to fill out unexpired terms. During the latter '60s the fortunes of the academy began to wane, debts overtook the institution, attendance dwindled owing to the growth of better conditions in the public schools of the state, and the academy was aban- doned in the early '70s, the building presently being sold to the township trustee, who in 1885 tore it down and erected on its site a handsome public school building. The board of trustees of the academy which made the quit claim to the township was composed of D. M. Mc- Corkle, James W. Anderson, Jacob Fisher, Alexander Shannon, George W. Boling and A. E. Graham, the last official representatives of the institution which in its day had exerted a large influence for good throughout this section. A copy of the year book of Richland Academy for the year 1861 (a publication of forty-eight pages) has the voluminous title of "The Students' Offering and Catalogue of Richland Academy; Containing Essays and Orations, Prepared for the Annual Exhibition of March
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21, 1861, and a Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the Academy, Extending from Its First Year, 1855, until the Present Year, 1861." The "Students' Offering" is printed by Applegate & Company, Cincinnati, and the title page is embellished with the motto: "Haec olim meminisse jurabit." As an introduction there is printed the following unsigned poem:
Though small our village, and unknown to fame,
Our township's only worthy of its name. No more,-for in an unromantic mood Dame nature gave us trees and rich black mud, But pil'd no mountain's Alpine turrets high
To breast the storm-cloud and salute the sky;
Nor hurl'd the thundering cataract down the steep,
Nor grotto carved, nor hewed the cavern deep,
Nor sent the mighty river rolling near,
Whose breast might well the wealth of nations bear;
But sent the silver brooklet dancing by
Whose grace attracts the schoolboy poet 's eye.
Though history has left no record here Of warlike deed or bloody conqueror : No hoary legend tells of bloody fray When Indian braves would drive their foes away;
Though nonght antique or curious or great
Attracts the tourist's or the poet's feet ;
In short-though neither beanty nor renown Exalt the credit of our dull flat town,
Yet Richland shall in pleasant memories live
When fairer spots have found oblivion's grave.
Not places decked by nature's lavish hand,
But where the soul has felt and toiled and won, Its carnest efforts made-its duty done ; At truth's fair form has looked with raptured gaze,
With every beauty nature can command ; Not princely houses, with parks and gardens rare, Which art and nature vied to render fair, Can claim that memories love to linger there.
And truth's great author learned to love and praise, Derived new powers from its proper food, Its feasts-the true, the beautiful, the good.
Hence, modest Richland is a hallowed shrine,
Where memory's sacred wreaths, fond hearts entwine. For six bright years will soon be times that were, Since youths and maidens first assembled here To seek the gems of learning rich and rare. Kind friends have cheer'd us on our toilsome way- With song we've lighten'd labor every day. Good will and confidence our teachers show, And for each other friendship's embers glow. A few have felt the rapturous dream-ahem, (But out of school I'll not tell tales, not I.) Suffice to say that all have not the name That Prof. of mornings used to call them by. And now this monument we jointly rear, To keep in memory of our labors here, And mean, while life and memory shall last, To cherish this memorial of the happy past.
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The "essays and orations" carried in the body of the "Offering" and which apparently had been delivered in the annual exhibition of the preceding March, are not signed, nor are the names of those who composed the class of that year given, but the titles of these efforts will re- flect something of the trend of thought of the day, includ- ing as they do such subjects as "Liberty, the Nurse of Genius," "Parting Hour," "The Scholar's Hope and Mission," "The Flower of an Hour," "Sympathy," "In What Do We Boast?" "Golden Links in the Chain of Life," "Service the End of Living," "What Think Ye?" "Our Union, Shall It be Preserved ?" "Student, What Is Thy Hope?" "The Nineteenth Century," "Hope," "The United States of America," "The Orphan, or the Endearments of Home," "Error, Its Causes and Conse- quences," "Who Would Live Always?" "Our Coun- try," "The Realities of Life," "The Thinking Principle in Man Never Annihilated," "The Love of Fame," "Death," "A Good Cause Makes a Stout Heart," "Be What You Seem to Be," "Silent Power," "Diversity of Pleasure in Nature," "Education the Basis of Liberty," "Look Well to Your Reading," "Creation a Boundless Field of Investigation," "Look Onward" and "Let Us Live That the World May Be Better for Our Living." The officers and the members of the boards of trustees who had served from the time of the organization of the academy in 1855 to the date of the publication of the year book (1861) were given as follows: Presidents, James McCorkle, W. C. Stewart ; clerks, T. M. Thorn, A. P. But- ler, J. D. Thorn; treasurer, C. Boling; trustees (beside the above), W. R. Alexander, W. R. Alexander, G. Bo- ling, W. H. Bonner, D. Bowlby, Thomas Butler, S. H. Caskey, H. B. Cowan, J. H. Fitzgerald, James Foster, A. E. Graham, William Patton, N. S. Patton, T. L. Stew- art, J. S. Stewart and William Wright. Instructors- Principals, Rev. A. S. Montgomery (1855-57), John Mc- Kee (1857-61) ; teachers, Rev. R. E. Stewart, rhetoric;
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Rev. N. C. MeDill, vocal music and higher mathematics ; Helen Ballard, Jenny Howell, Anna E. Cooper, Laura A. Wolfe and Margery A. Cowan, instrumental music; W. C. Price, arithmetic; Anna E. Cooper, arithmetic, alge- bra, geography and history; J. W. Rankin, Latin; J. S. Mccullough, algebra; Miss N. McKee, arithmetic, his- tory and geography; Sallie McKee, arithmetic: J. E. Brown, Latin, and W. A. Hutchinson, algebra. A sum- mary of attendance showed that in the year 1855-56 there had been enrolled in the academy thirty-nine pupils; 1856-57, 53; 1857-58, 66; 1858-59, 65; 1859-60, 69, and in 1860-61, 41, with the explanatory note that the number for the total of the latter term is only the total for two-thirds of the year. The terms of tuition are set out at $6 in the primary department for the session of fourteen weeks; $7 for the academical department for the same period; $8 for the classical or German, with piano, $11 extra and guitar $8 extra, with an incidental charge of 50 cents the session. Boarding, including room, lodging and fuel could be had "either in the village or the country," at from $1.50 to $2.50 the week. Religious exercises were provided for each morning, and a concluding note under the head of "Moral Surroundings" pointed out that "a decidedly moral tone pervades the surrounding commu- nity. No haunts of dissipation or organized temptation to vice or idleness are to be found in the village or neigh- borhood. In this respect, indeed, it is believed one en- joys an exemption unsurpassed by any other in the land."
The history of the academies of Rush county would not be complete without reference to a normal school, con- ducted in Rushville for two years (1883-84), by David Graham, on North Main street and of the academy opened by Andrew H. Graham and David Graham on East Ninth street in 1890. The next year Andrew Graham withdrew to accept the superintendency of the Indiana State Sol- diers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home in Center township, being succeeded by A. F. Stewart, who, with David Gra-
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ham, continued it for two years longer, but finding it unprofitable they closed it. An unsuccessful attempt later was made to start a commercial college in the build- ing, but this latter venture also soon was abandoned. The building was destroyed by fire in the fall of 1894.
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