USA > Kentucky > Madison County > Glimpses of historic Madison County, Kentucky > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30
70
71
GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
Ruble was not only a physician and writer, but he was also an inventor. He invented a cotton gin-so writes his granddaughter, Miss Virginia Penny of Washington, D. C. What was perhaps more important, he improved the steam engine, giving it much greater power. This invention was still in use one hundred years later.
Dr. Ruble and his son built a steam-boat, "The Firefly," in which the father put into operation all his advanced views on the steam engine. This boat plied between Louisville and New Orleans for some time.
Ruble did not patent his inventions; neither did he make an effort to collect his medical bills nor push the sale of his books. Consequently, he died a poor man.
In 1812 Grimes published another book, Natural Philosophy, by Joseph Buchanan. Professor Buchanan had prepared a series of lectures on Natural Philosophy for a course planned at Tran- sylvania College; but when the course was not offered he decided to have the lectures published. One copy of the book may be found in the College Museum in Richmond.
In 1816, Grimes sold his business to Joe Turner, who changed its name to The Farmer's Chronicle in 1822. In 1817 the sub- scription price of this sixteen column weekly was increased from $2 to $2.50 a year.
By 1822, the Richmond Republican was also being published, and The People's Press opened for business, in 1827, to function for a brief period. In 1829, Turner sold The Farmer's Chronicle to Col. William Neale for $1,000. One of Neale's first new sub- scribers, Thomas Bronston, Sr., said, "That thar is, I'll take your paper if you will take pay in wood." That was satisfactory, and every year thereafter Bronston delivered the wood to pay the three- dollar subscription.
After leaving Transylvania College, Neale had much press ex- perience with an Episcopal Church paper published in Lexington. When he sold the Chronicle at Richmond in 1845, he returned to Lexington to become Cassius M. Clay's manager and local editor of Clay's The True American, a gradual emancipation publication. Again competition appeared upon the scene in Richmond when "Printer Jim" White produced The Review. Apparently this paper was short-lived.
In 1845, with Thomas I. Goddin, editor, the name of The
72
THE MADISON PRESS
Farmer's Chronicle was changed to The Whig Chronicle. It, too, found competition in The Plowboy, edited by French and Jackson (1847-1859). Evidently the newspaper business was not profitable in Richmond or papers would not have changed hands so often. The year 1852 found J. M. Shackelford and S. V. Rowland pro- prietors of The Whig Chronicle, the name of which was changed to The Weekly Messenger, a seven column publication. The Ohio River froze over during the winter of 1851-52 and it became neces- sary to send a wagon to Cincinnati for press supplies. This in- creased the cost of printing so much that it soon became necessary to increase the price of the paper from two to three dollars. (Evidently the new management had lowered the rate.) Conse- quently, the ownership changed hands again.
In 1851, Col. R. H. Johnson, who had successfully published The Western Whig, an influencial newspaper in Central Illinois, came to Richmond and soon purchased Rowland's interest in The Messenger. Still later he bought out Shackelford's interest in The Messenger and made it the largest in circulation of all the newspapers in the state outside of Louisville. It was Whig in sympathies, but by the middle of the fifties the Whig Party was disentegrating and in 1858, The Messenger was sold to a joint stock company. The paper continued under this management until 1862, when it ceased to be published, apparently on account of the war. During the latter part of this last ownership, James G. George was the editor.
On September 20, 1862, the Kentucky Rebel was published in Richmond. Four extra printings of this one number came out, but no other issues seem to have appeared. Its appearance was most likely due to the Confederate victory in the Battle of Richmond on August 30, 1862.
The Mountain Boomer was printed by Barney Young for a while near the close of the war, and the Mountain Democrat began to appear in 1862, but its life was evidently of short duration, too.
The Kentucky Register, a Democratic paper, began to be printed in Richmond in 1866 and continued until it was replaced by The Herald in 1879. It in turn was followed in 1887 by The Climax which continued to appear much of the time under the leadership of French Tipton, till his tragic death in 1901.
There were three papers printed in Richmond in the 1890's. The
73
GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
Kentucky Register, which had its beginning in 1866, and The Climax, which appears to have first appeared in 1887, and the Semiweekly Pantagraph, which began in 1894. The first two papers supported the Democratic Party, and the third, the Republican.
The Kentucky Register was a nine column, four page paper, with the columns thirty inches long. An issue printed, September 11, 1896, indicated its support of William Jennings Bryan for President, and stated:
"I don't care whether you're married; Or what church doctrine you hold The question most asked at this time Is, 'Are you for silver or gold?'"
Bryan was for free silver, and Mckinley, the Republican can- didate, was for gold standard. Charles F. White was proprietor, and Clarence E. Woods was editor and manager of the paper. The first and the last two columns were given to advertisements. The large sheets, about thirty by fifty-six inches, were rather difficult to handle. On September 25, 1891 the Register contained White's obituary. He was only forty-one years old.
The Climax for April 8, 1896, gave French Tipton as editor and D. F. Armer as manager. The subscription was $1.50 per annum, and its nine columns were thirty inches long. Not much world news was given but advertisements were profuse. Most of the front of this issue was given to information for the builders of homes, churches and schools. Drawings of model buildings were given. It was springtime and the information was appropriate.
On September 14, 1910 the Climax issued a seventeen page "In- dustrial, Historical and Illustrated" supplement. Glazed paper was used and much information given. In fact, had the supple- ment been cut properly and bound, it would have made a book of at least 100 pages. On Friday morning, August 6, 1897, Ken- tucky Register had printed a similar supplement of four pages. The Register and Climax were rivals for patronage and apparently engaged sometimes in rather unethical jibes at each other.
The Semiweekly Pantagraph was somewhat smaller than its two democratic competitors. It seems to have been printed Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings. Thomas E. Adams and Milo
74
THE MADISON PRESS
Shanks Publishing Company owned the Republican paper in the middle 'nineties; Adams was its editor.
The issues late in 1895 gave the Republican candidates for state offices on the front page with the Log Cabin heading the ticket. The six columns of the four page newspaper were twenty inches long. The Pantagraph continued until recent years.
In 1913 the late Judge Grant E. Lilly started a short-lived paper . called the Madisonian. Still later (1930's) the late Preston Smith edited for a brief period a small sheet under the heading of One Timer. Jokes and jibes appeared to predominate in its columns. A paper called the Observer may once have been printed in Richmond, but no copy of it could be found and information about it was uncertain.
In 1917 the late S. M. Saufley purchased the Climax and the Kentucky Register and established the Richmond Daily Register. It is Madison County's first daily newspaper and is published each afternoon except Sunday. The Daily Register traces its lineage to the Globe Register. Its readers, therefore, may expect a sesquicentennial, historical supplement in the near future.
The Richmond Daily Register is similar to dailies in other third class cities in Kentucky. Shelton M. Saufley, Jr. is editor, Randall Fields, city editor, and T. B. Challinor, general manager. Hon. Keen Johnson was editor for many years and is still a large stock- holder in the corporation, frequently acting in an advisory capacity. The paper is Democratic in sympathy.
The Daily Register is a member of the Associated Press, and has such modern means of receiving and appropriating news that are commonly enjoyed by up-to-date newspapers. It prints a weekly paper called the Madison Post, which is Republican in sympathy. The Post carries the most important local news from the columns of the Register.
The students of Central University began the publication of a weekly paper in the middle nineties. Vol. V, No. 34 of their Central News issued at commencement, June 12, 1901, contains eight pages of five columns seventeen inches long. This last number of the publication cost the students fifty cents a year or five cents the copy. During the previous school year the an- nual rate of subscription was seventy-five cents with single copies five cents. There were many illustrations, and the News contained
75
GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
the usual news in such publications. The students printed the paper on their own campus press.
The students of the Eastern Kentucky State College began the publication of the Eastern Progress in the early 1920's. An issue in Volume 12, No. 17, (Friday, May 18, 1934) is of four pages of six columns, twenty-one inches long. Student fees cover the cost of distribution, so no subscription was charged. Eighteen years later (1952) the Progress appeared in the same size, but the number for May 13, 1955, contained only five columns of eighteen inches in length; but it has cight pages. The Central News and The Eastern Progress contain advertisements.
The Richmond Daily Register Company prints The Eastern Progress which is issued every two weeks. Volume 32, however has only fourteen numbers, indicating a publication of fewer than eight copies a semester for the school year of 1954-55.
THE BEREA PRESS
The history of the press in Berea has been dominated by the Citizen, published continuously since June 21, 1899, which has remained the only newspaper in the city except for two short intervals.
There existed previously a paper titled The Reporter, whose subscription list the Citizen purchased for its first edition. The Reporter suspended publication as of that date. The first editor had been C. W. Roberts of Oldtown, Maine, a former Berea student and the first college printer. The Citizen appears to have been in a sense a continuation of this earlier publication.
The Citizen issue of June 28, 1899, announced a circulation of 1000, which gradually increased over the years to the present figure of 1525. The paper has been published since 1904 by the Berea Publishing Company, an independent corporation, and is printed by contract by the Berea College Press.
Managing editors have been T. G. Pasco, began June 21, 1899; C. Rexford Raymond, began June 13, 1900; John Dodwell, began September 12, 1900; Jas. Racer, began January 8, 1903; I. C. Hinman, began December 1, 1904; L. E. Tupper, began July 6, 1905; E. Albert Cook, began June 21, 1906; Stanley Frost, began September 1, 1907; Jas. P. Faulkner, began July 3, 1910; Ruth McFall, began July 3, 1913; C. H. Wertenberger, began July 2,
76
THE MADISON PRESS
1914; W. E. Rix, began July 4, 1918; J. O. Lehman, began Septem- ber 10, 1919; M. M. Reinhardt, began in 1921; Albert C. Schu- macher, began May 15, 1923, and made editor in chief August 1, 1925; and W. Foster Adams, made editor on July 1, 1952.
The Citizen is an eight page weekly paper, publishing news relating primarily to Berea and the surrounding area. It is issued each Thursday.
In addition to the above list of editors, it has had on its editorial staff Marshall E. Vaughn, and President William G. Frost, both of whom served for varying periods as editorial writers.
The earliest recorded regular publication in the community was the Berea Evangelist, brought out in 1884 as a semi-monthly, and published thereafter with varying frequency. John G. Fee, J. F. Browne, and H. H. Hinman were listed as its editors. As its title implies this publication was restricted largely to religious matters.
Two competing papers came into being after the issuance of the Citizen and enjoyed brief issue, the first being the Berea News, brought out on December 21, 1906, with M. L. Spink as editor and manager. It was printed by the Berea Printing and Publishing Company, of which W. H. Porter was president, S. F. Welch, Jr., vice-president; E. T. Fish secretary; and J. Burdette treasurer. Other members of the company were listed as I. A. Davis, J. M. Early, P. Cornelius, C. F. Hanson, and B. H. Gabbard. The paper was of four pages, six columns to the page.
It removed to London in August of 1908.
The second competitor to the Citizen was also called the Berea News, begun in 1930 by Harold L. Dahl of Boone Street and Reuben Lambert. It was printed in Richmond and continued in publication about a year.
The students of Berea College issue a weekly campus paper through the school year, printed by the College Press four pages to the issue. Since the opening of the fall semester of 1954 it has been called The Pinnacle, from a much earlier publication put out in the 1920's and early 30's under that title. This former campus paper was for a time edited by Roy N. Walters, now Dean of the Berea Foundation School. After it ceased publication, there ap- peared in the 1940's a kind of campus publication which was posted weekly on a bulletin board in Draper Building, called
77
GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
the Wallpaper, which appeared in printed form after 1946. This continued publication until 1954, when the name was altered to the present title.
CHAPTER VII Education in Madison County
INTRODUCTION
T THE DEVELOPMENT of education in Madison County generally followed the pattern of educational movements in Kentucky. Public education was very slow in getting under way in the early days; began to take some shape after 1838 with the coming of state legislation on public schools; and finally grew into a permanent, expanding public school system after the turn of the twentieth century. In the long interim, however, between the slowly develop- ing beginnings of public education and the period of expansion after 1900, private schools developed and flourished in Madison County, with some of the private institutions becoming rather famous beyond the boundaries of the Commonwealth. The story of higher education representing Berea College, founded in 1859, Central University (1874-1901), and Eastern Kentucky State Col- lege, established in 1906, is told elsewhere in this publication. The chief purpose of this chapter is to give a brief sketch of the develop- ment of private academies and the public school system of Madison County.
EARLY EDUCATION
Kentucky was a part of Virginia until 1792 and her growth and development have been influenced by that social inheritance. This was particularly true of the development of education in the early days. Kentuckians, like Virginians, believed in the idea of private education and did not think that the state should furnish it at pub- lic expense. Other factors retarding interest in public education in- cluded slavery, religious beliefs of the people, and lack of federal encouragement of education. The two Kentucky Constitutions adopted in 1792 and 1800 respectively make no mention of public education and no governor prior to 1807 referred to the subject in his annual message.
There is some evidence to show that schools, probably the sub- scription type, were established shortly after the first settlers came into Madison County. Probably the first school in the County was
78
79
GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
taught at Boonesborough in the summer of 1779 by Joseph Doni- phan who came to Kentucky in 1778 and went back to Virginia in 1780. A man by the name of McAfee, also, taught at Boonesborough in the early days. Some time thereafter Joseph Embry taught in Madison County. He must have been a well-educated person because he prepared his own textbook in arithmetic.
Major John Crooke who settled at Crooksville, as it is now known, was a very well known teacher and surveyor in Madison County in the early days. He came to Madison County in 1789 and served as County Surveyor for fifty-two years. In the mean- time, he also taught school in his own house. His arithmetic books prepared by himself indicate that he was an excellent mathema- tician. Many young men studied surveying under Major Crooke, and, after finishing the course, many of them probably taught school for a time in the State. They likely followed surveying as a major occupation and taught school as a "side line" on account of the low wages received by teachers in those days.
As far as is known, the first school in Richmond was taught by Israel Donaldson in the summer of 1799. During that summer and the ensuing winter he taught a school in a rough log cabin near the present location of the Owen McKee Building. This school- house was about sixteen feet square and was built of rough logs, covered with clapboards. One half of the floor was covered with planks hewed from logs, while the other half was native earth. There were no desks, and the equipment was primitive and simple. A rough board, placed along the side of the building and supported by pins driven into auger holes bored into one of the logs, was used as a place for the pupils to write. Benches, made of wide rails into which pins or stakes were driven into auger holes as legs, were used as seats. Behind a rough table sat, in stern dignity, the schoolmaster with switch and book in hand.
School buildings in those days were generally community un- dertakings. The schoolhouse was often used as a church house, and it was usually built by joint subscription, joint labor, or both. These houses were often built of unhewn logs, with the cracks half chinked, and the construction was rather crude throughout. They usually had stacked chimneys and clapboard doors and window shutters, and the windows were often without frames and seldom had panes. More than likely they had no floor except the bare
80
EDUCATION IN MADISON COUNTY
ground and the desks and seats were made of split logs in which wooden pegs or legs were inserted. The buildings were hcated in the winter by a large open fireplace in one end, and the parents often took turns in furnishing wood to heat the schools.
These old schoolhouses were sometimes called "Old Field" schools because they were located on a plot of ground that had been abandoned as no longer suitable for farm use. Little or no attention was given to playground space. Intermission periods were generally short and the school day was long. The school term was usually short depending either upon how long the teacher wanted to hold school or upon the willingness of the people to pay the tuition. The session might start any month in the year and end any time. Discipline was quite often strict and severe. The course of study consisted of reading, writing, and ciphering to the "rule of three," often taught to the "tune of a hickory stick." The younger pupils studied their a, b, c's from a paddle with the letters marked on it. After mastering the alphabet, the pupils were
promoted to the spelling class. As the pupils increased in pro- ficiency, they were allowed to study arithmetic, geography, and grammar, The only textbooks used at first were Dilworth's Speller and the Bible, while later on Webster's Spelling Book and Murray's English Readers and Grammar were introduced. Most of the text- books used in those days were prepared by the teachers themselves.
Early schools in Madison County were subscription schools because they were supported by pro rata subscription of the farmers in the community who wanted some schooling for their children. One pound seven shillings a year per pupil was considered a common rate of tuition. The tuition was mostly paid in such articles as the farmers possessed. Tobacco, in those days, was legal tender in Kentucky. Bacon, bear, buffalo steak, jerked venison, furs, hackled flax, linsey, potmeal, young cattle, corn or whiskey "at a quarter per gallon" paid most of the bill.
For many years after Kentucky became a state, there was little or no sentiment for public education. The pauper-school conception of education or the charity idea in education persisted far into the nineteenth century. These conditions prevailed in Madison County, where the wealthy planters sent their sons and daughters to private schools in the Eastern states or organized private schools of their own. Free education in the early days meant education only for
81
GLIMPSES OF HISTORIC MADISON COUNTY, KENTUCKY
the children of the poor, and what little education was provided for them was scant indeed.
After 1816 several Kentucky governors began to urge that a system of public education be established but for years thereafter succeeding legislatures took no action. In 1820, however, the General Assembly passed an act setting up a Literary Fund which reached the sum of $143,917.44 after three years, but there is ample evidence to show that the public school system, to be established many years later, never received a penny of this fund. In 1830, the General Assembly passed an act providing for the beginning of a common school system supported by local district taxation and administered by a local district board of three com- missioners, but this law did not make it mandatory upon the county court to lay off school districts. The levying of a school tax by the people was also optional. This act failed because the people in the state were not ready for it. There seems to be no evidence to show that the County Court of Madison took any ac- tion to lay off school districts under the plan.
In those days in Madison County there was no county superin- tendent of schools, no county board of education, no course of study, no system of compulsory school attendance, no taxes for education, no system of adopted textbooks, no sentiment for public schools, and no common school system.
PRIVATE SCHOOLS
The academy movement began in the United States at Phila- delphia, with Benjamin Franklin's proposal for the establishment of an academy in 1749, and reached its highest development in the country as a whole by 1850. The rise of the academy in the South antidated the Revolution and had its origin in the private effort of individual teachers or denominational groups, particularly in the Carolinas and in Virginia, where about two hundred academies were incorporated by 1850. The curriculum of the academies was fairly liberal and compared favorably with that of the modern public high school. Many of the academies were semi-public in character, especially in the Northern States. In the South, in general, the academies were private institutions. The academy maintained its hold as a secondary school until surpassed by the public high school which developed after 1821. Although a
82
EDUCATION IN MADISON COUNTY
few cities in Kentucky had public high schools after 1875, the State had to wait until 1908 for the General Assembly to create a system of county public high schools.
The academy movement in what is now Kentucky started in 1780 when the General Assembly of Virginia passed an act vesting eight thousand acres of land in ten trustees and stating that this land at a future date might be valuable for the education of youth. In 1783, the General Assembly of Virginia authorized the establishment of Transylvania Seminary and in 1788 Salem Academy at Bardstown was approved by the same legislative body. Between 1792 and 1798 the General Assembly of Kentucky auth- orized the establishment of five additional academies.
Madison Academy-An act of the General Assembly of Kentucky, sometimes called an "act for the endorsement of certain seminaries of learning," approved December 22, 1798, authorized the establish- ment of nineteen academies in as many counties, among these was the Madison Academy. The first trustees of this academy were James Barnett, Robert Caldwell, Green Clay, Hickerson Grubbs, Matthew Huston, Christopher Irvine, Joseph Kennedy, John Miller, John Patrick, Robert Rhodes, James Speed, and Archibald Woods. They were to have perpetual succession and a common seal.
This Academy was to be located at any place in Madison County "deemed proper and eligible" by the trustees. The same act granted to the trustees and their successors six thousand acres of vacant land "to be located on the south side of the Green River including those on the south side of the Cumberland." The land was not to be sold but it could be leased for a period no longer than twenty-one years.
In 1804, the General Assembly gave the trustees the right to sell one-half of the land in order to obtain money to build a house and to purchase a "library and philosophical apparatus" for use of the Academy. The trustees were, also, given the authority to raise "by lottery and also by subscription not exceeding $1,000.00 for buildings, books, and necessary apparatus and to pay expenses incurred in attempts to secure donations of land to the Academy.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.