USA > Kentucky > The history of Kentucky, from its earliest discovery and settlement, to the present date, V. 2 > Part 30
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 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
671
THE EARLIEST SCHOOL.
We learn from Bishop Spalding's "Sketches of Kentucky" that Mrs. William Coomes, a faithful Catholic woman from Maryland, taught a fort school in Kentucky, at Harrodsburg, in 1775. Thus was opened the first school in that wide country stretching from Harrodsburg to the Virginia line. The town of Harrodsburg was then a small place, with a row or two of little cabins. Its men were dressed in hunting shirts, leggings, and moccasins. The appearance in such a community of a school taught by a woman was certainly in striking contrast with the other surroundings.
Our earliest historians, Filson, Bradford, and Marshall, make. no mention of the coming of Mrs. Coomes to Kentucky. Later writers barely mention the fact, but tell us nothing of the character of the school, the course of study, the methods of work, or any of those particulars which we would desire to know.
Be it remembered, however, that this faithful, daring woman was the first to cross the Alleghanies, and to plant this outpost of civilization in + the wilderness of Kentucky. Long years elapsed before the State of her adoption gave to the children of her own sex the right to participate in the benefits of the public donations made to education, but this only entitles the faithful teacher to greater credit for her efforts in behalf of the cause of · education.
To appreciate the difficulties under which the school of Mrs. Coomes was started, it must be recollected that neither a church nor a court of justice had yet been opened at Harrodsburg; that many men had already started back to Virginia from fear of Indians; that a number of the com- panions of Daniel Boone had just fallen while assisting him in making a road from Wataga to Boonesboro.
Another school was kept at McAfee's station, near Harrodsburg. in the year 1777, by John May. His pupils were the children of the Mcfee families just arrived from Virginia. Some time afterward. this teacher fell a victim to the wiles of the Indians in a fight upon the Ohio river. Ere long. he was followed to the grave by another noted teacher of Kentucky, who lost his life in the forests of Ohio.
" Deep in the wild and solemn woods, Unknown to white man's track, John Filson went, one autumn day, But never more came back."
At a later period, yet another teacher was taken prisoner by the Indians, adopted by them, and dressed in their own peculiar costume. After a short stay among the savages, he escaped and returned to Maysville, where he was warmly welcomed by his former pupils. These facts are incidentally shown by the imperfect records of our State. A more complete narrative would doubtless disclose schools broken up by the Indians, pupils carried into captivity, and other teachers killed, or sent as prisoners to the British garrisons in the North-west.
672
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
The third school was that of Joseph Doniphan, in the old fort at Boones- boro, in 1779. All that is known of Mr. Doniphan and his school is to be found in the history of Dr. Richard H. Collins. When Mr. Doniphan came to Boonesboro in the spring of 1778, Daniel Boone was a prisoner of the Shawanees, at Chillicothe. Colonel George Rogers Clark, at the head of his regiment, had already taken up his line of march for Illinois. What inducements brought Mr. Doniphan to Kentucky, or led him to teach, we are not informed. The school was taught in the summer of 1779. Mr. Doniphan was then a young man, twenty-two years of age. The patrons of his school are not certainly known, but the author has lately been informed, by Dr. Richard H. Collins, that there are grandchildren of Joseph Doniphan now living, who have heard this pioneer teacher say that he taught the children of Daniel Boone in this fort school. A tradition which has long lingered about Boonesboro includes the children of Nathaniel Hart, Jesse Oldham, and Richard Calloway among his pupils. The number of his pupils amounted to seventeen in all. From the known customs of the day, it is probable that most of the salary of Mr. Doniphan was paid in tobacco, which was then a legal tender. That which was not so paid was probably commuted for bear bacon, buffalo steak, or jerked venison. It is possible that Mr. Doniphan did not find the school profitable, as we learn he had returned to Virginia the next year, and was discharging the duties of a justice of the peace in Stafford county. At that period, justices of the peace in Virginia received no pay for their services, and none but the best men were appointed to the office. This would indicate that Mr. Doniphan was a man of standing in the community where he lived. In fact, this was true of many of the early teachers of Kentucky. Most of them were also en- gaged in the business of surveying, which was both an honorable and lucrative calling at that time. Some of the best early governors of Ken- tucky were teachers and surveyors.
A manuscript arithmetic, said to have been used in the Boonesboro school, made in 1768, by Mr. John Sleeps, of Virginia, and brought to the Boonesboro fort by Mr. William Calk, is still preserved in the family of Captain Thomas Calk, near Mount Sterling; but whether this was used as a text-book in the fort school of Mr. Doniphan can not be determined with certainty. As a number of such manuscript books upon arithmetic, sur- veying, and geography. have been found among the effects of pioneer families, it is probable that some books of this kind were used in the fort schools at Harrodsburg. Boonesboro, and Lexington. It is known, how- ever, that printed books, such as Watts' Hymns, Gulliver's Travels, and the New Testament, were brought by the earliest explorers and hunters; so that printed school books may have come to the State in the same way, and been used in the fort schools. It is believed that the New Testament was used as a reading book-in all these schools. As illustrating this practice, we give the following query from the Marble Creek Church, addressed to the Elk-
.
673
THE FIRST BOOKS PRINTED.
horn association in 1798: "Is it consistent with our duty to God and our children, to have them taught while at school to read works of human insti- tution. until they are well acquainted with reading the Scriptures? Has not the reading of such books a tendency to lead their tender minds into a dis- esteem of the Bible ?" The answer was that other books might be used if moral in their sentiment.
From the best information in possession of the author, it is believed that the spelling-book mostly used in the fort schools was that of Thomas Dil- worth, an English teacher. It is probable the smaller children were furnished with a paddle, which had their letters and a, b, c's printed upon it. When the paddle was finished, the children could then own a Dilworth speller. This was certainly the practice in 1789. The practice of schools shortly subsequent to the fort schools makes it somewhat probable that the geog- raphy of William Guthrie and Dilworth's. Arithmetic were also used in the + fort schools. Soon after 1783, we find the arithmetic of William Horton and Murray's Grammar used in some of the Kentucky schools.
As early as 1798, two school-books, the Kentucky Primer and Kentucky Speller, had been printed in this State. at Washington, the old county-seat of Mason county. Harrison's English Grammar was printed at Frankfort . in the same year. Other school-books, such as the Kentucky Preceptor, the Western Selections, the Union Primer, and Horton's Arithmetic, were printed at Lexington in 1805. Many of these books were used in some of our early schools. The spelling-book of Webster was printed at Lexington in 1816, and probably superseded that of Dilworth about that time. Speci- mens of some of these Kentucky school-books are now in possession of Colonel R. T. Durrett, of Louisville.
The fourth school was that of John Mckinney, in the fort at Lexington, in 1780. Though little is known of the school, it has, perhaps, acquired more celebrity than any of the fort schools, from the famous adventure of its teacher with the wild cat in 1783. Accounts of this remarkable fight are to be found elsewhere. The fight itself and the alarm occasioned by it brought the entire garrison together within the fort. It is conjectured by Bradford that the conduct of the cat was so strange it must have been mad; but, if so, the serious consequences which usually attend the bites of mad animals did not follow in this case.
The teacher, Mckinney, must have been a man of some force of char- acter, as Dr. Collins informs us that he afterward became a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, a member of the first Kentucky Legislature, and a delegate to the convention which framed the first Constitution of our State.
The fifth school in Kentucky was of a different kind. It was a public seminary, and as such has an important bearing upon the first school system of Kentucky. It became the model after which all our other public schools were fashioned when Kentucky became a State. The man who was most
43
674
- HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
instrumental in establishing this school was Colonel John Todd, who fell at the battle of Blue Licks. Colonel Todd was a member of the Virginia Leg- islature in 1780. Through his representations, that body was made to see that certain lands in the county of Kentucky belonging to British subjects, not sold under the law of escheats and forfeitures, might at a future day be valuable as a fund for the education of the children of Kentucky, and thus conferred an inestimable boon to Kentucky.
Aside from many other facts marking Colonel Todd as a leader in his day, this act alone would give him an important place in the history of Ken- tucky. The State has probably received more reputation from the establish- ment of Transylvania University than from the bloody fights of her sons at Blue Licks, Bryan's station, Logan's fort, or elsewhere. The services of the "graduates of this school have given a renown to our Commonwealth which will make Kentucky live in history when border fights with Indians are for- gotten.
Among all the delegates from the different counties of Kentucky to the Virginia Legislature, Colonel John Todd is the only one known to have made a working record upon the subject of Kentucky schools. The lives of Benjamin Logan, Squire Boone. John Floyd. Richard Callaway, Green Clay, and other representatives from the Kentucky counties are singularly lacking in this respect. Their brilliant campaigns against the Indians do not en- tirely make up for this deficiency.
In the years 1780 and 1783, the Virginia Legislature endowed Transyl- vania Seminary by giving it twenty thousand acres of land. The school was to be established in the county of Kentucky as soon as the circumstances of the county and the state of its funds would permit. The land given was ex- empted from public tax. The professors and students were exempted from militia duty. The fidelity of the teachers and the diligence of the students were to be ascertained by annual examinations. On its board of trustees were placed many leading men in the district of Kentucky. In this list we find the names of William Christian, Isaac Shelby, Stephen Trigg, Benjamin Logan, John Todd, George Rogers Clark, John Craig. David Rice, Robert Johnson, Walker Daniel, Christopher Greenup, James Speed, and others. The law of Virginia endowing this school, in assigning reasons for the gift. declared in the preamble " that it was to the interest of the Commonwealth always to encourage and promote every design which may tend to the im- provement of the mind and the diffusion of useful knowledge, even among the most remote citizens, whose situation in a barbarous neighborhood and a savage intercourse might otherwise render them unfriendly to science."
Little, indeed, did the authors of this law, in the humility of their antici- pations, think that they were giving birth to one of the most distinguished institutions that ever sprang from Virginia-one which afterward poured its floods of science upon hundreds. one which was destined to throw a luster upon their names, perhaps unmerited and, it may be, unexpected. But
675
ESTABLISHING TRANSYLVANIA SEMINARY.
while we admire the humanity of the preamble, it would be unkind not tc ascribe to them the consequences of the law.
Never was an institution of learning more in need of vigilant, brave, and faithful trustees to guard its title and interests than was Transylvania Sem- inary. The adverse claimants were the Shawanees and Wyandottes in the North and the Cherokees and Creeks in the South. No court of equity or common law had jurisdiction of the matters at issue. The mode of trial was by battle, in which the contestants were armed with the tomahawk, scalping-knife, and rifle. The contest opened at Little mountain, where Captain James Estill gave his famous command : "Every man to his man, and every man to his tree." The fight swept around over the battlefield of Blue Licks, where Colonel John Todd, the founder of the school, and Stephen Trigg, one of its most accomplished trustees, fell by the hands of the savages. It ended on the river Thames. in Canada, when Colonel Rich- ard M. Johnson gave the battle-cry: "Remember the Raisin!"
The act establishing the Transylvania Seminary provided that the first meeting of its trustees should be held at John Crow's station, near Danville, on the second Monday in November, 1783, and thereafter at any convenient place in the district. The first meeting was accordingly held at the place and · time named. This meeting was a memorable one in the early educational history of the State. The whole subject of establishing a public institution of learning in the district was discussed by earnest men in all its bearings upon the welfare of the future State of Kentucky. The foremost lawyers, doctors, ministers, and military officers of the district were there. The meeting was presided over by the venerable David Rice. Walker Daniel, Robert Johnson, Caleb Wallace, John Craig, Isaac Shelby, and Samuel Mc- Dowell, all gave the benefit of their counsel. James Speed. Christopher Greenup, and Willis Green were among the prominent speakers. Future governors of the State, founders of synods and presbyteries. judges of the Appellate Court, and judges of circuit courts were alike present.
After a thorough discussion of the subject, it was agreed by these earnest men in the forest of Kentucky that the prosperity and happiness of the ris- ing young State was intimately connected with the liberal education of its people. These assembled guardians of the welfare of the district were too sensible of the value of knowledge to desire to bequeath to their children an inheritance of ignorance. They were too generous to disregard the welfare of those who were to come after them.
The result of the meeting was that a call was made upon the people of the district to increase the endowment already given by Virginia to Tran- sylvania Seminary, by the aid of additional private subscriptions. It was found on trial to be impossible to do so. The condition of the district would not yet permit it. In fact, the call for pecuniary aid to Transylvania Seminary was made at an unpropitious time for the people of the district. Aside from the poverty always incident to settlement in a new country, aside
+
676
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
from the financial crash then pending upon the close of the Revolutionary war, the devastating ravages and robberies of the Indians along our whole border were then at their height. Several of the most important campaigns of Clark and Logan, in the North-west, and of Whitley and Montgomery, in the South, had not yet been made.
The first donation to the new seminary came from a distant stranger, the Rev. John Todd, of Louisa county, Virginia. In March, 1784, this gentle- man, as an encouragement to science, gave to Transylvania Seminary a small library of books and some philosophical apparatus. At the time this donation was made, it was highly appreciated in Kentucky." There were then no newspapers in the district. Only a few wealthy families from Virginia had any books, and those were of an inferior class. The library and ap- paratus were afterward brought to Kentucky by John Mosely, a delegate to the Virginia Legislature, and deposited for a time at the house of Levi Todd.
Before the close of 1784, the trustees of the Transylvania Seminary or- dered a grammar school to be opened in Lincoln county, near the residence of the Rev. David Rice. This school was opened on the 25th day of May, 1785, with James Mitchell as principal, at a salary of four hundred dollars per annum. Transylvania Seminary was thus opened and continued dur- ing the scenes of the separation conventions at Danville, in 1785-8. The quietude of the school hours must have often been broken by the stormy debates occurring in the old log court-house in Danville. The students must have often seen the manly form of Isaac Shelby, and the tall and con- templative figure of Benjamin Logan, as they rode into Danville to these successive conventions. Frequent visits to Danville by General George Rogers Clark, attractive by the manliness of his deportment, and the intel- ligence of his conversation, must have furnished occasions to the students for seeing this Hannibal of the West. They must frequently have looked upon the person of General James Wilkinson, with his bland manners, easy address, firm gait, and beaming countenace. Occasionally. they must have heard the inflammatory and eloquent speeches of Wilkinson upon his favorite topics of the free navigation of the Mississippi, and the evils suffered by Ken- tucky from her political connection with the distant State, Virginia. They also listened to the appeals of Judge George Muter and Colonel Thomas Marshall to the convention not to make a constitution for Kentucky. and erect the district into an independent State, except in accordance with the laws of Virginia.
Those were stirring times in Kentucky. News of fresh hostilities by the Indians on the old wilderness road, and of outrages by the Shawanees and other tribes upon the Wabash, were daily reaching Crow's station, where the seminary was located. The faithful teacher was true to the discharge of duty amidst all these discouragements. The seminary held its daily ses- sions. The charter of the school which was thus kept showed upon its face
1
677
LEXINGTON THE LITERARY CAPITAL.
that it contemplated a school in the neighborhood of savages, where the fierce war-whoop of the Indian might often be heard. It was Virginia's training-school for the children of her citizens, in the most remote regions of the Commonwealth.
The school thus opened was started shortly after Kentucky was given a district court. Its bearings for good upon the future destiny of Kentucky were perhaps not inferior to those of the court. Its effects upon the pros- perity of the country, upon the standing and character of the district, were not inferior to those of any institution in Kentucky originating at the same time. Yet some of our historians have made conspicuous figures of the court and its officers, while the teachers and promoters of this school are passed in comparative silence. The bickerings and short sighted follies of early politicians, as shown in the separative conventions at Danville, are all noted as matters of serious import, while the fidelity of teachers who stood 'true to their trust in that early day, when the school-path was not secure from the savage stroke, is passed unnoticed. The site of the old hewed- log court-house at Danville, where the first political wrangling of the day occurred, has been carefully preserved, but the location of the old school- house, where public education first began its career, at Crow's station, in Kentucky, is unknown.
After the seminary was located at Danville, strenuous efforts were again made to raise money for it by private subscriptions. These attempts to increase the endowment all failed.
Early in 1789, the board of trustees carried the institution to the north side of the Kentucky river, hoping to find at Lexington a more liberal spirit to the cause of education. A house standing on the public grounds at Lex- ington was first used as a school house. As an encouragement to the school, on the Ist of January, 1791, the Virginia Assembly passed an act permitting this house to be occupied free of rent, so long as it was not needed for other purposes.
The crossing of Kentucky river from its southern to the northern side, by this important educational factor of the State, contributed much, in after years, to transfer the political supremacy to the northern side of the river. Lexington became the literary capital of the West. The seminary was now slowly rising into some importance, but was still sadly deficient in the funds necessary to operate it. Subscriptions, loans, and even a lottery, were all resorted to as means for raising money, but without effect. The pioneers were too poor in moneyed resources.
At last, a company of gentlemen in Lexington purchased the necessary grounds for the school, erected a two-story brick building, and presented them to the trustees of Transylvania, by whom they were accepted in 1793. This result was not reached without calling into requisition the services of many of the most prominent men in early Kentucky history. Harry Innes, John Bradford, John Campbell, John Hawkins, and others, were at different
678
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY.
times engaged as chairman of the board, while other familiar names appear as its active members.
Meantime, some good private schools were growing up in different parts of the State. John Filson and John Mckinney were both teaching school at Lexington, in 1783. Filson was then engaged in gathering material for his celebrated history and map of Kentucky. Whether this pioneer map of the State was ever used in any of the schools the writer can not say, but the probabilities are in favor of its having been used in some of them. A series of questions upon the map of Kentucky has lately been found among the papers of Mr. William Calk, now in possession of Mr. Thomas Calk, of Mount Sterling, to which no known map of Kentucky was adapted, except that of Filson.
In December, 1787, as we learn from the history of Dr. Richard H. Collins, Elijah Craig was advertising a classical and scientific school, to be kept at Georgetown. Shortly afterward we find James Priestly at the head of a classical school in Bardstown. The Salem Academy, at which Mr. Priestly thus taught, was incorporated by the Virginia House of Delegates, in 1788. Joshua Fry had also then started another school in Mercer county. which was attended by a number of pupils, who afterward attained much distinction. Samuel Finley was teaching in Madison, with John Boyle as one of his pupils. Later along, in 1793, log school houses, built by the joint efforts of the neighboring farmers, were springing up at widely dis- tant points throughout the State. The functions of the teachers in these country schools were to instruct in reading, writing, and ciphering to the Rule of Three. We learn from Dr. Drake, who attended some of these country schools, that the teachers were not versed in " grammar, etymology, and the definitions."
Some of the religious denominations were beginning to organize schools for training the children of people of their own persuasion, at this period. A denominational school of much interest was Bethel Academy, located in Jessamine county, upon a high bluff of the Kentucky river, and established in 1794. It was the first institution of learning erected by the Methodist Church in the valley of the Mississippi. The grounds of the academy con- tained one hundred acres of land. The school-house was large, but was never completely finished. The building of this house rendered the pecu- niary means of early Kentucky Methodist preachers uncertain, for they were always begging for the school. The students of the school were sub- ject to the regulation of the Western Methodist Conference. These rules compelled them to arise at five o'clock in the morning, and retire at nine o'clock at night. All games were prohibited. Idleness was punished by confinement, and a room was built for that purpose. The course of study was that of a high classical school. Its first teacher was Valentine Cook, one of the great men of his day. The Western Conference was often held at this house. In reaching it, the ministers, who came mostly from the
-----
--
679
GRANTS OF LANDS.
Holston country, incurred many perils. They traversed the Wilderness Path in Indian file, living upon biscuit, broiled bacon, dried beef, and tree sugar. Sometimes the path was watched by old Doublehead, a noted Indian chief, who was under a vow to be avenged upon the whites. This school was afterward incorporated and endowed by the State, with six thousand acres of land.
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.