USA > Missouri > Buchanan County > The history of Buchanan County, Missouri > Part 36
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One of the first houses of worship was erected by the Calvanistic Baptists in Platte Township, and was known as the "Witt Meeting House," taking its name after Judge Nelson Witt, on whose land the house was built. It was quite a large structure and made of hewn logs. The first minister who officiated in this church was John Evans. Mr. Evans was from Kentucky, and through his instrumentality the first or- ganization of that denomination was effected in the county between 1838 and 1840.
The Missionary Baptists subsequently erected in the same township a frame edifice which was called "Hebron," which is still standing in a ruined condition, but is not used for church purposes.
The Baptists also built a large frame building with two rooms, in the old town of Bloomington, in 1858. Rev. Isart Williams is the pres- ent pastor. The Hard-shell Baptists had organizations at an early day at one or two places in the southern portion of the county in Bloomington Township, in 1839.
The Christians were among the earliest religious denominations to proclaim the Word in the Platte Purchase. A church was organized three miles south of DeKalb, in Bloomington Township, by Archibald Stuart, in 1839, the first sermon being preached by him under a buckeye tree on Sugar Creek. His church was known at that time as the "New Light," now the Christian Church.
The Christians also established a church at Crawford Township, four miles northwest of Halleck, in 1842, called " Antioch." Elder Duke
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
Young, an aged man, preached here among the first. The Elder was said to have been entirely a self-made man, but was an earnest, devout minister. Like others of his calling at that early day, he always carried with him a small copy of the New Testament, covered with old-fashioned green and white spotted calico.
The Presbyterians organized a church in the northern portion of the county, called "Walnut Grove," which is still in existence, with a membership of thirty.
The same denomination had a church at Easton, shortly after the settlement of the town. The first camp-meeting was held in the year 1842, near the Valley Chapel school house, in Bloomington Township. Other camp-meetings were held in 1847, below Martin's Mill, in the same township. The Episcopalians had a Mission Station as early as 1859, at Saxton's Station, and one also about three miles below St. Joseph.
During the first ten years of the county's history there were but few church buildings erected. Public religious services were generally held at private houses, until school houses were built, after which these build- ings were used for religious services on Sundays, and are even now used in some localities for the same purpose.
CHAPTER XXII.
SCHOOLS.
Our State Constitution lays down, as the very foundation of society and good government, the following principle : "Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged in this state. One school, or more, shall be established in each township, as soon as practicable and necessary, where the poor shall be taught gratis."
Thus we find, in the fundamental law of Missouri, the plain and unequivocal announcement of the principle that every state is bound to see that its citizens are educated. It is a voluntary avowal of the fact that the happiness, wealth and prosperity of a nation must depend on the intelligence and virtue of its people.
In the act of Congress (1820) authorizing the people of Missouri Territory to form a constitution and state government, the sixteenth section of each township, or its equivalent, was devoted to the purpose of supporting schools in each township.
Twelve salt springs, with six sections or thirty-eight hundred and forty acres of land adjoining each, were also granted to the state, and those were afterwards devoted by the Legislature to the same object.
The first act passed by the Legislature of the state on the subject of education was on the 17th of January, 1825. This law enacted that each Congressional Township should form a school district, to be under the control of the County Court in all matters pertaining to schools. It also declared that all rents (of school lands) fines, penalties and forfeitures accruing under provisions of this act should be set apart and appropri- ated exclusively to a school fund, and, in no case, should it be otherwise applied.
January 26, 1833, the Legislature authorized the Governor to appoint three suitable persons, whose duty it should be to prepare a system of primary school instruction, as nearly uniform as practicable throughout the state, and to make report to the next meeting of the Legislature.
By act of June 23, 1836, the office of Superintendent of Common Schools was first created. Peter G. Glover was the first to fill this office. He was required in the month of January of each year, to make distribu- tion of the "School Monies" amongst the several counties in which there may be any school, based upon the number of white children between the ages of six and eighteen years.
22
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
During the session of 1853, a committee composed of Acock, of Polk County, Hickman, of Boone and Kelley, of Holt County, by author- ity of the Legislature, matured and presented to that body the law in force on the statute book up to the passage of the second State Consti- tution and with some modifications substantially the same as exists to- day (1881). The first distribution of State School moneys were made January, 1842, when only thirteen counties received any portion of the fund. These were Benton, Boone, Clark, Cole, Cooper, Greene, Lafay- ette, Livingston, Marion, Monroe, Ralls, Saline and Shelby. The aggregate amount of this apportionment was $1,999.60. The number of children in the report here fails to appear. In 1859, the number of children reported was 367,248, and the amount appropriated, $253,401.12.
EARLY PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF ST. JOSEPH.
To the first school taught in the county we have already referred in our notice of Crawford Township. Others of perhaps equal importance subsequently existed in distant parts of the county, at times not far dis- tant from this period. The most important of these, both from the superior grade of its scholarship and the permanency of its success, was that established in St. Joseph by Mrs. Israel Landis, in the summer of 1845, and advertised in the Gazette' of that day as St. Joseph Female Seminary. Either about this period, or a short time previous to the first opening of this school, Mrs. Stone, a Roman Catholic lady, taught, for a few months, a small private school within the city limits.
Mrs. Landis' school prospered with merited success for several suc- ceeding years. Though, to all intents and purposes a female institu- tion, a few small boys, whose sisters were pupils in the seminary, were occasionally received as temporary students in the same.
The following catalogue of the first pupils will probably be read with interest by many of the present citizens of St. Joseph :
Isabella Boyd, Sarah Jane and Hilray Smallwood Sophia and Octavia Robidoux, Mary and Emerson Reeve, Elizabeth and A. Scarcey, John Walsh, Sarah Catherine Talbot, Eveline, Caroline, Adeliza Taylor, Judith and Hannah Venable, Sarah Catherine Norton, Melvina Hall, Mary Frances Smith, Georgiana Smith,
Elizabeth and Tolbert Fairleigh, Harriet Willis,
Alfred and James Harding,
Mary Elizabeth Taylor. Mary and Sarah Lydia Flint,
Susan and William Martin,
Minerva Patee, Sarah Maria and Emma Powell, Almira and Bryant Searcey, John Martin,
Sarah Jane Hall, Lucy Ann Smith, Elizabeth Loan,
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
Elizabeth Kercheval,
Mary Argyle,
Martha McDonald,
Prudence Funk,
Mary Elizabeth Kenedy,
Sarah Price,
Eliza Tracy,
Mary Anne Richardson,
Lucretia Pfouts,
Nancy Northcut,
Paulina Northcut,
John Kemper,
John Harris,
Cecelia Keedy,
Cora Keedy.
On February 9th, 1839, a school law was enacted, under which there were two or four inspectors of common schools appointed. One duty of these inspectors was to examine teachers. This was probably the first step toward our present organized system of public school management.
Though a long term of years intervened between the period first above referred to and the present time, we find in the days of her earliest history a lively sense of the importance of general education engaging the minds of the people of Buchanan County.
The following evidence of the fact will be read with interest by many who may yet, perhaps, recollect, if they did not personally take part in the convention :
On the 7th November, 1846, a
COMMON SCHOOL CONVENTION
of Buchanan County was held at Crawford Township school house, at which the following proceeding were had.
On motion of Mr. Stratton, Dr. Davis was elected President of the Convention, and on motion of Mr. Burbaker, H. F. Hoover was elected Secretary.
The Convention was then called to order by the President, who took occasion to introduce the claims of education in some happy introductory remarks, together with reading the following preamble and resolutions, viz. :
WHEREAS, In a republic the people are the source of all political power, and from them must emanate those hurtful or beneficent influ- ences which will operate either as an aliment in sustaining, or as poison in destroying vitality of popular institutions ; and
WHEREAS, The entire mass of society in this country are deeply interested in reference to the capacity of each member thereof to meet the high obligations arising from his social and political relations, it being evident that the judgment in reference to these obligations cannot be correct while knowledge is deficient and defective ; and
WHEREAS, Also it is painfully evident that in a very large portion of these states there is a destitution of political and literary intelligence disreputable to the government and incompatible with a healthful exer- cise of the sacred rights of suffrage ; and
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
WHEREAS, It is also evident and surprising that neither the general government nor our own state government have put forth efforts at all ade- quate to remove the incubus of ignorance, which not only endangers the peace and safety, but retards the prosperity of the country. There is, indeed, by the enactments of our state a plentiful array of directions for the organization of school districts, the necessary officers with their duties fully prescribed, etc., but nothing available placed at their dis- posal for the accomplishment of those duties.
One section out of thirty-six is given for educational purposes-and that, with shame let it be said, suffered by the people to be bartered off at $1.25 per acre ! ! !
We cannot but regard the trifling appropriation of the thirty-sixth section, and that badly secured to the cause for which it was intended, as manifest proof of the indifference of government to the subject.
On the part of some of the United States there are splendid excep- tions, where education is receiving the fostering care of vigorous govern- ments, and consequently, that generous devotion of the people which, as the pabulum of individual happiness and palladium of public liberty, it justly demands ; and
WHEREAS, If our institutions are the most subservient to human happiness, of which the world knows, it is most clearly the duty, as well as the highest interest of every individual enjoying these blessings to contribute the utmost in his power to perpetuate them unimpaired to posterity ; and
WHEREAS, Our country is universally regarded as holding not only a conspicuous, but a tremendously responsible station, among the nations of the earth. Situate so remote from all countries where pos- terity can be dreaded, and in possession of immense physical and civil advantages, it must be evident to the most superficial observer that if the great experiment of self-government can succeed, of all nations under the sun we ought and will most likely be the people to make a practical demonstration of it. Let Buchanan County remember that the eyes of the world are directed to our nation ; that to America is directed the last appeal in behalf of the oppressed, ignorant, suffering humanity ; that America is known to be the only Ararat on which freedom's ark can safely repose. And here let it repose forever, safe in the affections and intelligence of the whole people, while our institution of learning-OUR COMMON SCHOOLS-like the bow of promise, shall spread from East to West its wide arch, giving us the assurance that the wild waters of anarchy and despotism shall not again destroy the earth ; therefore,
Resolved. That those high, those fond, those longing hopes of Christen- dom ought not, may not and must not be disappointed ; in support of which, as a part of the American people, and in conjunction with every patriotic American, we are ready and willing, as much as in us lies, to put on betimes the whole armor of freedom and wield it in behalf of those institutions that give life and permanency to our Republic.
Resolved, That any individual is unable to perform the duties of a republican citizen while destitute of that education or discipline of mind necessary to understand for himself the nature of our institutions, the rudiments and principles of our government. Therefore, that the long prevalent and present neglect of common schools, both by the gov- ernment and the people, proclaims loudly an undue appreciation of what
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
intimately concerns the vital interests of community, and favors a state of things which eminently endangers, not merely the well being, but the existence of our free institutions.
But that with the intellectual and moral training which our common schools afford, every individual may acquire the ability to be a useful citi- zen, and by joining his wise and harmonious influence with others in executing plans for the common weal, he will not only earn the reputa- tion of benefactor, but will actually have an agency in embellishing the minds of his fellows whose influence, fragrant with all that is good, will live after him age after age.
Resolved, That education, such as ought to be imparted in common schools, will enable every one to know and obey the just restraints of law, and also must effectually correct the exuberance of democracy, chasten and control its tendencies to insubordination, being held by the attractions of reason, in its just orbit, around a free constitution, preserved alike from the centripetal force of despotism and the centrifugal force of anarchy-giving and arming every man with the ability to detect the sophistry of the demagogue, and to unite in the selection and establish- ment of such authority as shall secure the public tranquility, by rendering obedience pleasure and submission choice.
Resolved, That it is justly the reproach of the general, and of many of the state governments, that while with an energy and devotion that calls forth the admiration of the world, they have given to a mighty nation the boon of freedom, they yet have neglected, or at best imper- fectly supplied, the means of general knowledge, by whose power, calm and energetic, will give perpetual life and energy to our free govern- ment, and that, therefore, public authorities are chargeable with the inconsistency of neglecting the materials and order of the foundation, in their zeal for the strength and utility of the superstructure.
Resolved, That the light of learning has long since exposed to mer- ited contempt the assumption of "the divine right of kings," and that experience amply testifies that self-government, under the guidance of general intelligence, is no longer an experiment, but ipso facto, prac- tical ; therefore the friends of common schools may most pertinently address an appeal, as a motive to our very selfishness-even the first law of our being, self preservation.
Resolved, That the tranquility and perpetuity of this republic is rendered secure by the diffusion of knowledge, and that whatever so in- timately concerns the best interests of government, cannot be at vari- ance with the freedom or rights of a single citizen ; and therefor, having provided the end, has a right to so control the means and dictate as to their due appropriation for purposes of general education, and to com- pel, by law, the attendance of every minor upon common schools.
Resolved, That education inspires men with a just respect for them- selves, and of consequence, a due respect for others, by bringing to view the worth and greatness of human nature, while the solemn claims of every individual possessing these exalted and dignified faculties to equal respect, are established on the very ruins of those pernicious principles which have so long and so unjustly divided mankind into classes of the abject many and the self-exalted few.
Resolved, That independent of the important considerations con- nected with a discreet exercise of the right of suffrage, education has an
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
influence upon individual happiness, furnishing materials for rational, profitable, social and public intercourse, as well as subjects for private meditation-thus so expand the faculties of the human mind-we mean of every mind-that the great bond which connects and embraces the several members of society is clearly perceived and duly appreciated.
Resolved, That in a religious, as well as civil view, the world is immensely indebted to the influence of letters, the demonstration of which is afforded in the Gospel itself ; the religion of which, against all opposition, became the religion of the Roman Empire. Cæsar himself a christian, would seem to have promised and insured to mankind that repose, benevolence and peace which the Gospel proposes and enjoins, but, alas! how different the result of this triumph of the cross. The world unfortunately lacked that general knowledge (for the diffusion of which we are now striving) and in consequence of which the whole of that pride and arrogance which so soon usurped and perverted in the name of religion in the place of "peace and good will to men." These fetters, strong enough to have held the world in the most degrading vassalage, and during long centuries, tumbling even the mightiest mon- archs into the dust, were at last broken, and the cruel dominion of Egyptian darkness scattered by the light and power of letters, an influ- ence which will be found irresitible against oppression, and within reach of that which will render it as lasting as Gibraltar's rock.
Resolved, That the invention of the art of printing may not be inaptly styled the true alchemist -- and is, indeed, the philosopher's stone, by which base materials have been converted into gold ; or, to drop the metaphor, it is that which embellishes the mind with brilliant thought, by scattering the printed page around our windows thick as the leaves of autumn, removes ignorance and supplies the mind with all the shining forms of intellectual beauty and excellence, giving symetry and order to every sense and faculty, while to the mind is imparted true con- fidence for trepidation, wisdom for ignorance, correct taste in manners, habits and morals, and a corresponding regard for the hitherto undis- covered dignity and elevation of human nature. Thus, therefore, edu- cation enhances, not only the interest and pleasure, but the wealth of individuals as well as of the nation.
Resolved, That education is to be regarded not simply as an acqui- sition of a treasury of facts, but as a potent influence which pervades the whole structure of the mind, governing, strengthening and disciplin- ing all its faculties harmoniously, rendering it the crucible in which materials are prepared, and the mould to form them into countless vari- eties of novel, beautiful forms.
Resolved, That although the strong arm of government has been extended with liberality in support of schools, yet there are several classes of citizens that are entitled to the gratitude of the nation for their incessant efforts in the noble cause, among whom are the clergy and the editor.
Resolved, That in consequence of our wide and rapidly extending population, the relations and interests of the different sections of the republic have become extensively various and complicated, and that the importance of education has increased in corresponding ratio.
After the reading of the above preamble and resolutions, Mr. Bur- baker addressed the convention in a very interesting speech of about an
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
hour's length, commenting upon and enforcing the truths of the resolu- tions, showing what education had accomplished in Switzerland, Prussia, and the most of the Western States, inferring a miserable deficiency in our own State with fifty thousand adults who cannot read and write; closed by moving that the preamble and resolutions be adopted, which, being seconded, was unanimously done by the convention.
Mr. Stratton introduced to the convention the subject of school houses, reading and commenting most pertinently upon the following preamble and resolutions :
WHEREAS, Many of our school houses are among the very worst specimens of architecture. The construction of these edifices has received such little attention or aid from the more intelligent part of the community, and has been left to the care of those who have known or thought of no other model but the old building, and who have studied their pecuniary interest more attentively than the education of their children, I know of nothing among us that brings so great a reproach upon our affluence or intelligence as the low, dark, filthy appearance of many of our district school houses. There is no part of the means of education that makes a stronger demand upon the learned and benevo- lent, and none which requires a more thorough reform, than the loca- tion, size, structure and fixtures of the buildings in which nineteen citi- zens out of twenty receive their first impressions, their first character, and the principal part of their education ; therefore
Resolved, That we recommend to districts inasmuch as the average number of children that ought to accompany every qualified teacher in this densely populated county should be about seventy, to build their school houses not less than thirty by forty feet in size, and that the mid- dle of the house be filled with seats instead of the common and bad practice of seating scholars around the outside of a schoolroom, that one scholar may move without moving all on his seat ; that said houses have not less than three windows in each side of the house, and those put so high that when scholars are seated their heads will be below the bottom window ; also, inasmuch as a child is educated by other teachers than books and schoolmasters, that a lovely and delightful piece of ground be selected for a school house ; also, that everything around it be comfort- able and cheerful ; also, that it be removed from the noise and sight of business, and from everything that would endanger the body or divert the mind ; also, that your houses be built high, which is of great import- ance in every house that is filled.
On motion of Mr. Stratton, and a second, they were adopted by the convention.
Mr. Burbaker then presented to the convention the following in reference to the duties of Trustees :
WHEREAS, That in our opinion our common school system, imperfect as it is, is the best that has ever been adopted in the Western States for educating the rising generation, and that a large share of the responsi- bility of carrying that system into successful operation depends upon the District Trustee ; therefore,
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HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY.
Resolved, That we recommend to all Trustees that in our opinion it is necessary to pay such wages to good teachers as will not only be an adequate compensation, but will afford encouragement to persons of talent and energy to engage in the business.
Resolved, further, That it is the business of the trustees to visit the schools in their respective districts often, and to have such school under their immediate supervision-not that trustees are to have a voice in the daily discipline of the school, but they may know the embarrass- ments of district schools in the absence of the necessary apparatus in the way of carrying out and executing the views of their teacher for the prosperity of the school.
These resolutions prevailed unanimously with the Convention.
Mr. Stratton, then at length, in a most clear, forcible and masterly manner, set forth the subject of qualified teachers and moved the fol- lowing resolution :
Resolved, That in consideration of the great responsibility resting upon the teacher of the common school, it is highly requisite that all persons offering themselves as patterns and guardians of youth, possess a thorough knowledge of all the branches required to be taught in the common school course, and a capability of imparting the same with facility to their pupils ; also that they should be able to adopt and main- tain a well regulated system of classification, instruction and discipline.
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