USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 45
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CEDÁRVILLE SCHOOLS.
The first school house in the village of Cedarville did not make its appear- ance until 1850, although as early as 1823 a widow by the name of Gamble built a log school building a short distance from the little village and con- ducted a subscription school in it for a number of years. Five years later, 1828, a stone school house was erected a quarter of a mile from the village which was in use for many years. But it was left to a school teacher to build the first school house in Cedarville.
In 1850 James Turnbull, who was born and reared in the township, and had already taught a number of years, bought from Judge Samuel Kyle a lot in the village on which to erect a school house. Here Turnbull erected a frame structure and in September, 1850, he opened his first term of school. This was a subscription school, and was a private school in every sense of the word, only those being admitted who could pay tuition. Turnbull was an excellent teacher and within three years his school had increased to two hun- dred pupils, but his career as a teacher was cut short by his death. It is said that his funeral was the largest of any ever seen in the town.
Following the death of Turnbull a number of teachers tried to follow in his footsteps, but none had the success which fell to the lot of the founder of the school. The township shortly afterward bought the building erected by Turnbull and started a free public school as provided by the constitution of the '50s. In 1866 the population of the town had increased to a point rendering it necessary to erect a larger building, and a brick structure of seven rooms was constructed at a cost of about forty thousand dollars. This building is still standing and is now being offered for sale by the township. In February, 1917, an eighty-thousand-dollar school building was completed in the town, which, in many respects, is the superior of any similar building in the state in a town the size of Cedarville. It is on Main street, in the north part of town, and is by far the most imposing building in the town.
Since the establishment of the public schools in 1866 there have been fifteen village superintendents, and five of these have been born and reared in Cedarville township: James Turnbull, Hugh Parks Jackson, James Foster,
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John H. McMillan and K. E. Randall. The superintendents of the Cedar- ville schools have served in the following order since the school was taken over and made a public school: John Orr, Jr., A. G. Wilson, H. Parks Jack- son, James M. Foster, G. B. Graham, J. H. McMillan, A. B. Van Fossen, J. H. Brown, J. B. Stewart, T. D. Brooks, C. S. D. Shawan, J. H. Sayers, R. A. Brown, K. E. Randall and F. M. Reynolds. Reynolds was the last superintendent, the head of the school now being known as principal. L. D. Parker was the first principal and is still serving in this capacity.
JEFFERSON TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
Jefferson township did not come into existence until the summer of 1858, and for that reason its early school history is a part of the history of Silvercreek township from which township it was cut off in that year. Its separate career as a political unit, therefore, beginning as it did in 1858, found the township well supplied with school buildings; more than it has today.
The first school house erected within what is now Jefferson township was built in 1813 or the year following. It stood in what is now the town of Bowersville, immediately in front of the residence of pioneer Nicholas Bowermaster, and, so it is said, in the middle of the present road in front of the house of Bowermaster. This was a log structure of the same style of architecture as all the other school houses of that day. In this first building erected for school purposes John Mickle opened the first school in the town- ship, and continued teaching in the building for several years thereafter. He was succeeded by Christopher Stewart, who likewise was in charge of the school for a number of years.
In due course of time this first log structure gave way to a new build- ing, the second standing on the site where Charles Wilson later had a saw- mill. David Reese was one of the first teachers in this new building, which, so it appears, was in use until some time in the early '40s. What was known as the Gunnerville school house was built about 1820, and a Methodist preacher, one of the itinerant exhorting kind, became the first teacher. In 1820 this school was in charge of Evan Harris and he continued here until . 1824 when he became the teacher of the Bowersville school. At that time, it must be remembered, there was no village there, nor was there any more than a single house on the site until after 1843.
Gradually the township filled up with settlers and school houses were erected to meet the growing number of children. However, by 1860, there were only three school houses in the township, this apparently small num- ber being due to the fact that the township was cut off from Silvercreek only
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two years before that year. In 1880 the enumeration for the township showed five hundred and ninety-eight white children of school age, and five colored children.
The first two school buildings within the site of Bowersville have been mentioned. The third building was erected in 1866, a one-story building with only one room. Ten years later it was found necessary either to erect a new building or make a substantial addition to the old one. It was finally decided to build an addition, the remodeled building being a structure of two stories, thirty feet wide and fifty feet long. It was arranged with two rooms below and one above. In 1880 the principal of the school was D. F. Donald- son, the other two teachers being J. S. Thomas and Mrs. Lizzie Thomas. The enrollment in the town schools at that time was seventy-three.
Jefferson township enjoys with Ross the distinction of. being one of the two townships of the county with complete consolidation, being the first one to have this honor. The dedication of the fifty-thousand-dollar school building at Bowersville, on September 15, 1916, marks a turning point in the educational history of the township. Whereas, the children of the township had been attending small, poorly-equipped, one-room buildings for a century, all of the children of the township are now gathered in a modern school build- ing in the center of the township. Seven hacks are used to bring the chil- dren from all parts of the township to Bowersville. The enrollment for the school shows two hundred and sixty-seven in the grades and thirty-six in the high school. There are six teachers in the grades and three in the high school. A music teacher is employed on part time.
MIAMI TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
There has been but little information preserved concerning the early schools of Miami township, and for this reason it is difficult to follow the course of the educational growth of the township. There were five school buildings in the township in 1845, the year in which the first school house was erected in the town of Yellow Springs. William Mills erected a small frame building for school purposes in the '50s, a private school being con- ducted in it for a number of years. The building is still standing in the town, a curious architectural monstrosity that always attracts attention.
When Antioch College was started in 1853 it carried an elementary department which enrolled a large number of the children of the town and township. In fact, the central feature of the educational life of the township has been Antioch College, a complete history of which is given in the chap- ter devoted to institutions of higher learning in the county.
The present school building in Yellow Springs was erected in 1872, the first superintendent in the new building being W. H. Scudder. It has eight
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rooms, with four grade and four high school teachers. There is also another building used for school purposes in the town, a building formerly used as a church. The four rural schools of the township have a total enrollment of 93. The town schools enroll two hundred thirty-four in the grades and ninety-six in the high school. The present superintendent of the schools is R. O. Wead.
NEW JASPER TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
The history of the early schools of New Jasper is a part of the history of the five townships from which the township was formed in 1853, namely : Cedarville, Ross, Silvercreek, Cæsarscreek and Xenia. The first school within what is now New Jasper township was opened for the reception of pupils in 1816 in a cabin on the farm of the late Samuel Cooper. It was a deserted squatter's cabin, but it sufficed for a temporary place to conduct a school until better quarters could be provided. A man by the name of Shields is credited with being the first teacher in the cabin. How long he taught, or how long the cabin continued in use as a school room are questions which will never be answered.
Some years later, how many is not known, a second school made its appearance in the township. This second building was on the Long farm and the first teacher tradition assigns to it was David Bell. By the time the township was organized in 1853 it had three school buildings, and since then five others have been added. In 1918 the township still has eight one- room rural schools, with eight teachers, and a total enrollment for the town- ship of two hundred and ten. The township has no high school.
ROSS TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
Ross township was not settled as early as some other parts of the county and there was no demand for a school house until practically all the other townships had built some kind of a building for school purposes. The earliest record of a school building of any kind in this township places the first one in 1815, and locates it at what was called "Paddy's Crossing," this being on the land of John Harper, the first settler of the township. It was of the customary style of architecture, made of round logs, puncheon floor, plank door on wooden hinges, with a window covered with well-greased paper. In this structure an Irishman, Jerry O'Leary by name, opened school in 1815 and taught a number of years. O'Leary was also a preacher and divided his attention between the spelling book and Bible, thereby serving the com- munity in a double capacity. He preached in the homes of the settlers, with an occasional service in the school house.
The next record of a school house shows that a hewed-log building was erected in 1822 on the farm of David Paullin. This second building had a luxury that most of the first school houses did not possess-it had a punch- eon ceiling; most of the early buildings were content with a roof only. In
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this second building Josiah Ballard opened the first term of school in 1822, and here he wielded the rod for several winters. His monthly compensa- tion was often as low as five dollars, but he "boarded around" and thus all his salary might be called clear gain. He must have taught for the love of teaching, since the monetary consideration was so meager that he could not hope to make much more than the merest living out of his profession. Most of these early teachers, however, were farmers and teaching was only a side issue with them.
The third house, or at least the next one of which there is any record, was built on the farm of Jacob Little. No data has been preserved concern- ing other early school houses, but they were all of the same stripe-all log, all built with fireplaces, but every one filled to overflowing with sturdy boys and girls, the grandfathers and grandmothers of the present generation, and all intent on getting all they could out of the simple education which was offered them. Among the early teachers of the township are the following : Jerry O'Leary, Josiah Ballard, Harmon Browder, Frank Crisman, Samuel Harvey, Isaac Taylor, Samuel McHatten, David Burley and Thomas Loomis -and not a single woman. In those days physical prowess was considered as essential to the teacher's success as educational equipment; in fact, the teacher of the '20s and '30s, and many years later, was expected to rule with the rod. It was no uncommon thing for the little log building to have a dozen or more young men as pupils at some time during the term. Young people frequently attended school until they were twenty-one, the fact that they had gone over all the work the school had to give making no difference. Old men now living have been proud of the fact that they went through the old arithmetic half a dozen times.
By the time of the Civil War the township had eight school districts, each provided with a building, and each building presided over by one teacher. There was not a single two-room building in the township, due to the fact that there were no villages in the township. A report for 1879 showed a total enrollment of two hundred and seventy-four pupils, of which number forty-nine were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. The men teachers at that time received an average monthly wage of thirty-nine dollars, and the women teachers only twenty-seven dollars.
Ross township was the second township of the county to bring about complete consolidation of all its school districts. With the dedication in 1916 of a thirty-five-thousand-dollar building on the Jamestown-Charles- town pike in the geographical center of the township, all of the eight rural schools of the township closed their doors forever. Instead of having eight teachers, eight separate school buildings, and eight small groups of pupils, the township now has one building, where all of the children of the township
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are brought together under the instruction of seven teachers, four in the grades and three in the high school. ' The enrollment for 1916-17 was one hundred and fifty-six in the grades and twenty-six in the high school, a total of one hundred and eighty-two. Five hacks are used to convey the children to the new school building. There is a house for the principal and a stable on the grounds for the use of any who may drive to school. It will accommodate twelve rigs. In fact the township has one of the best equipped school sys- tems in southern Ohio, considering the amount of money expended. The building itself is located in the midst of a beautiful hickory grove, the school grounds covering seven acres.
SILVERCREEK TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
The early school houses of Silvercreek township were not unlike those of the other townships of the county; they were all log structures and all built on the same general plan. The date of the erection of the first build- ing for school purposes is unknown, but it must have been before 18II, the year the township was organized. There seems to be an entire lack of infor- mation concerning the schools as they were prior to 1825. In that year there were four school houses in the township, and one of the number was a brick structure standing on the site of the old cemetery at Jamestown.
The number of school buildings was increased in later years to meet the growing population, although it never has had more than seven buildings, not counting the two in the village of, Jamestown. In 1879 there was a total enumeration of three hundred and sixty-one hundred eighty-two males and one hundred and seventy-eight females. At that time Jamestown had a two-story building of four rooms, the town having an enrollment of about two hundred and sixty. The town teachers for 1879-80 were the following : William Reece, superintendent; J. W. Cruzen, Addie Shigley and Sue M. Zortman, grade teachers. The town also had a separate school for the col- ored children, the colored church building being used for school purposes.
The township still maintains the seven rural school buildings which it has had for several years, as well as the two separate buildings in James- town, one for the white and the other for the colored children. The town- ship enrollment for the year 1916-17 was one hundred and seventy-six, which is less than one-half of the enrollment of 1880. The last enrollment figures for Jamestown give it two hundred and ninety-one-two hundred and four in the grades and eighty-seven in the high school. There are seven teachers in the rural districts, and nine in Jamestown. The colored school employs two teachers, while the other building has four in the grades and three in the high school.
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SPRING VALLEY TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
Spring Valley township did not come into existence until after the county had been organized fifty years, and therefore its educational history up to 1853 is a part of those townships from which it was organized-Sugar- creek, Xenia, Beavercreek and Caesarscreek. When the township was organ- ized it contained as many school buildings as it does today, ten in number. There are now seven one-room rural schools, one three-room building at New Burlington, and the four-room building in the village of Spring Valley.
The building in Spring Valley is a handsome cement-block structure, which was erected in 1908. The enrollment for the township includes that of the village also, which in 1916-17, was three hundred and one in the grades and forty-three in the high school. The question of erecting a town- ship high school has been considered during the past few years, but despite the efforts of those who tried to bring it about, it has not yet been effected. The township has voted twice on the question of floating a bond issue for the erection of a high-school building, and during the campaign preceding the election, the matter was thoroughly discussed by the voters. It is probable that the vote might have carried if there had been any general agreement as to where the building should be located. In the fall of 1917 a bond issue of twenty-four thousand dollars was carried, with which there is to be built additions to the present buildings at Spring Valley and New Burlington and make them first grade high schools. In April, 1918, nothing had yet been done toward putting the plan into execution.
There are fourteen grade and three high school teachers in the town- ship. The township employs a special music teacher.
SUGARCREEK TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
It is not certain when the first school house made its appearance in Sugarcreek township, but it was soon after it was organized in 1803. It is probable that the first one in the township was in the present village of Bell- brook, nearly opposite the present school building. Another early school was located near the southeast corner of the Pioneer graveyard north of Bellbrook. One James Bain taught here, and, so the story goes, he had a brewery nearby where he had some of his larger pupils work at times. He lived in a cabin where the late Archibald Berryhill resided and it is said of lıim that by working early in the morning and late at night, he could make one hundred rails in a day, besides teaching school. He laid out and sold to the Seceder congregation for a burial ground the tract of land known as the Pioneer, Associate or Old graveyard. The consideration for that trans- fer was three dollars. The church stood on the northeast corner of the ground and later the school house, the one just mentioned, stood on the southeast corner of the ground.
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Several buildings have been erected in Bellbrook for school purposes. The school house of Bain's burned, and this was followed by a brick struc- ture on Maple street, where William Dodge and Dr. William Frazier taught school for a number of years. Still another brick building was erected on Maple street before the first building for a graded school made its appear- ance in 1854. This latter building was in use until 1894, when a new build- ing was erected, which, in turn, gave way to the present building in 1910.
Among the early teachers of the township were James Bain, William Dodge, Dr. William Frazier, Eliza Patterson, Adamson Talbert. Jennie Perry, John Mills, Abner G. Luce, James Brown, Milton Gerard and Amanda Clancey.
There are now seven one-room buildings in the township and a five- room building in Bellbrook. The Bellbrook schools employ two grade and three high school teachers. The enrollment for the grades in the entire town- ship is two hundred and sixty-two; the high school enrolls forty-nine.
XENIA TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS.
The history of the schools of Xenia township for the past one hundred years, apart from those of the city of Xenia, is similar to that of the other townships of the county. As fast as the township was settled little log school houses arose over the township, later giving way to frame buildings, and still later, in some cases, to brick structures. The first so-called higher insti- tution of learning in the county was established in this township about 1805 or 1806, an institution which had a career extending over several years. A sketch of this interesting school is given later in another chapter.
In 1838 the schools of the town of Xenia were separated from the town- ship schools, and since that year the town has had its separate school system, although it was not until 1848 that a complete separation was made between the township and town schools. There are now eleven one-room buildings in the township and three two-room buildings, the latter being known as the Goes, Wilberforce and Union schools, respectively. The children of the Children's Home are now under the jurisdiction of the township, an act of the Legislature placing them under its control from and after September, 1917.
XENIA CITY SCHOOLS.
The history of the schools of Xenia in their early days will never be written with any degree of accuracy. The absence of all written records and the fact that the few copies now extant of newspapers published during the first few decades of the city's history make no mention of the local schools, make it impossible to trace their growth from the time the first school opened in 1805 down to the year 1918-a period of one hundred and thirteen years. The first definite beginning of school records which have been preserved dates from the latter part of the '40s, but they are not even complete since that year.
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It must be remembered that the present system of free public schools did not come into existence until after the adoption of the constitution of 1851. Prior to that year most of the schools were maintained by subscrip- tion, although the town had a small amount of money to be used for school purposes. The thread of the school history from 1805 to 1851 is such a slender one, the facts so unrelated and so confused, that anything like a con- nected history is rendered absolutely impossible. Such facts as are presented in the subsequent paragraphs concerning the history of the schools for the first half century after Benjamin Grover opened his little school of West Third street have been gleaned from former written accounts, newspaper files, stray records, and interviews with old citizens.
The first school house in Xenia stood on the lot later occupied by the dwelling house of James Kyle. This first school building was a one-room, log structure, primitive in its appointments, but withal a substantial build- ing and fully the equal of any other building in the young village as far as architectural beauty was concerned. Here Benjamin Grover opened the first school in Xenia in 1805 and taught a number of years. In this same build- ing Hugh Hamill, who arrived in Xenia in 1810, taught for a time. Hamill was also the village tanner for a number of years. It seems that Grover and Hamill had a monopoly on the teaching profession in the village until 1816, the year which introduced to Xenia the man who was to become its most famous teacher during the period before the Civil War.
FOREMOST PIONEER TEACHER.
Thomas Steele was born in Ireland, came to the United States in 1812 and to Xenia in the winter of 1815-16. He had lived for two years in Phila- delphia after coming to this country and then spent one year in Lexington, Kentucky, coming from the latter city to Xenia. In the spring of 1816 he opened his first school in a building which stood on the present site of the Central school building. Here he had his dwelling house and his little school building, for in those days the teacher frequently owned his own school house; and it was such a private school that Thomas Steele maintained in Xenia from 1816 to 1848-a period of thirty-two years.
Steele must have been an unusually good teacher to have maintained a school for such a long period. He was a devout member of the Presbyterian church, and did not fail to inculcate his abiding faith in his religion into his pupils as far as possible. He was married in Xenia on October 9, 1818, to Marie Gaff. One of his daughters became the wife of Roswell F. Howard. one of the early lawyers of Xenia. One of his sons, Dr. Ebenezer Steele, was assistant surgeon of the Seventy-fourth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War. There were several other children. In 1848 Steele removed
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