USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 47
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built in 1804 largely through the efforts of Moses Trader, Frederick Bonner, John Sale, Philip Davis, James Towler, George Wright, James Butler, Isaiah McDaniel, Timothy Heath, Nathanial Bell and Bennett Maxey. Trader, Towler, Sale and Maxey were preachers.
Who the first teachers were-there was certainly not more than one at a time-how many pupils they had, or what the length of term may have been, are some of the unanswerable questions concerning this infant school. But the school must have thrived, since on August 3, 1808, the trustees of the seminary held a meeting to discuss plans for a building to house the institution. The trustees at that time were Rev. Bennett Maxey, Rev. James Towler, James Butler, Frederick Bonner and Peter Pelham. Just what action the trustees took is not known, but from subsequent developments it seems that they were of one opinion concerning the needs of the seminary.
The next definite date in the history of the seminary is January 1, 1810, on which date school was opened in a new building. Previous to this date occurred certain events which can be arrived at only inferentially. It is known that James Butler, John Sale and Philip Davis donated three acres of land for a site; that the new building was a log structure, thirty by twenty feet, ten feet in height, with two doors and four windows of twelve lights each, the panes being ten by eight inches, with a solid oak flooring and a chimney of generous size at each end of the building-all in all, a quite im- posing building for those day's.
Such was the first real institution of higher learning erected in Greene county. A log cabin, sixteen feet square, was built close by for the teacher, John Finley. He was selected by the trustees and was given permission to teach twelve months in the year. They guaranteed him twenty pupils to begin with and allowed him to charge tuition at the rate of two dollars a month (or term), half in money and half in produce, or, if they had the money, it was to be one dollar and a half. Whether he had his twenty pupils, or more, or whether he got his money, or his produce, are some more unanswerable questions. But he did start, and he did teach-how long is not known, but presumably until schools were established in Xenia and placed on a firm basis.
The trustees (John Sale was president of the board and Peter Pelham, secretary) laid down a code of rules to govern the seminary, among which was permission to use corporal punishment on all refractory pupils under the age of twenty-one. Furthermore, a strict prohibition was placed on "bad language," the rule not specifying just what was deemed such language. The course of study was also set forth, although just how this was graded to meet the various ages of the prospective pupils is left to the imagination of the reader. The books which were to be studied included the following : "Webster's Spelling Book" ( fourth edition), "American Preceptor" (probably
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some kind of a religious treatise), "American Selections and Columbian Orator," "Stephen Jones' Improvement of Sheridan's Dictionary," "Work- man's Arithmetic," "Harrison's Grammar" or "Wilson's Grammar" and "Morse's Geography."
This concludes the history of the first seminary in Greene county as far as it has been possible to follow its career. Undoubtedly, it was well patron- ized during the time it was in existence, and quit its labors only when other and better schools were provided. But that the early settlers of the county should have felt the need of such an institution right after the county was organized shows that they were men of discernment.
BELLBROOK ACADEMY.
The building which housed the Bellbrook Academy stood on the lot east of the Presbyterian church. It was erected in the early '30s and for a score of years many of the leading citizens of Bellbrook and vicinity received the greater part of their education in it. Edmund H. Munger, fresh from college in 1848, taught at least one year here. There was a hall in the building where secret societies and political parties held their meetings, and among the things in the hall was a banner used by the Democrats against the Whigs in the campaign of 1852. On this banner was the legend "Fuss and Feathers," an epithet of derision which was applied to General Winfield Scott, the Whig candidate for the presidency in the campaign.
Sometime in 182 the old academy, which then belonged to Harrison Vaughn, caught fire. When the fire was first discovered it was between the ceiling and the roof, but the owner would not allow Harry Hosier, a fire fighter, to break through the ceiling to get at the blaze because it would ruin the plastering. The result was that the old building burned to the ground. It was never rebuilt and for many years its cellar remained filled with rub- bish and broken bricks.
XENIIA FEMALE ACADEMY-XENIA FEMALE SEMINARY AND COLLEGIATE IN- STITUTE-XENIA FEMALE COLLEGE-XENIA COLLEGE.
The story under this head is peculiarly complicated, a complication aris- ing from the fact that the same institution changed its name so frequently during the first few years of its existence that it is difficult to follow its career. Starting as the Xenia Female Academy in 1850, it became the Xenia Female Seminary and Collegiate Institute in 1854, the Xenia Female College in 1856, and Xenia College in 1863, continuing under the latter designation un- til it closed its doors in the latter part of the '80s.
The inception of the first institution, the Xenia Female Academy, was an act of the General Assembly of the state, dated March 21, 1850, which
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granted a charter to an institution known by that name. The incorporators were Thomas Coke Wright, David Barr, Joseph A. Coburn, Abraham Hiv- ling, Dr. Joshua Martin, Roswell F. Howard, Daniel Martin, Hugh McMillen, Thomas S. Towler, Joseph G. Gest, William B. Fairchild and James J. Winans. These men, all residents of Xenia or the immediate vicinity, repre- sented the leaders in several professions. Here were ministers of the gospel, lawyers at the bar, newspaper editors, physicians, merchants and practical business men of different callings.
The incorporators held their first business meeting on June 1, 1850, and organized by electing Daniel Martin president and Joseph A. Coburn secretary. It was decided to solicit subscriptions to the capital stock, which, by the charter, was to be limited to $25,000, divided into five hundred shares of fifty dollars each. Daniel Martin was authorized to canvass the city and county for stock subscriptions and he met with such success that on June 29 the incorporators, all being stockholders, met for permanent organi- zation. The stockholders elected nine trustees: Abraham Hivling, John B. Allen, James J. Winans, Joseph G. Gest, William Cooper, Daniel Martin, David Barr, Joshua Martin and Hugh McMillen. Two days later, July I, these nine trustees met and effected a permanent organization by electing the following officers: President, Dr. Joshua Martin; treasurer, Daniel Mar- tin ; James J. Winans, secretary.
Success Assured From the Start .- The history of the academy shows that its promoters were anxious to get it going as soon as possible. On July 4 the trustees held a meeting at which they decided to advertise the open- ing of the academy in the fall of the same year, that is, in the fall of 1850. It seems that at this same meeting the trustees elected Dr. Thomas S. Towler superintendent of the academy, although it was not until October 19 that Nancy M. Hartford and Mary E. McQuirk were elected as additional teachers.
The trustees had secured an option on the old county seminary building on East Church street, and it was proposed to conduct the new school in this building until it could be seen whether a new building should be erected. In this building, accordingly, the first term of the Xenia Female Academy opened during the latter part of October, 1850. A part of the building was set aside for housing such pupils as might come in from outside the city, the dormitory, if it may be so called, being placed under the charge of Mrs. Huntington.
The school year of 1850-51 was such a success that the trustees felt justified in proceeding with the collection of funds for the erection of a new building for the academy. On May 21, 1851, they appointed a committee to select a suitable site for the proposed new building. This committee made its final report on July 30, 1851, and recommended that the building be
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erected on East Church street. The trustees had previously given notice that the first installment of the stock subscriptions would be called for on August I, 1851. On July 22 the trustees had re-elected Dr. Thomas S. Towler superintendent for another year, and on the 30th of the month, the day the committee reported their selection of the new site, the board of trustees appointed Hugh McMillen, David Barr and Superintendent Towler as a com- mittee to take charge of the erection of the building. Meanwhile, school was to continue in the old building. The board elected Mrs. Lewis Wright and Mary Eliza Harbison as assistants to Superintendent Towler, these two teach- ers continuing with the academy during the two succeeding years.
The new building was completed in the summer of 1852. At the close . of the school year in 1852 the trustees of the new institution were in con- siderable doubt as to its future possibilities. The new constitution of the state had provided for a new system of common schools, a system whereby the old subscription school was to be abolished and free public schools opened. Up to this time all the better schools had been tuitional, but when it was proposed to establish throughout the state a complete system of free schools, open to every one, it soon became apparent that the many private tuitional schools would have to close their doors. Therefore, in the summer of 1852 the trustees of the Xenia Female Academy had a serious problem before them. What would they do with their new institution? They could hardly expect to get the patronage they expected, especially when they had calculated on doing much of the same work which was to be done by the free public schools, considering the fact that they had to depend on tuition for the sup- port of their school. It was at this juncture that the history of the school takes a sudden turn.
Church Lines Rigidly Drawn .- In the '50s church lines were much more sharply drawn than at the present time. With all due regard for the religious faith of our forefathers, it must be said that they were far from being as tolerant of faiths other than their own as their children are today. Men and women still living in Greene county can recall when a Presbyterian would not have dared to attend the services of a Methodist church, and conversely a Methodist would hardly have risked his soul's salvation by venturing into the precincts of a Presbyterian church. A knowledge of these conditions is necessary to explain the next change in the history of the Xenia Female Academy. The Presbyterians had a female school of their own in Xenia, but the Methodists were not altogether certain that it would be the right thing to allow their daughters to attend such an institution. Hence, and for reasons just stated, it is not surprising that in the summer of 1852, when the management of the Xenia Female Academy were discussing the future of their institution, that the Methodists began to consider taking over the school
XENIA FEMALE COLLEGE. (From an old cut.)
GALLOWAY HALL, WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY, XENIA.
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and turning it into an institution for their daughters. The result of the negotiations between the Methodists and the trustees was an offer on Sep- tember 27, 1852, to place the school under the management of the Cincin- nati Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church.
The church agreed to assume the control of the school under certain con- ditions : First, that six thousand dollars should be raised in Xenia and imme- diate vicinity for the purpose of building a boarding-house and making other stipulated improvements, and secondly, that the trustees of the academy should transfer to the church a sufficient amount of stock in order to give it a controlling interest in the school. The church, on its part, appointed Rev. Charles Elliott, Rev. A. Lowry and Rev. W. I. Ellsworth to represent it dur- ing the time the Academy trustees were trying to fulfill these conditions.
The full amount was raised by February 15, 1853, or at least it was guaranteed by Dr. Joshua Martin, Michael Nunnemaker, Alfred Trader, Nathan Nesbitt, I. S. Drake and Casper L. Merrick. At the same time suffi- cient stock was turned over to the church to give it control of the school. With these conditions met, the church assumed the management of the Academy, a control which was maintained through all the successive changes in name and policy of the institution until it was closed.
On February 26, 1853, the church appointed Abraham Hivling, Alfred Trader and Dr. Joshua Martin as a building committee and instructed them to confer with the conference in regard to the erection of the proposed boarding-house. Doctor Lowry was appointed principal of the school on May 16, 1853, at the same time being authorized to act as fiscal agent for the school. The boarding-house was erected in the summer of 1853 and was ready for the reception of students in the fall of that year. With the new management in charge the school took on a new lease of life and managed to weather all the adverse conditions. It was still called the Xenia Female Academy, but on June 30, 1854, Dr. Joshua Martin and C. L. Mer- rick were ordered to take such legal steps as might be necessary to change the name to the Xenia Female Seminary and Collegiate Institute. Rev. Mansfield French had been elected superintendent on May 18, 1854, and he wanted to make the school co-educational. This change in policy made it necessary to change the name of the school, hence the bisexual appel- lation which was given it-Xenia Female Seminary and Collegiate Insti- tute -- the first half being feminine and the last half masculine. During the incumbency of French, 1854-56, the school became recognized as an able institution. On May 7, 1856, Rev. O. M. Spencer became the head of the school, being succeeded on August 4, 1858, by William Smith, A. M., who was to remain in charge for a quarter of a century.
The next change in name was made on May 6, 1861, when the school
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became known as the Xenia Female College. Two years later, however, it was again made co-educational and so continued until it closed its career. When it was decided to open it to both sexes in 1863, the school was given its fourth and last name-Xenia College, the name by which it was thereafter known. Its history from 1863 until the retirement of its president, William Smith, in 1884, is within the memory of a large number of people still living in the county. Professor Smith was a man of unusual ability as an instruc- tor and hundreds of people of Xenia and the vicinity still testify to the excellence of the instruction which they gained in his school. Upon his retirement the school passed into the charge of Professor DeMotte, who conducted the school for three or four years and then it was closed forever, conditions in educational affairs having reached a point in Xenia where it was no longer profitable to conduct a private school.
The two buildings later were purchased by Eli Millen and the college building proper, which has since been remodeled into a dwelling house, is still owned by his estate. The old boarding-house was torn down a few years ago and the brick were used in constructing part of the present Bijou Theatre.
XENIA FEMALE SEMINARY.
In the latter part of the '50s, a large three-story brick building was erected on West Third street, the same building which has been used by the Xenia Theological Seminary since, 1879. In this large and pretentious look- ing building, it was hoped to establish a seminary where the daughters of Presbyterians could be given all of the education demanded by the girls of that day. The school had only fairly started when the Civil War opened, and this brought about a suspension of its work.
In 1861 the school was re-opened by the three daughters of the Rev. John Ekin, a Presbyterian minister, who had been preaching for some years in the South on account of his health. When the war opened in the spring of 1861 Reverend Ekin and his three daughters, all' of whom had been teaching in the South, came to Xenia at the suggestion of Rev. R. D. Harper, pastor of the First United Presbyterian church of Xenia, who thought that the three sisters could very profitably open a seminary in the building on West Third street. Accordingly, the summer of 1861 saw Reverend Ekin and his three daughters located in Xenia, and in the fall of the same year the sisters opened the school to the girls of the community. The sisters cleaned the three-story building from top to bottom themselves, washed the windows and scrubbed the floors, for the simple reason that when the family reached their new home they had only fifty dollars. The sisters were as efficient teachers as they were housekeepers, and they soon had a goodly number of students enrolled under their instruction. Among these girls of
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more than a half century ago were Ella Harper, Julia Barr, Chessie Reid, Chrissie Moody, Mattie Leman, Rebecca' Jacoby, Mattie Allison, Fannie Smart, Sallie McDowell, Hattie Williamson, Anna McCracken, and the two Millen sisters, Jennie and Emma. The Ekin sisters continued the school for five or six years, but with the opening of the public high school in the city in the latter part of the '6os, both the Methodist and Presbyterian sem- inaries for girls began to lose their students and it was soon evident that the seminary on Third street would have to close its doors. The building in which the seminary was conducted was purchased by the Xenia Theologi- cal Seminary in 1879, and is now used as a dormitory. by that institution.
ANTIOCH COLLEGE.
Antioch College, established in Yellow Springs, Ohio, by the Christian church in 1852, was the pioneer of pioneers in co-education. That was a fundamental principle of its founders in the establishment of the college. Horace Mann was sought as its first president because he was the foremost distinguished advocate of the idea of democracy in education. He accepted the call to the presidency because the whole plan of the college in this regard was the fulfillment of his own dream of what a college should be. His career in Massachusetts had been a brilliant one educationally and politically. The outlook for him there was as promising as a man of his high ideals of personal usefulness could wish for. But the call of the West to become the leader of a great co-educational enterprise, to throw his life into the realiza- tion of a great hope, appealed to him more than a brilliant political career.
Oberlin had had a partial co-educational system for a number of years before Antioch was founded. But it did discriminate against women, so that they were not upon equal terms with men. There was a separate course for women, and those who took it had a separate commencement. Those who took the regular college work were not permitted to appear upon the platform along with the men and to read their orations. Oberlin had taken an advanced step, and probably was as far ahead as her constituency would approve at that time.
Antioch removed all discriminations as to sex in class room and upon the graduating platform. This attitude appealed to many young people. Some of the women at Oberlin resented the lingering of the discriminations against women there, and a few came to Antioch and graduated with its first class, and two or three of them became distinguished educators.
Antioch College has proven abundantly the soundness of the co-educa- tional idea. Her records will show that women are not only the equal of men in class room work, but that usually the honors for high grades have gone to them.
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The Beginnings of Antioch .- The first date connected with the history of Antioch College may be set down as October 2, 1850, on which date a convention of the members, of the Christian church was held in Marion, Wayne county, New York, for the purpose of discussing the establishment of a church school. They decided to call the proposed school Antioch, this name being given because it was in that ancient city of Syria where the fol- lowers of Christ are said to have first been called Christians. It was not decided at this meeting of 1850 where the college was to be located, how the money was to be raised for its establishment, or anything definite con- cerning its future, other than that it should be called Antioch if it ever ma- terialized.
Two years were to elapse before the college began to take definite form, although in the meantime a committee had been appointed to devise a plan whereby the college could be financed, the committee also looking over the country for the most eligible location. The general scheme of financing the institution was based upon the sale of scholarships, it being planned to sell scholarships at the rate of one hundred dollars per pupil. It was proposed to raise fifty thousand dollars in this manner, which would mean that five hundred scholarships would have to be sold. As before stated, the commit- tee was instructed to look for a suitable location "somewhere on the thor- oughfare between Albany and Buffalo." This committee held a meeting on October 29, 1851, at Stafford, New York, to make a survey of the situation. They found that churches of the old Northwest Territory had been working hard to raise funds for the college, and, strange as it may seem, they had out- done the Eastern states in raising money. In fact, it was the state of Ohio that led all the other states in the amount of money raised, and at a subse- quent meeting held at Enon, Ohio, on January 21, 1852, it was decided to establish a college at Yellow Springs, Greene county, Ohio.
There can be no question that William Mills, the proprietor of Yellow Springs, was responsible for the location of the college in his town. He gave twenty acres for a campus and pledged $20,000 personally, while he induced some other citizens of the town to pledge an additional $10,000. This $30,000 was to be paid in ten annual instalments of $3,000 each, and it was hoped, would provide sufficient money to meet the current expenses of the infant institution. The buildings built in the beginning of the history of the school are still standing. They are three in number: The main college building, known as Antioch Hall, and two dormitories, one for the male and the other for the female students. The main college building is in the form of a cross, 170 feet long with a transept of ITO feet, the structure being three stories high. It contains the auditorium, lecture rooms, library, and in fact all of the different departments of the college. Both dormitories are 40 by 160 feet, and four stories high. The president's house, a brick struc-
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ture three stories high, was erected in 1854. These four buildings were ยท erected at a cost of $120,000.
The main college building was opened for the reception of students on October 5, 1853. The faculty had been selected at a meeting of the board of trustees on September 15, 1852, and was composed of the following: Horace Mann, president, C. S. Pennell, Miss R. M. Pennell, Rev. Thomas Holmes, Rev. W. H. Dougherty and Ira W. Allen. A. L. Mckinney was made prin- cipal of the preparatory department. A word should be said about President Mann. At the time of his election to the presidency he was recognized as one of the foremost, if not the foremost, educator in America, and as long as he was president of Antioch College he gave it a reputation which made it a college of recognized high standing. When the school was opened in October, 1853, the college proper enrolled six students, while the preparatory department had more than two hundred. The original freshman class of six was augmented by others before the conclusion of the four-year-course, rais- ing the first class which graduated on June 27, 1857, to fifteen-twelve men and three women. Sixty-one years have passed since this first class was graduated and during that time thousands of students have received all or part of their collegiate training within the walls of Antioch.
It is not necessary to enter into a detailed discussion of the financial troubles of the school during its early years, but a brief notice of them is pertinent to an understanding of what the college has had to pass through in order to maintain its very existence. It had been stipulated in its original charter that two-thirds of the board of trustees should be members of the Christian church, and naturally the church in a sense was looked to as being behind the institution. It had been planned to sell scholarships and the money thus derived, supplemented by the donations of Mills and other Yellow Springs citizens to the amount of thirty thousand dollars, and a nom- inal tuition from those not having scholarships, was supposed to be sufficient to provide enough money to erect the buildings and keep the school in operation. But not all who subscribed scholarships paid for them. The tui- tion did not measure up to the expectations of the trustees; the thirty thousand " dollars was to be paid only in three-thousand-dollar annual payments; ex- pected donations from interested persons did not all materialize. The net result was that by 1857 the expenses of the school were exceeding the revenue by nearly ten thousand dollars each year. Something had to be done, and done quickly.
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