USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 12
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and a schoolhouse, Baptist and Methodist churches, a stone jail, a printing office, a library, a bank, and several manufactories.
Franklin had forty-five families, grist and saw mills and a postoffice. Dayton had one hundred dwellings, principally wood, a courthouse, a Methodist meetinghouse, a brick academy, a library of two hundred and fifty books, a bank, a postoffice, and a printing office.
Xenia was a group of wooden houses with a courthouse, one church, a postoffice, and printing office. Urbana, having been the base of the recent military operations, had developed into a town of about one hundred houses, with a newspaper and bank, but without any public buildings. West of the Miami river was Greenville, a military post, and Eaton, with thirty dwellings and a postoffice, but with no public buildings. Oxford he describes as a sparsely populated village located on the frontier of the state, that had gained notoriety from having been fixed on as the seat of a university.
During the half decade following the close of the war 1812-15, population moved into this area so rapidly that the census of 1820 reports a total of 166,193. Cincinnati had developed into "a large commercial city" with 10,000 inhabitants. Hamilton now had "a bank, mercantile stores and 100 dwelling houses," while Franklin had increased to 80 families. Dayton had 150 buildings with numer- ous mills and Urbana had increased to 120 houses with 644 in- habitants. Xenia had added two churches, an academy, several stores and a number of brick and stone houses while its inhabitants had increased to 589. Greenville was now a town of "1,154 inhabi- tants and four stores," and Eaton had 40 families. Oxford is described as a flourishing post town with a postoffice, three stores, two taverns and a number of useful mechanics.
The census of 1910 reports this area as having a population of more than one million. The joint population of its two largest cities is given at 480,168, while that of Hamilton and Springfield exceeds 82,000. Of cities over 10,000, Middletown and Piqua each have more than 13,000 each, while Xenia, Troy and Sidney approxi- mate 10,000 each. There are numerous other places that have from 2,000 to 5,000 population.
Today this area contains 2 of the 5 cities of Ohio that have a population exceeding 100,000, 2 of the 8 that have from 25,000 to 100,000, 3 of the 19 that range from 10,000 to 25,000, and 7 of the 41 that have from 5,000 to 10,000. The report of the United States commissioner of education for 1916 indicates these 14 cities as hav- ing a school population of 165,399, with 3,266 teachers and a total expenditure for school purposes of $5,709,456. It also indicates that this area possesses 12 of the 40 colleges within the state, 7 of the 15 theological seminaries, 2 of the 5 law schools, and 1 of the 4 medical colleges, 2 of the 4 dental colleges and 1 of 4 schools of pharmacy.
Educational Status 100 Years Ago. What of the educational status of the Miami valley 100 years ago. The typical schoolhouse of the Miami valley at the beginning of the last century and its manner of erection has been thus well described. "As the pioneers built their cabins in close proximity, they immediately began to look
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after the education of their children, and for this purpose they se- lected some central point in the woods for a school site. Usually the place chosen was near a branch for the convenience of having water near at hand for the use of the scholars.
This being done, the pioneer settlers, on a day agreed upon, turned out with axes, crosscut saw, broadaxe, plow and some augers, and convened early in the morning at the school site agreed upon. Some went to felling the tall trees overshadowing the site, others cutting logs near by in the woods, others felling a large oak for clapboards, and still others cutting a sightly blue ash tree for pun- cheons, benches and writing desks. By the time the site was cleared, the logs began to arrive, being snaked through the woods by horses. The foundation was soon laid, and four men were selected as corner men, who took their respective stations and, with axe in hand, sad- dled and notched down the corners as the logs were delivered to them on skids. When the structure was about eight feet in height, the joists were laid from one side to the other, which consisted of round saplings cut the proper length. This was called the base- ment. The gable ends were then commenced by shortening the logs, sloping the ends and inserting the rib poles, until the slopes terminated on a pole at the top. The upper log of the basement projected about eight inches, to receive the butting or eave log, against which the slanting roof rested. From this point the clap- boards were projected and carefully placed, and the points covered by an additional board. The knees were placed on the roof, with ends resting against the butting or eave log, and the wight pole resting against the upper ends of the knees, and so on until the house was covered.
As the building was going up, the cross-cut saw was heard in the woods, the maul and wedge severing the cuts, and the butts were removed to some fork of a tree near by, where they were rived into boards four feet in length. Not far distant the puncheons were being prepared for the floor, benches, desks and doors. As the work progressed, logs were removed from three sides of the house, and the window styles prepared, which were adjusted in their places, about sixteen inches apart, to which newspapers were pasted, and oiled by "coon" grease to render them transparent in order to afford light for the scholars. The chimney space was made about ten feet in width, by removing the logs in one end of the house, and a wooden mantelpiece and jams adjusted, and a stick and clay chimney built on the outside, projecting higher than the comb of the roof, and the whole structure covered with clay mortar. The cracks were chinked and daubed, the floor laid, the puncheon door hung on wooden hinges, the writing desks attached to the wall, resting on standards slightly inclining towards the scholars, who sat on benches and learned to write in front of the large paper windows. In this way the primitive schoolhouse was reared and usually com- pleted in one day, without a nail or a window glass connected with the structure. Many of these primitive schoolhouses were still standing in Preble county as late as 1826, and the last one was only removed a few years ago. It stood a long time as a memento of the past, but finally, with all the pioneer settlers, it passed away,
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and the site where it stood has long since been plowed over, and not a vestige of it now remains.
However, school buildings of better construction soon began to be erected. The schoolhouse first erected on the college township in 1811 was a hewed log building, 20x30 feet in size, with a fireplace at either end, the cost of which was $297, while that at Hamilton of similar construction was two stories in height. The one erected in the same year in Eaton is described as a hip roofed frame building. In the larger settlements, brick buildings began to be erected as early as 1807. The one erected in Dayton in 1820 is described as a specially constructed single room building 62x32 feet, heated by convolving flues underneath the brick floor. That provided in 1815 for the Cincinnati Lancastrian school is said to have been a capacious two-story brick edifice, consisting of two oblong wings, extending from Walnut parallel to Fourth street, 88 feet in depth, and connected by apartments for staircases, 18x30 feet. This intermediate portion supports a handsome dome, origi- nally designed for an observatory. The upper story of each wing is divided into three rooms. The entire building is capable of receiv- ing about 1,000 pupils. The building was said to have been at that time the finest structure west of the Alleghenies.
The general custom of those writing of the educational de- velopment of Ohio has been to disparage the cultural interest and ideals of the southwestern portion of the state. One such writer gives the following description of our early schools : 1
The teachers of the pioneer schools in southwestern Ohio were selected more on account of their unfitness to perform manual labor than by reason of their intellectual worth. The few schools established in this section were taught by cripples, worn-out old men, and women physically unable to scotch hemp and spin flax, or constitutionally opposed to the exercise. Educational sentiment was at a low ebb, and demanded from the instructors of children no higher qualifications than could be furnished by the merest tyro. Before school legislation and other instrumentalities effected salutary changes in the methods of school administration common to this locality, schools of worth were to be found only in the more populous centers. The estimation in which the teacher was held by the community at large was not such as to induce any young man or woman of spirit and worth to enter upon teaching as a voca- tion.
The teacher was regarded as a kind of pensioner on the bounty of the people, whose presence was tolerated only because county infirmaries were not then in existence. The capacity of a teacher to teach was never a reason for employing him, but the fact that he could do nothing else. Under such circumstances, it would be vain to look for superior qualifications on the part of the teachers. The people's demand for education was fully met when their children could write a tolerably legible hand, when they could read the Bible or an almanac, and when they were so far inducted into the mysterious computation of numbers as to be able to determine the value of a load of farm produce.
A brighter picture presents itself when we consider the state
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of educational sentiment in that section of Ohio peopled with set- tlers from New England. They were not oblivious to the value of education in a utilitarian sense, but their notions of utility were broader and more comprehensive than those entertained by their southern neighbors.
Another expresses the same judgment but in language so strikingly similar to that just quoted as to raise a question as to the value of his opinion. A third gives a very different opinion of the pioneer schoolteachers of whom he says:
They were as a general rule men of a high moral standing, and qualified to teach all the first rudiments of a common school educa- tion, such as reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic and English grammar, and some of the higher branches of mathematics and algebra, but not many claimed the latter qualifications. But they were thorough in such branches as they professed to teach and if they found that any pupils were close upon their heels in any branch, they became studious themselves to be prepared to impart instruc- tion to such. The teachers had an aptitude to teach and the pupils to receive instruction; the spirit of emulation was infused by the former and seized and secured by the latter.
Which of the judgments thus expressed is in accordance with the facts? What were the educational conditions and development of this area during the first quarter century of its history? Naturally one who considered the conditions that then prevailed, the primi- tive condition of society, the exposure to Indian attack, the dis- turbed conditions on their frontier, would not expect to find an organized educational system then existing. Was there, however, in the chaos of that period any principles that later evolved into our educational organism?
Pioneer Schools. The pioneers of the Symmes purchase were little more than established in their new homes, when, exposed as they were to the Indian menace, they took thought for the educa- tion of their youth. On June 21, 1790, John Reily, of North Caro- lina, a veteran of Greene's army, and later a prominent lawyer, clerk of the legislature of the Northwest territory and president of the board of trustees of Miami university, opened a subscription school at Columbia. The year following he associated with him Francis Dunlevy of Virginia, who later served for sixteen years as presiding judge of the court of common pleas of Hamilton county, and as a member of the first constitutional convention and of the first state legislature. In the first educational enterprise, Reily taught the English branches and Dunlevy the classics.
The first schoolhouse in Cincinnati was a log structure that stood at about Third and Lawrence. It is possible that the teacher of this school was Stuart Richey, who a little later advertises a school which seems to correspond in circumstances and location to this early school. This was soon succeeded by a frame building which Judge Burnet states was in progress of erection on his ar- rival in the city in 1795. Here as in so many places the Presbyterian minister devoted part of his time to education, as we find the Rev. James Kemper teaching school in the church building and later in a schoolhouse which he caused to be erected on the church lot. No-
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was the education of women neglected during these early days. As early as July, 1802, we find this advertisement in the Western Spy and Hamilton Gazette: "Mrs. Williams begs to inform the in- habitants of Cincinnati that she intends opening a school in the house of Mr. Newman Sadler, for young ladies on the following terms: Reading, 250 cents; Reading and Sewing, $3.00; Reading, Sewing and Writing, 350 cents per quarter." These beginnings at education were largely due to individualistic effort. In 1811, a number of citizens associated themselves together, purchased a lot, erected a couple of buildings, and employing teachers, opened a school. This, due to the efforts of the Rev. Joshua L. Wilson, was 'followed by the erection of a building, which was considered the finest of its day west of the Alleghenies, on a lot at the corner of 4th and Walnut streets, donated by the Presbyterian church. Here in 1815 was opened the Cincinnati Lancastrian seminary under the supervision of Edmund Harrison. It was provided that the school should have a junior and a senior department and that the boys and girls should be instructed in separate groups. In less than two weeks after the opening of the junior department the enrollment was 420, and it became necessary to provide additional facilities. This school was made possible by the liberality of Gen. Lytle, Judge Burnet and others who made donations of land and money, the aggregate amount of which approximated $50,000.
Due to the menace of the Indian, the cultural frontier was not far removed from the north bank of the Ohio, even until after the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. The first school in the interior of the Miami valley appears to have been that opened by Francis Dunlevy in 1798, a little west of the present city of Lebanon. Upon his election to the territorial legislature he was succeeded by David Spinney. Other schools were opened in Lebanon and throughout the county. One of these was taught by Francis Glass, who achieved quite a reputation as a teacher of Latin and Greek.
Early in the 18th century a Mr. Richey opened a school on Front street, Hamilton. He is reputed to have been an excellent teacher, but was severe in government. From 1810 to 1814 Rev. Matthew G. Wallace, the founder of the Presbyterian church in Hamilton, oper- ated a school with a classical department. A picture of his school building shows it to have been a hewed log house, two stories in height. In 1815 a Mr. Proudfit, a student from Ohio university, opened a school. He is reputed to have excelled in the teaching of the languages. In 1818, the Hamilton literary society erected a sub- stantial building for educational purposes. In 1820, the Rev. Francis Montfort opened a school in which he taught not only the English branches but the classics and higher mathematics.
Benjamin Van Cleve in his Memoirs, writing of the year 1719, notes that: "On the first of September, I commenced teaching a small school. I had reserved time to gather my corn and kept school until the last of October." After gathering his corn and serv- ing during the session of the territorial legislature as deputy clerk, he returned to Dayton and kept school about three months longer. This school is said to have been taught in a blockhouse that had been erected for defense against the Indians. It is also affirmed
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that lacking an adequate supply of books, he taught from wall charts prepared by himself. For this work his skill in drawing and mapmaking admirably fitted him.
When Eaton was founded in 1806, a lot was set apart for educational purposes. It was not, however, until the following year that a school was opened in a private house by John Hollingsworth, who is described as a "fair teacher." In 1801, the lot was sold and the proceeds, $409.66, were invested in a more suitable lot on which a hip roofed frame building was erected. The equipment of the building was provided by voluntary contribution and the fuel was secured by a chopping frolic, as was ofttimes the case. The branches taught were spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic to "the single rule of three" though the classics were taught by the Presbyterian clergyman on the occasion of his teaching the school.
The first schoolhouse in Miami county appears to have been that at Piqua and was erected in 1804. This gave way in 1808 to a more pretentious structure that was known as the academy. Rev. J. P. Finley opened a school. In 1813, Samuel Kyle opened the first school in Troy.
The date of the establishment of the first school in Darke county is vested in uncertainty. It is known that a certain John Beers taught a school from about the year 1818 to 1830 and that others soon followed him.
It was not until 1806 that the necessity of a school was felt by the residents of the then village of Springfield. In that year a cer- tain Nathaniel Pinkered opened a school which was the foundation stone of the present educational system.
Pioneer Academies. From the foregoing it will be seen that the educational frontier of the Miami valley had advanced to the utmost limits of the valley. Not only elementary schools had been established quite generally throughout the valley, but a beginning had been made in a more comprehensive system of education. We have already noted that in many instances the schools indicated taught not only the common branches but also the classics and ad- vanced mathematics. In addition to these a number of academies or grammar schools had been established. Drake mentions such schools at Cincinnati, Dayton and Xenia and provision for one at Troy, as early as 1815. It appears that in each county, with the possible exception of Logan, one or more such institutions were in actual operation or had been provided for. Of the 38 such institu- tions known to have been founded in Ohio by 1820, 15 were to be found within the Miami valley. Of the best known of these, a few words may be spoken. Perhaps the most largely attended of these was the senior department of the Cincinnati Lancastrian school, to the junior department of which reference has already been made.
Another academy of interest was that at Dayton, which was founded in 1807. This institution was incorporated by James Welsh, D. C. Cooper, William McClure, David Reid, John Folkeith, George Tennery, Benjamin Van Cleve and James Hanna. Two lots, a bell and a considerable sum of money were the gifts of Mr. Cooper, the founder of Dayton. The first teacher was William M. Smith.
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His contract required that he teach reading, writing, arithmetic, the classics and the sciences. Teaching in elocution was also given much prominence. For a time after 1815, Mr. Smith had as his assistant the Rev. James B. Finley, who later achieved distinction as a Methodist frontier preacher. In 1820, the school was placed in charge of Mr. Gideon McMillen, a graduate of the University of Glasgow. Under his supervision the Lancastrian system of educa- tion was introduced. For this purpose a new building was erected, which is described as a "specially constructed single room building 62×32 feet." It was heated by convolving flues underneath the brick floor. The walls were hung with printed lesson charts be- fore which classes were placed to recite under the charge of moni- tors. A sand table was provided upon which the younger scholars copied the alphabet.
Among the rules of this school were the following: 1. The moral and literary instruction will be studiously and diligently and temperately attended to. 2. They will be taught to read and spell deliberately and distinctly agreeably to the rules laid down by Walker's Dictionary. 3. Every day is to be an examination day upon which all who have leisure are invited to attend. 4. Any scholar found playing ball on the Sabbath or resorting to the woods or commons on that day for sport shall suffer such forfeits as the tutor shall think proper.
This system did not meet the expectation of the patrons of the school and was soon discontinued, but its adoption is an evidence of an aspiring spirit on the part of the management and of a desire for educational betterment.
Founding of Miami University. Another educational effort of a century ago was the grammar school of Miami university, some- times referred to as the Hughes grammar school. Though Miami university was begotten in the contract made by John Cleves Symmes with the government under the Articles of Confederation wherein it was stated, "One complete township to be given perpetu- ally for the use of an academy or college to be laid off as nearly oppo- site the mouth of the Licking river as an entire township may be found eligible in point of soil and situation, to be applied to the in- tended object by the legislature of the state."
To us today who live in an age of rapid progress and large achievement, it may seem strange that a quarter century was re- quired to transform a township of land into an infant educational institution and twelve years more to develop it into a real college. We must bear in mind the difficulties that had to be overcome.
The first of these related to the location of the college town- ship. In accordance with the above provision in his contract, Judge Symmes caused to be indicated on the map of his purchase, what is now known as Springfield township, Hamilton county, as the "col- lege township." After he had left for the west his associate in the east entered into an agreement with the government whereby the amount of the grant was fixed at 1,000,000 acres and its bounds modified. No mention being made in this agreement concerning the "college township," Judge Symmes concluded that it was forfeited by the reduction of the grant and sold a considerable portion of the
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designated township. The patent that was issued to Symmes, Sep- tember 30, 1792, provided that "one complete township or tract of land, of six miles square, to be located with the approbation of the governor for the time being, of the territory northwest of the river Ohio, and in the manner, and within the term of five years as afore- said, as nearly as may be, in the center of the tract of land, herein- before granted, hath been and is granted and shall be holden in trust, to and for the sale and exclusive interest and purpose of erect- ing and establishing therein, an academy and other public schools and seminaries of learning, and endowing and supporting the same and to and for no other use, intent or purpose whatever." In ac- cordance with this provision, Symmes in 1798 tendered to Gov. St. Clair the second township in the second fractional range (Greene township, Hamilton county) as being the only one then available. This the governor declined because it did not answer the descrip- tion of the one granted in the patent, was different in quality, and his title to it was questioned. Symmes then offered it to the terri- torial legislature, later to the state legislature, and finally in 1802 presented the matter to congress. Congress on March 3, 1803, enacted, "That one complete township, in the state of Ohio, and district of Cincinnati, to be located under the direction of the legisla- ture of the said state, be, and the same is hereby, vested in the legis- lature of the state of Ohio, for the purpose of establishing an acad- emy, in lieu of the township already granted for the same purpose. Provided, however, that the same shall revert to the United States, if within five years after the passing of this act, a township shall have been secured for the said purpose, within the boundary of the patent." A committee appointed by the Ohio legislature located the present college township and the same was registered at the land office at Cincinnati September 1, 1803. No township within the patent being tendered the legislature within the prescribed five years, the township located in 1803 became the irrevocable posses- sion of the state to be applied to the end specified.
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