USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve and early Ohio > Part 6
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EARLY SCHOOLS OF THE WESTERN RESERVE
"Said the master to the youth : We have come in search of truth, Trying with uncertain key Door by door of mystery. We are reaching through His laws To the garment hem of cause.
Him, the endless, unbegun, Light of all our light the source; Life of life, and force of force."
Schools are the fore-runners of civilization, the pioneers of thought, and culture and force, the open door to joy and sorrow and thronging emotion.
The pioneers of the Western Reserve had hardly settled down before they began to think of schools for their children. To the interest shown by those people in education has been due in a large degree their suc- cess as a class of people separate and distinct from all others, in so far as education, love of liberty, and hu- manity to human kind are concerned.
There are more educated people on the Reserve than in any part of the state of the same dimensions.
There are more educated people on the Reserve than in any other rural portion of the United States of the same number of square miles. There are more edu- cated people on the Reserve than in any agricultural section in the world, of the same number of inhabitants, and an equal amount of territory.
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THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE
EARLY SCHOOLS
There are no records now remaining of the "First Schools" which were conducted on the subscription plan. Of eighteen townships in one county, we find the first school was taught in 1801; the second in 1806; the third in 1809; two in 1810; two in 1811; one in 1812; two in 1817, and the balance at a later date. The settle- ment of these townships began as follows: One in 1800; two in 1802; four in 1806; four in 1807; three in 1810, and the rest much later. When we say settled, we mean that was the arrival of the first settler in that township. Some of these first arrivals were the only persons in their section for several years ; others came in bunches of several families together. By compar- ison it will be seen that the starting of schools on the Reserve, unlike other sections of the wilderness, were cotemporary with the arrival of other or several fam- ilies with children to be taught. Wherever and when- ever there were children, there were schools. The western portion of county referred to above did not con- tain a settler until after 1814. The eastern portion, although it had a settler in 1799, did not contain a fam- ily until 1800, and then only one. One portion, the eastern, was surveyed in 1797, while the western por- tion was not surveyed until 1807. Medina, the county lying directly west of this county, shows the following comparison. Lying wholly west of the Cuyahoga River it was not surveyed until 1807. Fifteen townships show settlements as follows :
Harrisville
1811
Liverpool
1811
Medina
1814
Brunswick
1815
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EARLY SCHOOLS
Granger 1816
Sharon 1816
Wadsworth 1814
Guilford
1817
Westerfield
1817
Chatham 1819
Hinckley 1819
Montville 1819
Litchfield 1830
York
1830
Homer
1831
Being wholly within the survey of 1807, this is important as showing the date and trend of settle- ment in the western part of the Reserve. The schools in this country started as follows :
One in 1816.
Three in 1817.
One in 1819.
One in 1821.
One in 1822.
One in 1824.
One in 1825, and others later.
Only two of these townships had settlers previous to 1815. One had only one family for years, the others had five. Only twelve townships were settled previous to 1830, but there were nine schools previous to, and including, 1825.
One of these townships, Granger, saw its first clearings and first log cabin in 1816. Four years later 1820, the township was organized, having at that time forty families; 260 persons.
This fully bears out our statement that schools on the Reserve were cotemporary with the arrival of families, and children sufficient to form a school.
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EARLY SCHOOLS
Many children in those days had to go from two to four miles through the dense woods, sometimes forced to cross unbridged streams, in order to reach their school.
Of the early schools very little can be learned. There were no records and those who know are dead. Some were taught in cabins of settlers. Some town- ships erected log school houses in the start. In some places the log church was used interchangeably as both school and place of worship. The typical school house of that day was a rude structure of unbarked logs with a great fireplace occupying an entire end, built on the outside of the building, as was the fashion of that day.
The first school taught in Ohio, or in the North- western Territory, was in 1791. The first teacher was Major Austin Tupper, the eldest son of General Benjamin Tupper, both Revolutionary officers. The first school was held in the northwest blockhouse of the garrison at Marietta. The first frame school was erected here in 1800. It was forty feet long, 24 feet wide and 12 feet high. It was named the Muskingum Academy.
The first school taught on the Reserve was taught in Hudson, Summit county, in 1800, antedating the first school taught in Cleveland, by Miss Anna Spaf- ford, by one year.
The Ohio State Teachers' Association was formed in Akron, December, 1847. Samuel Gallaway, Pres ; T. W. Harvey, Rec. Sec .; M. D. Leggett, Cor. Sec. This was the first successful teachers' association ever formed in Ohio. The first Teachers' Institute formed
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in Ohio was held in Sandusky, Sept. 1845. the second at Chardon, Geauga county, Nov. 1845.
George W. Wright describes the inside of the early school houses: "The benches were of logs, split in halves and legs put on the round side, while the split side was smoothed up with an axe. Not a plane ever touched them and they were not the most com- fortable seats in the world. It was not necessary to resort to bench pins, the school-boy's device, in order to produce a sensation, for all that was required was to pinch some one and get him to slide along the bench. Some of the bad boys are said to have lined the seats of their pantaloons with large pieces of buck-skin for their protection, both from the rough- ness of the teacher's ferule and the roughness of the benches. There were no fine desks with all the fur- niture of a modern school house, but simply these benches along which the children ranged themselves and which had to serve the double purpose of seat and desk, each pupil piling his books and slate on the seat beside him. These seats of learning were in the midst of the forest near some blazed path which the settlers expected to make a road some time. The pu- pils gathered from all directions, coming through the woods by paths known only to themselves, crossing streams on logs or fallen trees. On one occasion, in time of high water, a family of some half dozen chil- dren were crossing on a fallen tree when the youngest, a little girl, becoming dizzy, fell into the rushing water and was being whirled rapidly down stream, when in plunged her older brother who swam lustily after her, finally capturing her some rods below, bringing her
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EARLY SCHOOLS
safely to shore, after which they hastened on to school. This shows that even the children thought little of such hardships and paid little heed to mishaps that would produce consternation in a whole neighborhood today."
Later came the puncheon desks, a slab of punch- eon, or a board, when they could be obtained, was built up in front of those who "wrote or figured", while the smaller children contented themselves with the simple forms first furnished. The scholars paid a tuition fee of fifty cents per month, and the teacher "boarded around". The majority of the earliest teachers were young women. Lois Ann Gear, the survivor of an Indian massacre at Upper Sandusky, in which both parents were killed, taught the first school in Boston and received for her services the magnificent sum of seventy-five cents per week, and "boarded around". Mr. Stiles, who taught the first school in Northfield, kept irregular hours, and received one dollar per scholar for a term of three months. In some localities school was held sometimes in one house and sometimes in another. In truth the schools for many years fol- lowed the scholars. The teachers of that day were, as a rule, good disciplinarians and competent instruc- tors.
A little later, as settlers began to multiply on the Reserve, "the old log schools" gave place to the frame school house; the old forms gave place to comfortable but homely seats and desks, of home manufacture, made from native white-wood. The old fireplace was supplanted with the old "box stoves" made in Middle- bury.
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EARLY SCHOOLS
Two terms of school were taught in these houses : a summer term of three months, and a winter term of from three to four months, as the local school board de- termined. With the coming of the new school houses, the subscription schools ended and the new commenced under the Ohio law as free schools. The school houses began to multiply. A township of five miles square would have from six to nine schools in its radius.
"The best education and talent were always in demand, and the teachers, schools and scholars of that day, when books were scarce and none of the modern facilities were at hand, would compare favorably with those of the present, taking into consideration the altered circumstances."
At this time, and afterwards, the schools of the ยท Western Reserve became a power in the land. Though books were scarce and the course of studies limited, there was a thoroughness in teaching and in the ab- sence of anything to call off the attention of scholars and an eagerness to learn that always surmounted all difficulties. The country schools at this period fre- quently taught the higher mathematics, Latin and Greek. The writer knows whereof he speaks by actual experience.
The monotony of school life in the winter season was frequently broken by sleigh loads of other scholars from neighboring districts, or even neighboring town- ships, out on a visit of inspection of other schools.
The spelling school was an institution very much appreciated during the long winter evenings.
A teacher sometimes taught writing school one evening in the week or delivered lectures. The prayer
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EARLY SCHOOLS
meeting was held in some of these school houses. All these things tended to shape the growing mind and fasten upon it thoughts and sentiments that remained through life.
Saturday afternoons were given up to "speaking pieces" or "reading essays".
"The Academy of the Western Reserve was the outgrowth of the common school, a cry for a higher education and greater advantages. The Academies of of the Reserve were known far and wide for their use- fulness and the thorough manner in which they edu- cated these young giants of a young country. Some of the finest educators in the world stood at the head of these institutions, and their fame was only limited by the country in which they lived. Among the great- est of these was John McGregor, a native of Scotland, and a graduate of St. Andrew's College, Glasgow, who instituted an academy at Sharon Center, Medina coun- ty, which became famous all over the state. After- wards, about 1837, Mr. McGregor founded the Wads- worth Academy. At this time the rural population of the Reserve was at its greatest numbers. The popu- lation of Medina County in the census of 1840 was fifty per cent greater than in the census of 1880.
A newspaper article published about twenty-five years ago speaks of John McGregor in the following language: "We sometimes meet with a man of bril- liant mind who seems to be born with a mission; suc- cessful in one direction and in that one alone. Yet that success was so marked as to out distance all com- petitors. Such a man was John McGregor. He seemed to be made for a teacher. In those days the fame of
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EARLY SCHOOLS
Wadsworth Academy, which was simply John Mc- Gregor with a house to teach in, extended far and near, and was known even beyond the limits of the state. But few teachers have had so many pupils who have been successful in after life, mainly through the im- pulse given to them by one mind. His method was perfectly natural, simple and inimitable. Graduates of a modern Normal School would have much to criti- cise in the order he kept. But what cared the enthusi- astic Scotchman so long as his scholars were daily drinking in his suggestion s and instructions and catch- ing his enthusiasm, while their lessons were not covered over but learned till they knew them? Ht scorned all code of rules for the government of his scholars. "You're gentlemen and ladies", he would say, "You have come here for one purpose and that alone. It is your school, not mine, and you will see to it that nothing shall call me from the one work of giv- ing instructions. I rely solely on your self respect and sense of propriety and honor". It was very rarely that he reproved, but if it had to be administered it left a scar. But such was his simplicity of heart and sin- cerity that if on reflection he thought he had done an injustice to a pupil he would voluntarily ask pardon before the whole school He loved and took pride in his pupils, and his pupils loved and were proud of their teacher.
So loved was the memory of this educator that his former pupils from all over the country met one day many, many years after he had been laid to rest, and erected in the village of Wadsworth an imposing
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EARLY SCHOOLS
statue by popular subscription, to commemorate his many virtues.
The growth of the Reserve Academy stimulated the growth of the college, and we find "Oberlin" the first college in the world to offer co-education, followed rapidly by "Hiram", and last but not least "Buchtel". It would be an injustice to close without mention of the "Twinsburg Institute."
W. A. Goodspeed in an article written for Per- rin's, says: "An institution which ,for more than half a century of usefulness, has done more to improve the intellect and morals than perhaps any other organiza- tion, not even excluding the churches. It dates its ori- gin as far fack as 1828, when yet the township was but a frontier settlement, and almost its entire surface was covered with primitive forests. Its founder and supporter was the Rev. Samuel Bissell, a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale College. Soon after his ordination as a minister of the gospel he came to Aurora, Ohio, and in 1826 began a private school which was continued until 1828, when he came to Twinsburg. A block house had been erected for his acccommodation about a mile west of the center. On the same lot was a rude log house twenty by thirty feet with rough boards on the floor and loose ones for a ceiling. Three openings were made in the logs, in each of which was placed a sash containing four small panes of glass while at one end of this dismal room was a broad fire place with a chimney built of stones and sticks and plastered with clay. In the room were placed a few rudely and hastily constructed seats and desks and the only cheerful feature of the place was
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EARLY SCHOOLS
the roaring fire which lighted the room with a fitful and rudy glow. This school room was thrown open to any young people who desired to attend without any charge, except from those disposed to pay, in which case the tuition for the term was to be $2.00.
So much interest was created that forty students were enrolled the first term. Four years after a com- bined church and school room was erected. In 1837 he built a house 20x35 in which he taught twenty-nine consecutive years. Within the next five years four large two storied buildings were secured and fitted up as dormitories and dining halls for his students. There were now in attendance about three hundred students, with seven teachers and assistants. Stu- dents were only charged from nine to twelve shillings per week for board. The benevolence of Mr. Bissell was such that he not only lowered the price of tuition but even educated hundreds at his own expense who were unable to pay their way. More than 6000 stu- dents have been in attendance, and out of these over 200 native Indians, Senecas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies and Ogibways have been educated at his own individual expense.
Mr. Bissell became known throughout the Reserve for his philanthropy in the cause of Indian education. This expense alone has amounted to over $40,000. And to this an equal amount expended by him in educating indigent white youth and you have $80,000. This ex- pense was born by no one except the principal. To off set this not more than $12,000 had been received from all sources. These expenses were too heavy to be borne and his buildings had to be sold.
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EARLY SCHOOLS
At this time, and without means, the foundation of a large stone building was laid. Without experi- enced mechanical knowledge he performed the most of the mechanical and manual labor himself. He ob- tained a loan of $1500, purchased a horse and wagon and the necessary tools. At the age of seventy, and without experience, he put on the roof, made the doors, window frames, etc. When over eighty years old he was still teaching although almost penniless.
A large army of ministers, statesmen, generals, lawyers, physicians and artisans have obtained their education at his hands.
Generous, self-denying, patient, persistent, he has put his faith in God and loved his neighbor as himself.
While a pioneer teacher was teaching her frontier school one day she was very much alarmed to see the painted, bedizined figure of an Indian warrior step in the cabin. The little ones trembled in expectation of capture or the tomahawk. The most profound silence prevailed, the boys could almost feel their scalps dis- appearing, the teacher looked inquiringly toward the Indian who said:
"Much pappoose-velly much pappoose".
The young lady teacher blushed very red at this insinuation and felt greatly embarrassed as the brave thought the children were all hers.
THE COMMON SCHOOL FUND OF THE WESTERN RESERVE
No arrangements had been made in the scheme of things in the Reserve to set aside land for Common School purposes. The Reserve did not become a part of the United States until 1800, and therefore the plan that effected all other parts of the state did not apply to the Reserve.
An act of Congress in 1803 set apart and appro- priated to that part of the Western Reserve east of Portage Path and the rivers Cuyahoga and Tuscara- was, as an equivalent for Section 16, a sufficient quan- tity of land in the United States Military District, to compensate for the loss of that Section. This amount was equal to one thirty-sixth of all the land in the Western Reserve to which the Indian title had been relinquished.
The Indian title to the lands of the Reserve west of Portage Path and Cuyahoga river not then having been relinquished the matter seemed to drop from pub- lic notice and remained so until 1829. At this date the Ohio Legislature in a memorial to Congress, di- rected its attention to the fact that by the treaty of Fort Industry in 1805 the Indian title to the land of this section of the Reserve had been relinquished to the United States, and prayed in recognition of the fact, that an additional : nount of land lying within the United States Military District should be set apart
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COMMON SCHOOL FUND
for the use of the public schools of the Western Re- serve, and equal in quantity to one thirty-sixth of the territory ceeded the United States by that treaty.
The memorial produced the desired effect and in 1834 Congress in compliance sold lands in Holmes and Tuscarawas counties for that purpose.
EARLY SPELLING SCHOOL
When the country was young, society being limi- ted, every means of enjoyment was eagerly sought by the young people. Among the fun producing agencies of that day was the country spelling school. "Are you going to the spelling school tonight?" was the common question on a winters day. So great an attraction was it that young people frequently walked many miles, several times a week, during the winter season to at- tend one of these mirth provoking spelling bees. In- deed, it was no common thing for sleigh loads of young people to go ten or twelve miles to some well known school house to one of these entertainments. Every school had its good spellers, some of whom could spell every word in the old "McGuffey's" Spelling Book with- out making an error.
The school would decide to have a "Spelling School", a night would be appointed, and word to that effect passed on through all the schools in the town- ship. The good spellers would hunt up all possible words and study them well, as it was considered a dis- grace for the party which gave the entertainments to be "spelled down".
When the night came every scholar was requested to bring a candle. These tallow dips when lighted would be set in their own melted fat, some on school desks, some on the top of the lower sash of the win- dows or hung on sconces along the walls of the school rooms.
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At an early hour the crowd would begin to gather, young maidens and young men, boys and girls, men and women. There would usually be an hour of so- cial intercourse or solid fun and jollity. The young men would tease the girls, the girls would laugh at or flirt with the boys or play prude.
Their elders would talk of the weather, logging, chopping, township affairs, new roads and bridges to be built, the prospect of spring planting or sowing, or a thousand and one things that the pioneer had to talk about in that early day. The women gathered in knots and chatted about their spinning and weaving or other homely housewifely cares.
When the crowd had fully gathered and the hour had come to commence proceedings the teacher would rap on his desk with the ruler and call the meeting to order. Two captains, usually two of the finest spellers, would be chosen, viva voice, one to represent the school the other the outside world, contesting for the honors of being the "best speller".
The captain of the school would call one of the best spellers by name; the person so called upon came forward and stood by his captain's side. The other captain would call a man, and so on, until all in the room who would spell had been called up . The two lines of spellers would then await the coming contest. The teacher stepping in the center would pronounce the words, first one word to one side then another word to the other side; anyone missing a word would take his seat.
The teacher would pronounce "barouche", the word would be spelled by the head of the line, the
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next word would be spelled by the head of the other line. The third word by the second of the first line, the fourth word by the second man of the second line, etc. The teacher would pronounce, for instance "whif- fletree", the person whose turn it would be to spell would perhaps say "wif-fle-tree". Next", would say the teacher. "Whif-le-tree" would spell the next man below, "Next" and so on until some on spelled it right. Sometimes a dozen would go down on a single word. The ranks would soon begin to thin until a few of the best spellers would remain standing. By this time all the "hardwords" in old "McGuffey's" would be ex- hausted. The teacher would take down "Websters Unabridged" and pronounce therefrom, choosing the most difficult words to spell. Sometimes there would be but one man left standing on a side, perhaps a half dozen on the other. Then indeed would the interest deepen all over the house. Perhaps the single man would spell against the half dozen for half an hour, and then go down. Perhaps the half dozen would go down before the one man. And then, the cheering and hand clapping all over the house. It was worth some- thing to come off victor in such a contest-such thrills can never come again.
The spelling over, then came the speaking and essay reading. The best speakers were all known, and would be called out until they came. For instance some one would call out Jones ! "Jones!" "Jones !" "Jones !!! " would be repeated until Jones would get up on the platform and perhaps say :
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SPELLING
"Flitting along the sidewalk, Tripping cross the street, Head and hands in motion, Timing to her feet. Right foot up and ready, 'Ere the left is down,
"Bless me! what commotion, Coming through the town."
Or perhaps another would get up and pose on the platform while he would say :
"Throw out to the broad winds Your red, white and blue,
For the heart of the North-land Is beating for you.
Row land-ward lone fisher, Stout woodman come home,
Let smith leave his anvil, And weaver his loom. And hamlet and city, Ringing loud with the cry-
For God and our Country We'll fight till we die !"
Declamations of all kinds, tragic, comic, patriotic, until all had been heard from, who would contribute to the general fund of amusement. Then the teacher would dismiss them. Another half hour of chat and chatter, then-the teacher would commence to blow out the candles one by one, the young people would commence to pair off-the crowd to edge toward the door, the merry shouts, the laughter, the gingle of sleigh bells.
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