USA > South Carolina > Spartanburg County > A history of Spartanburg county > Part 9
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CHAPTER NINE
Schools and Learning
Log Churches and Schools
The log churches that the first settlers established were used also as schools, and in many cases the preacher was the schoolmaster. Some old church books contain indications that it was usual when building a new church to retain the old one for the school. In 1828 the Methodists in a district con- ference meeting of the Enoree Circuit put themselves on record as disapproving the use of the meeting-house for "schools, reading, or singing." Many of the schools were built for the purpose to which they were put, and in the early days they seem, like the churches, to have been made of logs. Before 1840 the framed school buildings were exceptional, and brick school buildings were exceptional at any time before the Civil War.
One of the old-time combination church-schoolhouses was de- scribed by Judge Robert Gage, of Union, writing some time in the seventies :
It was a hewn log structure, with one of those ancient, high boxed-up pulpits, with the clerk's box in front. . . How many associations come trouping into our minds at the mention of this old log church, with its old-fashioned pulpit and grove of grand old oaks. It was our second school house, and the hours spent there come back with a vividness common to nothing but school days. The struggle to be first in the morning, to store away our basket or bucket in the pulpit and hide to surprise the next comer, the excitement of "spells," the shout at play time, and the rush for the spring to enjoy the bottles of cool milk, the invigoratory games of "Prisoner's Base," "Cat and Chimney," all come back.
Charles Petty, reared near Limestone Springs, discussing typical schools of the period 1830-1845, wrote :
The first school the writer ever attended was a little log concern, slab benches, a loose floor, a good ventilation, hickory hooks to hang the dinner baskets on, and a chimney nearly as wide as the house. The teacher began as soon as he could get to the school, and he did his best through the long hours of the day. But the boys and girls of that time did not learn as rapidly then as they do now. . . At least three-fourths of the time of the little fellows was spent in nodding or gazing around, or "scrouging" around the big fireplace.
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William Hoy delighted in recounting the successful careers of men of the Tygers area who, in the early 1800's, attended school in log houses with dirt floors and wooden chimneys but taught by educated masters.
Records of an Old- During the years between 1778 and 1815 Sam- Time Schoolmaster uel Noblit taught school in the Fairforest set- tlement, and his notebooks show the excellences and defects of his type of schoolmaster. His penmanship was undoubtedly his especial pride, and some pages are as beautiful as an engraver's copperplate. One book contains the entire Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian Church, the Child's Catechism, and Bible texts, in flowing, flawless penmanship. This book is endorsed Samuel Noblit His Book, May 1782.
Although Noblit seems to have kept his attendance records with the greatest care and to have noted when his pupils "begun to write," he entered few notes to indicate the nature of the work done in his schools; nor did he indicate the exact location of the schools he taught. In one entry he noted losing three days while the school- house was being repaired. In another place he "opened school in the shop." One entry runs that "Polly Smith begun to R Lat March ye 16th, 1780."
School seems to have begun in August and run until the week before Christmas. Year after year, about December 22, Noblit makes such notes as this: "The Schollars Bard me out untill ye Monday after New Year's Day." School began often about February and ran into July. Now and then Noblit noted, "I attended, no Schol- lars came." He noted days lost from school for buryings, musters, vendues, threshing wheat, harvesting, "sewing flax," "raising flax," "getting fodder," "diging" potatoes, attending corn huskings, raising barns or lofts, making fences, "halling corn," and so on. Once, in 1778, he noted, "We had a Cotton Picken." Another time he was out of school two days because his wife was sick.
The value of paper in the old days and the thrift manifested in its use appears in the fact that almost every inch of space left blank in the school records as originally kept was later utilized for preserving valuable notes, such as birth, marriage, and death dates in the community. Apparently Noblit did not serve in the Revolu- tion himself, but he noted the departures for camp, or Charlestown, or Hammond's Old Store, of neighbors. One page indicates a pos-
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sibility that he did serve and keep the order book. He entered a note on the battle of Musgrove's Mill "on the Eniree River," and of the fall of Charlestown. On April 23, 1780, he noted that "T F started for North Carolina with his daughter Peggy Teral. Came home Monday 11th, 1780, and taken away by Tories Sept. ye 15th, 1780."
Not the least interesting pages in Noblit's books are those con- taining Revolutionary ballads and love songs, some original and some secured from friends. He kept some copies of letters he wrote. Several times he entered dates when friends set out for "Georgia State." He recorded worshipping, at different times, at "the meeting house," "The Babtist meeting house," and "the Tent over the creek." From time to time he noted fast days and sacra- ment Sundays. Once he referred to "our minister, Mr. William- son," and at various times he noted hearing sermons from the Rev- erend Mr. Walker, the Reverend Mr. Alexander, Mr. Newton, and Mr. Edmonds. On October 16, 1785, he noted that "the young Reverend Mr. Hall preached at ye Tent and babtzd my son Wm."
Noblit's notebooks show that he was a practical farmer and when he could not get a school he farmed for himself or for his neighbors on shares. He carefully balanced his accounts with his patrons, crediting them with such articles as "cloath," "cloath boots," shirts, "lincey," farm products, and labor. His charges seem to have varied with the number and advancement of the pupils. The years 1783 and 1784 he seems to have spent in Georgia.
Noblit's rolls included the names of Park, Thompson, Means, Say, Faris, Simmerall, Davidson, Smith, Curry, Gooden, Anderson, Dinney, Bird, Blasinghame, McWhorter, Storey, Edwards, Noblit, Rutledge, McBride, Pruett, Williamson, Finley, Cunningham, Drake, McIlroy, Wellsh, and White.
The Spartanburg Philanthropic Society was
The Spartanburg Philanthropic Society founded in the Nazareth congregation in 1794, and was incorporated in 1797. Its membership was soon extended to include leading men from this district and Union. Its object was to "contribute to the public and general interest of our county" by promoting "a much more general diffusion of knowledge and sound literature." The Reverend James Templeton was, it appears, the leader, and the other members who actually organized this society were: James Jordan, Samuel Nesbitt, Thomas Moore, Isham Foster,
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Gabriel Benson and Samuel Miller. The list of members soon passed fifty and included David Johnson, who was to be the first Up Country governor of South Carolina, and Abram Nott, a future chancellor. The full list of members, as it has been preserved, includes, besides those mentioned, most of the outstanding men of the old Upper District : Isham Harrison, John Nesbitt, John Collins, D. Golightly, Osborne West. William Farrow, John Sloan, William Williamson, Samuel Morrow, Thomas James, W. Golightly, Moses Casey, Jr., R. S. Saunders, Peter Gray, Gab. Benson, Samuel Farrow, William Wells, A. B. Moore, Burrell Bobo, Benjamin Peak, John Harrison, William Lancaster, Archibald Taylor, Willis Willeford, Daniel White, John Barnett, William Ross Smith, Christopher Johnson, Thomas Patton, Hugh Means, John Thomas, Jr., John O'Neill, James Smith, Aaron Smith, Thomas Hanna, William Kingsborough, William Will- banks, William Palmer, A. Casey, Thomas Williamson, Berryman Shumate, and William Smith.
The Spartanburg Philanthropic Society, according to the act of incorporation bearing date of December 16, 1797, specified that it was formed for the "purpose of erecting an academy." Appar- ently the first school founded by the Society was called the Eustatie School-of which few particulars have been handed down. The Minerva School seems to have followed it, and to have been taught for many years in a building erected for it, as is indicated by the recollections of those who attended it. None of them, however, have preserved any facts as to how it was conducted or where it was located.
A manual labor school at Poolesville under the auspices of the Spartanburg Philanthropic Society asked to be received under the care of the Second Presbytery of South Carolina. Of it no specific facts have come down. This school was referred to by Lockwood in 1832 as being under the Second Presbytery, and by James H. Carlisle in his address at the opening of Converse College as the first manual labor school in South Carolina. Rock Spring Academy, mentioned by Ramsay, with Minerva School, as one of the two schools in the district in 1800, was possibly the Poolesville School.
The record book of the Spartanburg Philanthropic Society was in 1892 described as being then in bad condition, and its present whereabouts is unknown. Presumably the organization, having ac-
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complished its purpose, faded into oblivion as local organizations here and there gathered strength.
The Cedar Robert Mills singled out for special commendation
Spring Schools the school at Cedar Spring-"a promising academy in which Latin, Greek, mathematics, and English studies are taught." He noted that "female education was much neglected" in the dis- trict, but that plans were under way to establish a school for girls. This was done, a schoolmaster named Scarborough conducting it. These two schools were incorporated by the following trustees : Robert Creswell, Elihu Creswell, Daniel White, James W. Cooper, Isaac Smith, James Brannon, Robert W. Young, John W. Farrow, Zachariah McDaniel, Francis H. Porter, Thomas Bomar, John Black, Eber Smith, Augustus Shands.
The male academy was named the Word Academy and was pre- sided over by the Reverend James Porter. This school was an ex- cellent one. The Scarborough School, the Glenn Springs School, and the Spartanburg Female Academy enjoyed successively the in- struction for a long time of "Madame Sosnowski and her daughter, of the Polish nobility." These ladies later founded a famous "Home School for Girls," in Georgia.
Other Academies As communities and churches grew, the number of academies multiplied. Many intensely interesting glimpses of them have been handed down. But records have been lost, and traditions are confusing as to exact names of teachers, locations of schools, or dates of activity. A few of the academies were for both sexes. Some of them had several teachers and large numbers of boarding students. Some of the classical schools for boys only had, clustered about the schoolhouse itself, several small log cabins, each serving as a sort of private sitting room and study for a group of older boys. In such schools as this the master would step to the door of the schoolroom and shout or blow a signal on his cowhorn to attract attention. He would then call out "Caesar," "Cicero," "Demosthenes," "Algebra." Thereupon the students in whatever class was called made for the central building to recite.
Some of these academies were very modern in viewpoint, teach- ing the principles of common law by organizing moot courts, and holding weekly declamation and debating contests in which all pupils must take their turns. Some of the masters taught what would to- day be called pre-medical courses. Woodruff had a flourishing "busi-
REIDVILLE FEMALE COLLEGE
In the inset upper right is the modern school plant which replaced it. In the inset upper left is the girls' dormitory of the Reidville Female College
THE STATE SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF AND THE BLIND
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ness school" in the fifties. Without exception, all the schools stressed mathematics and spelling.
Public examinations were held, usually in June or July, when the session ended, and large crowds were present. Visiting commit- tees of examiners asked questions of the pupils in the presence of admiring yet anxious friends and relatives. The schoolroom was decorated for such an occasion, and often students and guests, led by the teachers, examiners, speakers, and a brass band, formed a procession to it from a nearby church or store. One or two days were devoted to these public examinations ; the evenings being given to picnic suppers, addresses, dialogues, concerts.
There were, in the years before the war, academies at Gowans- ville, New Prospect, Fort Prince, Fingerville, Vernonsville, Campo- bello, Cedar Spring, Cherokee Springs, Cross Anchor, Glenn Springs, Limestone Springs, Poplar Springs, Hurricane Shoals, Bethel, and elsewhere. In some schools board cost as little as $4 per month, including lights, wood, and washing; and $12 per month was a very high rate of board. Tuition ranged from $5 to $25 per term. Board was higher in the schools for girls, and there were many extras in tuition.
The Limestone Springs Female High School The Limestone Springs Hotel property was bought in 1845 by the Reverend Thomas Curtis, a Baptist minister of Charleston, and his son, the Reverend William Curtis of Columbia; and they established the Limestone Springs Female High School, an institution which attracted patron- age from many states. While the owners of the school were Baptist clergymen, they stressed the fact that their school was non-sectarian. In their first catalog, the principals wrote: "The State and its neighborhood must contain many who would feel gratified in be- holding the Tavern-bar and its company displaced by the piano, guitar, and the accompanying young voices of quite happy groups; the spacious Ball-room converted into a well-filled school-room ; the Billiard-room of the lounger or the dissipated, into the Chapel of Divine Worship."
The school opened November 6, 1845, with a faculty of seven members and an enrollment of sixty-seven pupils. These numbers increased each year, and the high standards of the school were widely recognized. Graduations were held in July and December. The only vacation was in December and January. Board cost $50 per
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term, and included washing, fuel, and lights. Tuition in the pri- mary department cost $20, and in other departments $25. Tuition in piano, including vocal music, cost $25; guitar lessons, French, drawing and painting, cost $20 each. The enrollment in 1859 was one hundred and fifty-one, and the faculty numbered thirteen.
The Curtises were cultured and highly educated Englishmen. Of Dr. Thomas Curtis, James H. Carlisle wrote :
. . It was a pleasure to meet here, in a small town of upper Carolina, a man who had known Coleridge, Robert Hall, John Foster, Adam Clarke, William Wilberforce, Richard Watson, and other leading men of their day. . . For several years the rural congregations of our county had the rare privilege of listening to sermons such as city churches would gladly buy at a great price.
The quality of instruction offered under the guidance of such men as the Curtises was of the best, so that throughout its long history Limestone Springs High School was the pride of the dis- trict. Its carefully guarded young ladies were met by President Curtis at Savannah, Charleston, Columbia, and Union, and escorted to the Limestone Springs Female High School, where they pursued the English and classical studies as well as such "ornamental extras" as painting, embroidering, singing and piano playing. When exami- nation time came, these young ladies stood up in public and bravely and creditably answered hard questions; but when the time came for the audience to hear their graduation essays, President Curtis read them, sparing the modesty of the graduates.
The School for the Deaf and the Blind
In 1849 the Reverend Newton Pinckney Walk- er bought a boarding house at Cedar Spring and opened a school for deaf children. This school began with five pupils, but it filled a genuine need and grew steadily. In 1855 the plan of the school was expanded to care for the blind, and in 1857 the State purchased it and established it as a part of the State educational system, employing the founder as superintendent. Suit- able buildings were erected and the school proceeded upon a career of usefulness and honor. Spartans take a just pride in having given the State two outstanding pioneers in philanthropy - the "Father of the Asylum" and the founder of the School for the Deaf and the Blind.
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Male and Female The people of the Nazareth congregation, in Schools at Reidville 1857, founded the Reidville Male and Female High Schools, "the former intended to prepare boys for college and life-work, the latter to graduate and confer degrees upon girls." These schools were chartered, with a board of trustees numbering thirty members, two-thirds of whom should be Presbyterians. Later the number of trustees was reduced to fifteen. The land on which these schools were built was given by James and Anthony Wake- field and James N. Gaston. It had on it "Wakefield's Powder Spring"-one of the many mineral springs of the district.
The organization of the Reidville schools was the result of a New Year's sermon, on the importance of education, preached at Nazareth by the Reverend R. H. Reid in 1857. Doctor Reid was chosen by the incorporators as president of the board of trustees and of the schools; in this joint capacity he served more than forty years, often delegating his offices to others, but retaining the direc- tion of the two schools. He had a familiarity with school manage- ment, for he had been, during his last year as a student at Columbia Theological Seminary, chaplain of the famed Barhamville School.
A small village was laid out and named Reidville, and the two schools were placed, less than two-thirds of a mile apart, at the ends of its main street. On the first day of October, 1857, the cor- nerstone of the male high school was laid, with Masonic ceremonies. An elaborate program was followed by a picnic. This school was conducted as a mixed school for two years. In 1859 the other school, which was eventually called Reidville Female College, opened.
Public Education
From the year 1811, when an act to establish free schools throughout the State was passed by the Assembly, the peo- ple of Spartanburg District availed themselves of the public funds. The general opinion in the old days was that it was the responsibility of a parent to educate his children and that free tuition was only for the poor-that for a self-respecting family to have its children attend a free school was discreditable. Most important reasons for not sending children to free schools were that the terms were short, and the recompense did not command the service of good teachers. Public school maintenance increased in Spartanburg. It was no uncommon arrangement for the patrons of a community to send their children during the free term-which often lasted only three
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months-and then employ the same teacher to continue teaching a private school for children who could pay tuition.
A hot subject for controversy was whether education was a private or a public responsibility. Many felt that churches instead of the public treasury should assume the responsibility of educating the poor. Many objected to any public subsidizing of education. Among those who favored using tax money to support free schools were numbers who objected to a State college. James Jordan was defeated for reelection to the State legislature in 1800 because he had voted in favor of a State college.
During the fifties bitter attacks were made on the State College by Joseph Wofford Tucker in letters to the Carolina Spartan signed "Viator." Equally bitter rejoinders were made by James Farrow, using the signature "Express."
The presentments of the grand juries for this period indicate the state of public opinion. In 1850 one read :
We present the free school system as grossly inadequate to the wants and necessities of the county. We recommend some action on the part of the legislature. We recommend an equal division of the free school funds among the free white population of the State. We are of the opinion that the several districts ought to be laid off in suitable beats and schools founded in the several beats. We report the large appropriation to the South Carolina College compared with the meager appropriation for general school purposes as a state grevious (sic) and an impo- sition which calls loudly for reform.
In 1854 the grand jury urged a poll tax to support public edu- cation, and issued a long deliverance on the evils of the public school system as it was actually administered : the bad schools were due to bad patrons who allowed bad teachers to be imposed upon them. The grand jury urged careful placing of schools, selection of able superintendents, examination of teachers, compulsory attendance, and uniform courses of study. Many people ignorantly assume that such ideas were never presented to the attention of the people be- fore the Civil War.
Singing There was no more popular type of school in the early days Schools than the "singing school," and Spartan District produced one of the most famous of the old-time singing teachers in "Singing Billy" Walker, who at the age of twenty-six published a book of which eventually more than a half million copies were sold, and
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which passed through repeated revisions. There are four distinct editions-the first in 1835, and later ones in 1847, 1849, and 1854. This book, Southern Harmony, contained altogether two hundred and nine songs and hymns, drawn from various sources. The 1835 edition contained twenty-five of Walker's original contributions, and the edition of 1854 contained forty. Two which had appeared in the edition of 1847 were omitted from the later one. Walker pub- lished several other song collections, one called Christian Harmony almost rivalling the more famous Southern Harmony in popularity.
Walker wrote, in the preface to his Christian Harmony:
We have traveled thousands of miles in the Middle, South- ern, and Western States and taught a number of singing schools- all the time consulting the musical taste of the clergy, music teachers, and thousands of others who love the songs of Zion. By the year 1851 Walker had developed a distinct theory of teaching, as is shown by his advice to would-be teachers :
We recommend young teachers and those who want to teach, and all others, male or female, who wish to understand the science of music thoroughly, to make Normal Schools of from thirty to one hundred pupils, employ an experienced Professor of Music, who is a master of the science, and have sessions of twenty or fifty days in a regular succession, where you can be taught. Meet early in the morning, say 9 o'clock; stay till 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon. In these schools you not only learn to sing, but how to sing properly. The author having taught many schools in the last fifteen years, and brought out more good teachers than in five times the number of common singing schools, believes therefore that he cannot commend Normal Schools too highly.
Other Spartanburg singing masters or music lovers who con- tributed to Walker's books were Andrew Gramling, J. G. Landrum, James Christopher, and William Golightly. Two of the songs lo- cally written were entitled "Pacolet" and "Cleveland."
In recent years the growing interest in musical history has led to a renewed recognition of the valuable contribution made by Walker. Walker's own pride in his achievement is evinced by the fact that he always, in his later years, signed his name William Walker, A. S. H. (Author Southern Harmony). His name was so inscribed on his tombstone. In 1937 the Woman's Music Club of Spartanburg undertook the restoration of his neglected grave, which is in the Magnolia Street "Village Cemetery." The quaint tomb-
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stone was re-set and was enclosed by an iron railing, which is be- lieved to have been made at the Hurricane Shoals Iron Works. Upon the completion of this work of restoration, a memorial service was held at the grave, March 16, 1939, as a part of the program of the annual convention of the music clubs of South Carolina, then in session in Spartanburg. New editions of Southern Harmony, one a replica, have been published in recent years.
The curricula of the first "female schools" show
Music in Female Schools that much emphasis was placed on music. The first faculty of Limestone Springs Female High School had seven members, two of whom devoted themselves to "Music, Piano, Guitar, Organ, Harp." Within two years, when the faculty had increased to eleven, there were four who taught only the musical branches. Vocal music every day was required of every student.
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