USA > Virginia > Rockbridge County > Rockbridge County > A history of Rockbridge County, Virginia > Part 22
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Yet only ten years later a temperance society was organized here as the result of a letter to the pastor by Captain Henry B. Jones.
In 1754 a petition to the Augusta court, signed by 91 of the settlers, con- demns the "selling by ordmaries of large quantities at extravagant rates where- by money is drained out of the country." The signers say they intend to pro- duce their own liquor and keep their money in the country. There is not the Ica t hint that they are bolstering up a bad business. They thought it as nec- cary a business as any, and believed their aim was most praiseworthy.
The colonial tavein invariably kept liquors in much variety, even to va-
181
TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES AND OTHER FRATERNITIES
rious kinds of wine and brandy imported from France and the Spanish penin- sula. All stores likewise kept liquors in stock. For the years 1762-1768, the books of William Crow, a merchant of Staunton, show very few long accounts that do not contain several charges for drinks. Presentments for the illegal selling of liquor are exceedingly common in the court records prior to the civil war. The persons who thus exposed themselves to fine were often some of the leading members of the community.
It would be very illuminating if we could know what part was played by intoxicants in the innumerable brawls in the courtyards and outside of them; in the careless behavior of both combatants and non-combatants during the years of the Indian war; and in the conduct of the Indians themselves, the aborigines having a weakness for what they expressively called firewater.
Bad as the situation must have been before the Revolution, it was even worse after that event. The demoralization bred in camps was carried home by the returned soldiers. Doctor Archibald Alexander relates that a certain Con- tinental purchased a house in Lexington, where he collected all the vagrants around. Many of the ex-soldiers had been convicts, and were now living in dis- sipation on their certificate money. At his resort, drinking bouts would be kept up for weeks, and these affairs were enlivened with hard fights. Henry Ruffner adds his testimony that in 1844 the Valley had not yet recovered from the dis- organizing effects of the Revolution. Between 1790 and 1810, the increase in the consumption of distilled liquors was one-half greater in the United States than the increase of population. In 1825, 39 pints per capita were consumed, irres- pective of the matter of age or sex. It was about this time that an English visi- tor-coming from a land of grogshops-said that "intemperance is the most striking characteristic of the American people."
Whether Robert McElheny would succeed his father in 1799 as possessor of the parental homestead on Kerr's Creek, was made conditional by a clause in the will saying it depended on whether the son "refrained from drinking to ex- cess."
Speaking in 1873 at the semi-centennial of the Franklin Society, Colonel J. T. L. Preston said of the days of his youth that there was "more of open and gross drunkenness than now." Here is straightforward testimony from an excellent source; all the better because the speaker's personal recollection be- gan in the opening years of the last century.
In 1853 sixty thousand gallons of whiskey were sent ont by the canal, and in 1876 iron and whiskey were the chief items of export from this country.
A reformation began in Rockbridge about 1829, some societies demanding no more than moderation in the use of liquor. No very beneficial effect could come from such a half-loaf as this. The then president of Washington College
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A HISTORY OF ROCKIRIDGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
called a temperance society of this sort "a well-organized drinking club." The first teetotal speech in the county was by C. C. Baldwin in the lecture room of the Lexington Presbyterian church. This was in 1836. Within the next twenty year- a strong sentiment in favor of the extinction of the liquor traffic had de- veleped. In 1854 a petition of this character was signed by two hundred and forty people. Another petition of the same year says a majority of the citizens will vote for a prolubitory law. Two years carlier we find much indignation at the way the hquor business was carried on in the county seat. A petition signed by one hundred and eighty-two of the people asked for a search-warrant law. It states that there were six joints in Lexington, that fifty negroes had been seen entering one of them in an afternoon, and that all efforts to punish the seller had failed. But in 1856 no licenses were issued.
During the war of 1861, the Confederate government passed stringent laws against distilling, with a view to the conservation of grain. These efforts were much evaded, and after this war, as after the Revolution, there was for a while a great slackening of practical interest in the matter of temperance. An editorial in the Gazette for December 26, 1873, thus speaks of the holiday revel in Lexington. "Christmas was celebrated in Lexington by an unusual amount of noise and a profuse liquering. Main Street was blocked up several times by crowds of boisterous negroes. No lady dared to come on the street without running the risk of being jostled by staggering men or hearing profane, vulgar "Could the excessive use of whiskey be abolished and the carrying of pisto's stopped, three-fourths or more of the crime of Rockbridge would be eliminated."
In 1914, this county gave prohibition a majority of 414 votes in a total of 1790. Of the twenty-three precints, seventeen supported the measure, and there was a tie vote in two of the others.
During the decade of the 50's, the efforts to curb the drinking habit largely took the form of what were known as temperance societies. They were pat- terned after the secret orders, and had constitution and ritual, signs and pass- words. Their fraternal and social features made them attractive, and they ex- Erted a wholesome influence. But the lodges, or "divisions," were lacking in permanence. Before the war, the Friends of Temperance and the Sons of Temperance were mont in favor. During the 70's and 80's, they were succeeded by the Good Templars with their more elaborate ritual and their regalia.
XXIV
OLD FIELD SCHOOLS AND FREE SCHOOLS
EARLY EDUCATIONAL IDEAS-THE LITERARY FUND-JOHN REARDON-THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL -THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM-STATISTICAL
During the two centuries that Virginia held to the idea that education is a concern of private interest only, the training of the young was left wholly to private effort, and wherever indifference ruled illiteracy was the result. A law of 1809 created a Literary Fund, into which were to be paid certain fines and other edds and ends of the public money. The income was to pay the tu- ition of those children whose parents were unable to send them to school. The intent of the law was benevolent, but it made the beneficiary a species of pauper and thus was galling to people of ambition and self-respect.
A law of 1846 enabled any county to initiate a public school system within its own territory. Several of the counties within or beyond the Alleghanies availed themselves of this privilege, although it met with little favor in the re- maining portion of the state. Rockbridge does not appear to have been one of the counties to take advantage of this law, although in the 50's we find the agent for the Literary Fund styled the County Superintendent. But he was only a clerk and did not exercise any supervision over the schools.
The income from the Literary Fund was apportioned among the counties according to their respective numbers of free white inhabitants. The disburse- ment within a county was in the hands of a board of trustees, one of whom acted as a bonded treasurer. It was the duty of this board to ascertain the number of indigent children, how many of these would go to school, and for how many of the latter number it could pay tuition. With the consent of their parents such children were sent to school. Books and other necessaries were provided, but the instructions given them did not go beyond the three R's.
Under this system the people of a neighborhood built a schoolhouse and employed the teacher. The latter did not have to get a license, nor attend an institute, nor was he sandbagged into subscribing for several educational books and journals. If, in the judgment of the patrons, he was sufficiently qualified, that was enough. The school was open to all pupils whose parents were able and willing to pay tuition. The local board entered into a contract with the schoolmaster to teach the indigents for whom it had made provision. The teacher had to fill out a blank for each pupil in order to draw the public money thus coming to him.
During this intermediate period, that lay between the reign of the strictly
IS-
A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
private school and the coming of the full-fledged public school, attendance was voluntary. The ratio was high or low, according to the degree of educational interest in the neighborhood. The time was not ripe for a compulsory law. This would have been deemed an encroachment on personal liberty.
Every since the Protestant Reformation took root in Scotland, the people of that country have been noted for their zeal in the cause of general education. John Knox, the apostle of Presbyterianism, insisted on a school in every parish. Education was in fact regarded as growing out of a religious need. The ability to read the Bible and the catechism was almost an axiom in the Presbyterian practice. And since the pioneers of this county were almost wholly from Ulster, they were very generally able to read and write.
As a matter of course the schoolhouse quickly appeared in Rockbridge. But as education was then altogether a matter of private effort, such mention of schoolhouses or teachers as we find in the public records is purely incidental. What is said of them in tradition and miscellaneous sources is very nearly as meagre. But schools there were, and the one speken of in 1753 could not have been the carliest. The first teacher in the Borden tract is said to have been a man named Carrigan. James Dobbins is named in 1748 as the teacher of Alex- nader McNutt. Robert Fulton was a teacher in 1765.
In 1775 William Alexander came from South River and built a dwelling in the fork at the mouth of Woods Creek. There was already a school in the forest a half mile north of Clifton, the recent home of F. W. Houston. With- in a year, and probably with the Help of some neighbors, Mr. Alexander built a scloo'louse near a spring a little below the railroad station at Lexington. John Rearden, then a servant to Alexander, presided over the school, which was a large one. Reardon was a young convict who wrote a fair hand and understood bookkeeping. He had read Latin as far as Virgil and had a reading knowledge of the Greek Testament. The teacher did not pretend to exercise any authority over the large boys, but he used his switch on the small children. While learning their lessons the pupils read as loud as possible, and some of them could be Heard a quarter of a mile away. Reardon went into the Continen- tal service and nearly lo t his life in the Waxhaw massacre. Yet he came home, reared quite a large family, taught at Timber Ridge, and appears to have lived to old age.
Except for the quasi-public feature of the Literary Fund, the old field school of the period that came to an end just after the civil war was essentially the same as the school of the Revolutionary days. The method of instruction was nearly the same, the building itself was scarcely better, and its equipment was hit'e different. Neither was the old field teacher so very much better paid. In the colonial time, Charles Knight, a teacher on the Calfpasture, was to have
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OLD FIELD SCHOOLS AND FREE SCHOOLS
$60 for teaching one year, every half-Saturday or every other Saturday to be free time. In case of an Indian alarm, he was to be lodged in the settlement. But this does not seem to have been a liberal salary, even for that period.
The day will soon arrive when the old field school will live only in tradi- tion and in the accounts that have been thrown into type. One of the most readable of the latter is "Memory Days," by Alexander S. Paxton. The writer gives an extended account of a school of his boyhood in Arnold's Valley. We use his narrative to supplement the reminiscences given to us by Mr. J. A. Parker, of Raphine.
We are told of a log cabin 16 by 18 feet in dimensions, but with a chimney that was able to devour a cartload of wood in a day. Except when the door was open, all the light that came in entered through a space in one side of the room where a log had been left out of the wall. Into this opening was fitted a row of window lights. Just below was the writing-board, set at a slant and held in place by pegs. The benches were peg-legged puncheons. The school dinner was brought from home in a basket. The attendance was large, and it was not then considered a hardship to come to school from a distance of two and one- half miles. The tuition was $1.25 a month for each pupil, but with a higher rate for advanced studies. The term was occasionally ten months long. There was neither blackboard nor wall-map. Webster's "blueback" was the spelling- book, and there were drills in this study. Sometimes the spelling was "by plank," the speller advancing one step for every time he turned another pupil down. There was no uniformity in text-books, and for this reason the instruction was largely individual. The ink, made of copperas and maple bark, was good but it soon used up the noisy quill pens. Discipline was enforced with "hickory oil," well rubbed in, and this medicine was sanctioned by public opinion. Fre- quently the teacher "boarded round." It was also a custom to go home with a delegation of pupils and spend the night at their house. The schoolyard games were quoits, hop scotch, corner ball, and town ball. The great event of the term was for the scholars to arrive some morning before the teacher, and barri- cade the door until he would sign the articles drawn up by them. These usually requested a holiday or a treat. But in this contest of wits the victory was of- ten with the teacher. Mr. Parker was once handed some articles he was to "except," and the misapplied word was used to impart some advice the school did not forget.
The minimum required of the old field teacher was to be good in elementary English, to write a fair, round hand, to make goose quill pens, and to use the rod freely and with emphasis. Nevertheless, there was manv an old field teacher who could give instruction in the classics, if this was desired. The pedagogue of that age was nearly always a man, and as be was often of mature years he had some prestige in the community.
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A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
The "schoolma'am" was an infrequent personage, yet she was not non-cx- istent Colonel Presten speaks of "Granny Brownlew," grandmother of the war-fam us "Parson Brownlow," of Tennessee. She taught an elementary school in Lexington. It was her habit to pet the little ones, coax the o'der ones, give the small ones apples and cakes, and when they were sleepy, lay them on her trundle-bed.
The colonel also tells of Charles Tidd, a Connecticut man brought here by Captain Leylurn. He was almost illiterate at first, but made a good teacher. and a good brick schoolhouse was built for him. When a new educational cra Fegan to creep in, he retired to the head of Collier's Creek. Tidd was one of the pedagogues who did not spare the red and strap. Another popular and successful teacher from the North was Giles Gunn, who taught in the 50's on and around Kerr's Creek.
Tle free school, fathered by W. H. Ruffner, a native of Rockbridge, became an institution of Virginia in 1870. In this county as in some others, it won its way only in the face of long-continued opposition. The change from the o'd system was abrupt and was viewed in the light of a distasteful innovation. For a considerable time the free school was a vexed topic, friends and foes airing their views in the county papers. But the complete disappearance of the pay- school reveals a tendency of the age.
Out of 4300 whites and 1492 colored persons in 1870, between the ages of five and twenty-one, 700 were receiving elementary instruction in 35 schoo's. Two years later the annual expenditure had reached only the small sum of $952 .- 07. But in 1875 the expenditure for schools had grown to $12971. There were now 86 schools with 89 teachers. The average length of term was 54 months. The salary of the superintendent was $350. In 1894 there were 90 white schools with 100 teachers and an enrollment of 3182 pupils, and 24 colored schools with 28 teachers and an enrollment of 10)2. Nine years later, there were 3833 pupils in school out of a scho 1 population of 6047. However, the number of illit- crates among the children was 1875.
An interesting relapte to a ence popular and still useful institution was the spelling bee he'd at the county seat, March 6, 1911. The number who took part in it was abmit 600.
The school year that closed in the summer of 1018 showed an expenditure of $82,114 73. All the ninety schoolhouses were frame buildings, except three of brick, and the two log structures that hold over from the olden time. In the schoo's for the white were nine male and 143 female teachers. In the schools for the colored people were two male and sixteen female teachers. The teachers who had been in service at least ten years were thirty-five. The length of the school year was nine months in the town of Lexington, eight months in the other
185
OLD FIELD SCHOOLS AND FREE SCHOOLS
high and graded schools, and seven months in the schools of one or two rooms. The school libraries were forty-seven, and had approximately 7,000 volumes. In the rural districts the monthly salary varied from $35 to $50, according to the grade of certificate. With respect to the white population, the figures for school age, enrollment, and attendance were respectively, 5,779, 4.151, and 2,732. For the colored population, the corresponding figures were 1,305,656, and 462. The pupils in the high school department were 341, and all were white. It is note- worthy that in the matter of attendance, girl pupils are considerably in the ma- jority in each race, although with respect to the total population, Rockbridge has an excess of males.
Since 1905 there has been a progressive consolidation in the rural schools, and it has now gone about as far as it is possible. During this period, ten rural and several graded schools have been established. Schools of three or more teachers have taken the place of the former one-room schools, and sever- al school wagons are in use. There is now much emphasis on a thorough and well-graded course of study, and there is special effort to secure well-trained teachers for the primary rooms as well as for the upper grades.
In the fall of 1911 was held the first school fair in Rockbridge. It proved so interesting and successful that a fair has been held every year since, in the first or second week of November. In 1914, and again in 1916, at least 2000 children marched in parade and were viewed by a much larger number of spec- tators. The prizes offered in the latter year amounted to nearly $1000. The exhibits were literary, domestic, and in the line of manual training. Exhibits by boys' corn clubs are shown in connection with the school fairs. In 1914, Logan C. Bowyer won the first prize by growing 208 bushels on two acres.
The first county superintendent we find mentioned as such, was John M. Wilson in 1851. His bond was for $3000. John W. Barclay was a successor. Since the arrival of the public school system, the list of superintendants is as follows :
John Lyle Campbell, 1870-1882; J. Lucian Hamilton, 1882-1886; J. Sidney Saville, 1886-1900; A. Nash Johnston, 1900-1904; G. W. Effinger, (acting), 1904; Robert Catlett, 1904-1908; G. WV. Effinger, 1908-1913; Earle K. Paxton, 1913 -.
XXV
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY
THE ALEXANDER SCHOOL-MOUNT PLEASANT-TIMBER RIDGE-MICIDEKRY HILL-THE STONE LIDLRTY HIALL ACADEMY-REMOVAL OF LEXINGTON-COLLEGE ERA- THE UNIVER ITY PERIOD
The first classical school west of the Blue Ridge was opened in 1749 by Robert Alexander. The log cabin, doubtless of a single room, is said to have stood on the farm immediately north of the churchyard of Old Providence. Al- cxander was a graduate of Edinburgh University. Some of the copies of the Greek and Latin authors were in his own handwriting. He came to Augusta in 1743 and remained here until his death in 1787. His school must have been fairly successful, for le continued to teach it four years. We know the names of on'y two of his students. These were James and Robert, sons of James Mc- Nuti.
Then, for 21 years, the school was continued by the Reverend John Brown, and seems to have been taught at his home. His students were probably few and did not make very exacting demands upon his time.
The year 1774 registered a distinct advance. In October, the Hanover Presbytery ordered that a public school be established in Augusta. Six per ons were authorized to take subscriptions, these to be payable not later than the fol- lowing Christmas. William Graham was designated as the instructor, and he was to be under the supervision of John Brown. Next April, which was the month in which the battle of Lexington was fought, the Presbytery declared that it would not limit the school to the students from Presbyterian families.
Mount Pleasant Academy, the school thus established, was a log cabin of one room. It stood on a small belt of tableland a short mile north from Fairfield Station and perhaps an eighth of a mile west of the railroad track. Between the upland and the railroad is a fine spring. The field in which the cabin stood is on land now owned by William G. Houston, and even at that time must have been partially cleared. The exact site, not apparent to a strang- er, commands an extensive mountain prospect, especially toward the cast. For a school amid rural surroundings the situation is pleasing and interesting. "All the features of the place," remarks Henry Ruffner, "made it a fit habitation for tlc wood'and musc." A horn answered the purpose of a bell. The students carried their dinners, and their sports were mainly gymnastic. They studied within the schoolroom or under a tree. The spring was necessarily one of their resorts, and it was here that James Priestly, a student and afterward an
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WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY
instructor, used to "spout" the orations of Demosthenes in the original Greek.
Graham had been graduated from Princeton College the year before com- ing to Mount Pleasant, and one of his classmates was Richard Henry Lee, the statesman and orator. In October, 1775, John Montgomery, who was after- ward minister at Deerfield, in Augusta county, became his assistant.
The school seems to have prospered during the two years it remained at Mount Pleasant. In fact, the time was now propitious for an embryo college. This section of the Valley of Virginia had now been settled nearly forty years. Many of the families were in comfortable circumstances. Furthermore, the Valley had acquired such a degree of maturity as to create an appreciable de- mand for professional men. The distinctions conferred upon a man trained to some profession was understood by the youths of the Valley and appreciated by them.
In May 1776, the Presbytery accepted the gift of eighty acres of land, con- tributed in equal amounts by Samuel Houston and Alexander Stuart. The weight of authority is that the schoolhouse, twenty-four by twenty-eight feet on the ground and one and one-half stories high, stood near the stone church built at Timber Ridge in 1756. Persons living in 1844 remembered a log house answer- ing the description. At Philadelphia, Graham purchased books and philosophical apparatus to the value of 160 pounds ($533.33.) These articles were paid for with 128 pounds raised by subscription, and 32 pounds made up in some other manner. The library thus begun contained 290 volumes. The apparatus in- cluded a small reflecting telescope, a solar micsroscope, an airpump, an electrical machine, a barometer, a quadrant, a very small orrery, a pair of twelve-inch globes, and instruments for surveying. Graham went as far as New England in his canvass and obtained some help from that section. Doctor Archibald Alex- ander says that "several small, neat buildings were erected for the use of the students, and a good house on the New England model was reared for the rector. Students came in goodly numbers, mostly grown young men." The various buildings were completed late in 1777, the property, all told, costing about $2,000. Graham was a very good scholar in the classics and was fond of the natural sciences. He gave much attention to the science of government although censured by some people on the ground that he was thereby meddling in politics. He wanted to pattern his school after Princeton College. The cost of board and tuition was $35 a year. Tuition alone was 4 pounds ($13.33.)
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