656 - HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY

CHAPTER XXIV.*

HOMER TOWNSHIP—ITS PHYSICAL CONTOUR—THE FIRST SETTLER—A GERMAN COLONY—ITS
POLITICAL ORGANIZATION—A MINING COMPANY—RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES—AGRI-
CULTURAL PURSUITS—ITS CHURCHES AND SCHOOLHOUSES.

THE pioneer histories of the different townships in the western part of Medina County are in many respects the same. What were the interests and pursuits of the first members of one settlement were very much the same in the neighboring colony. Many of the incidents of the earlier pioneer days of Harrisville Township belong to territory which is now included in the township of Homer. The two together formed a kind of domestic brotherhood, and their home affiliations were, in many respects. the same. Shortly after the colonization of the Harrisville people, in the Swamp basin " of that township some of its members penetrated further west : a few, at first, as hunters in quest of game which abounded in this entire region, others to open

*Contributed by Charles Neil,

Medina, Ohio.the wilderness, and to establish new homes and settlements. A few rude log huts had been put up in several parts of the township as early as 1817, by migrating Nimrods. The stay of these hunters and trappers was generally of but very short duration, and the extent of their usefulness consisted, in the main, in depleting the number of wolves and bears that overran the country.

What is now Homer was formerly a part of Lorain County, being named Richmond Township, and was attached to Sullivan Township of that county. With the formation of Summit County, the eastern tier of townships of Medina County were set off with the new county organization, and Spencer and Homer were taken from Lorain County and added to Medina.

In the political and geographical divisions of

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Medina County, Homer forms the southwestern township. It is bounded on the east by Harrisville. on the north by Spencer, on the west by Ashland County, and on the south by Ashland and Wayne Counties. Its area and extent are the same as that of the other townships of Medina County, embracing twenty-five square miles. The surface of land is not so diversified as that of some of the other townships of the county. It is slightly undulating, with the ground here and there broken by "spring runs." From west to east the gently rolling surface of the southern part of the township is cut through by one of the fountain streams of Black River, meandering in its course, and affording, at various points, some fine exposures of Cuyahoga shale. In some places, the bluffs are thirty feet high, and the opportunity of tracing out the succession of layers is very good. The rock is soft, gray shale, with interspersed layers of hard, sandy shale, of a lighter color. The latter is occasionally worked out of the riverbed, and used for foundation stone for bridges. buildings, etc.; but it is too hard to be cut well, and long weathering will cause it to disintegrate or split into thin slabs. Concretions of iron are found in the shale of this township, as in others, but the live concretions are infrequent. No good fossil specimens are to be found here, the shale being too soft to hold the forms.

It was a dozen or more years after Harrisville had been colonized that the first permanent settlement was made in Homer. John Park, who had moved into Ohio with his family from his home, near Hookstown, Beaver Co., Penn., in 1818, had, after living two years near Wooster, Wayne County, located in the southwestern part of Harrisville Township. He removed in the spring of 1831, into the territory which is now included in Homer Township, and there made the first permanent settlement. With the assistance of two or three of his sons, who were then growing into manhood, he erected a cabin 1and a few rude structures for the shelter of his domestic animals, consisting of several yoke of oxen and a horse. The wilderness was broken, and, in the course of the coming winter, they had several acres of land cleared, a small part put into wheat, and in the spring they planted their crops of corn, potatoes and oats. About this time Batchelder Wing moved into the neighborhood with his family. These settlers could not be considered isolated in this settlement. It was only a few miles to the center of the Harrisville settlement, which was at this time blooming out into a full-grown civic town. with its attendant pleasures and comforts of life. and, at this time, formed one of the most important localities of the new county of Medina. It was little more than a mile from the new Parks settlement to their nearest neighbors, a half dozen families or more who were located in the western part of Harrisville Township, in and about that part which is now known as Crawford Corners.

Within a few years, several more families immigrated into the new territory and settled on its fertile soil, and underwent the toilsome and laborious drudgery of clearing the land. Among these new arrivals were Duncan Williams, Elijah Wing, Henry Laughman, Asa, Baird, Samuel and Isaac Vanderhoof, Webster Holcomb, Charles and Daniel Perkins, James Stevenson, David Snively, John Douglas, William Finley, George Durk, Solomon Smith, James and Joseph Crawford, Solomon and John Miller and William Jeffreys. All of these pioneers settled permanently with their families inclose proximity to each other, in the south-eastern part of the township. Several more families moved into the neighborhood in 1834 ; among them being Joseph Faulk and Skene Low, who, with his young wife, had come all the way from Scotland to find a new home in the Far West. They came by the Hudson River and Erie Canal to Buffalo, and then by way of Lake Erie to Cleveland, making a set-

658 - HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

tlement among the Homer people. In the meantime, and while yet the part of the township which today forms the Center, and where the village of Homerville is now located. was an unbroken forest, settlements had been made in the northeastern part of the township by a new class of people. and of different race affiliations from their neighbors a little way south. There were several families of German Pennsylvanians. who had come from their home State and had made settlements in this new country. Among the first of these were Eli Garman. Jonathan Holburn and John Miller. who bought tracts of land of Samuel Neal, an Eastern land speculator. This was in the year 1833. The first of these settlers. Eli Garman. after having located his land and built a log cabin with other accessory buildings, returned to Pennsylvania and soon after returned with his young wife, whom he had left at the home in his native State. Many of their people from the German districts in old Pennsylvania. soon followed these first pioneers in the new settlement. A large area of forest lands was soon transformed into fruitful fields. and this German colony in a short time became one of the most populous districts in the township. Industrious. frugal and thrifty, these Germans have wrested wealth and riches from the soil. and have grown into one of the most important elements in the agricultural life of Homer Township.

In the year 1833, an effort was made for a separate township organization by some of the settlers of Homer. After the grant had been given by the County Commissioners for a distinct township organization with the regular political powers, the work was at once completed with a special election of civil officers for the new corporation. The election was held in a little log schoolhouse in the Vanderhoof District in June, 1834. There were nineteen voters, and, as near as can be learned, their names were William Duncan. James Stevenson. Daniel Snively, John Park. John Tanner, John Douglas, George Durk, Elijah Wing. Batchelder Wing, Samuel and Isaac Vanderhoof, John and William Jeffrey. Charles and Daniel Perkins, Asa Baird. Webster Holcomb, Solomon Miller and William Jeffrey. The Judges of Election were Batchelder Wing. John Tanner. and Asa Baird. The board of township officers elected at this first town meeting" were John Tanner, John Park and Batchelder Wing, as Trustees Webster Holcomb as Constable, and Isaac Vanderhoof as Clerk. Asa Baird was elected a Justice of the Peace. and he served in this capacity for a number of years. Several minor offices were also brought at once into operation. There was an Overseer of the Poor, an "Earmark " Recorder. a Fence Overseer, a half-dozen or more Road Supervisorships, and last. but by no means least. the Tax-Lister. The good people of the infant township managed it with such tact that about every one of its citizens filled some sort of a township office. But this was all a matter of honorable distinction. as there was no money in any one of these offices. In the spring election of the next year, the total vote had increased to twenty-seven.     ,

It was about this time that the first settlements at the center of the township, where now stands the little hamlet of Homerville, were made. Asa and Osias Baird, the latter of whom had moved up from Big Prairie, in Wayne County, were the first settlers at this point. Another settlement had also been made in the northwest part of the township. Hence, it was deemed necessary that the seat of government should be centrally located, so the next election was held at the Center settlement, in a little log school-building that had been erected the year before. This was the Presidential election, in which Martin Van Buren was chosen Chief Magistrate of the Union ; and, if all reports are true. the people of Homer did not take any unusual interest in the national contest. There were but seventeen voters recorded on the poll-list. At the next spring election for township

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officers, forty-two voters cast their ballots. From thence forward, more interest seems to have been manifested by the citizens of the town in political affairs. The township now also, from year to year, became more thickly populated. Immigrants came in from every direction. The first tax-list of personal property, made out by the Township Assessor in 1835, recorded seven horses and forty-two cattle, and the value of personal property was estimated at $1,735. The Medina County Tax Duplicates for 1840 show that the value of lands and buildings in Homer Township was $42,812 ; the value of personal property, S4,440 ; and the taxes assessed for that year. $693.51. In 1845. the value of lands and buildings had decreased to $33.710, and the personal property had increased to $11.140 and the total amount of taxes levied for this year was $673.45. In 1850, the value of the real estate in the township had advanced to $127,340. and the personal property to $24,208. The taxes amounted to $947.64. In the next decade, the value of real and personal property in the township had more than doubled itself, the former being assessed at $287.700. and the latter at $84,722, and the taxes collected for that year show a total of $3.042.13. To show the gradual development of the township from its infancy up to the present date, we need but look at the increase in population from its earliest days. In 1833, there were seventy-two souls in the little colony ; in 1840. it had reached 653, and in 1850, it had reached a total of 1,102. From that date forward, the township, strange and singular as it may seem in a new and growing country, has decreased in population. In 1860, there were 993 persons enumerated, and in 1870, no more than 886. The census returns of 1880, show a population of 865 souls. The number of voters, or such of them as practiced their rights of American citizenship, which, from nineteen at the township organization in 1833, had gone to forty-two in 1837 ; and, in 1840, to 132 ; in 1850; reached 273. Ten years later, the vote of the township stood 231 ; and, in 1870, it was 215. At the Presidential election, held on the 2d of November, 1880. there were 227 votes cast.

An early event of some importance in the young settlement was the birth of a daughter to John Park and wife. This occurred in August, 1833. The young child was named Harriet. Another event of note, which occurred several years later—notable from the fact that it was the first of the kind in the township—was the marriage of Charles Atkins and Elizabeth Campbell. Many social affairs of a similar kind came in quick succession in the following years, as the township had been quite extensively settled by this time. There was plenty of " giving in marriage." Each one of these matrimonial occurrences caused a ripple of excitement in the settlement, as is the usual wont in all localities of the civilized world. Numerous attentions were bestowed upon the young people who had just launched on the sea of wedlock just as much so then as it is today. Generally, these attentions were often of a more forcible than elegant nature. One of the greatest commotions that ever disturbed the equanimity of the Homer people, and one which threatened to create serious disturbances in the colony, was caused by a jubilee indulged in by a number of young people, in honor of a wedding. A young couple had been united in marriage in the summer of 1856. The young men of the neighborhood decided to give them the customary charivari, or " belling." On the night appointed, the " boys " gathered, twenty or thirty strong, arrayed in fantastic dress, and equipped with tin pans, bells, " horse-fiddles," and various other instruments, to make hideous noises. The house of the father of the bride, in which the young couple were staying, was surrounded by the " bellers " in the evening. After darkness had set in, and the tumult commenced, shotguns were fired, and a live goose

660 - HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

was thrown into the bridal chamber. The " belling " was done up in " grand and good old style," as one of the participants related. The event would have been forgotten in a short time, and nothing serious would have come of it, if the irate father-in-law of the young husband had not sworn vengeance upon the gay and troublesome disturbers. On the next day, the old gentleman had State warrants of arrest issued for all the young men whose names he had learned. Fifteen or twenty of the " bellers,'" some of them mere boys, were arrested under a charge of riot and destruction of property. Preliminary hearings were had. and the boys were bound over in bonds of $1,000 each. all of which was promptly furnished by resident property-holders. The affair now assumed serious proportions to the people who had become entangled, and there were very few people who did not take sides one way or another, though by far the larger part stood by the boys. and were bound, cost what it might, to see them safely through. Eminent counsel were employed on either side, and, at the coming session of the Common Pleas Court at Medina, the people of Homer moved in a long caravan, by four-horse teams, with streaming banners, in. vehicles of all kinds, and on horseback, toward the county seat. The trial continued for several days, amidst the greatest excitement, and ended up with the acquittal of the young men. In long line of procession, the young men, with their hosts of friends, who had accompanied them to the trial, returned to their homes in Homer, singing and shouting. For many days. this affair remained the chief topic of conversation of the Homer people. The plaintiff in this singular case was finally compelled to sell out his estate on account of the expenses of the case. The cost of proceedings and attorney's' fees amounted to several thousand dollars. He quitted the neighborhood and moved out West.

It is not definitely known at what time or bywhose suggestion the town was named. It is surmised that one of the itinerant ministers who visited the colony in its earlier days. pro-posed to the people to name it after the poet Homer. of whom he was a warm admirer. This suggestion was probably accepted by the organizers of the township. It was not many years after the township had been organized and the Center had been quite well colonized, that a petition was sent to the United States Post Office Department. to have the village set apart as a post office. The petition was granted, and an office was established at the Center. By order of the Department at Washington, a biweekly mail route was run from Harrisville to the new post office. Milan Beaman was the first mail-carrier between the two points. and he continued in the service for several years, until the mail route was changed. and Homerville became one of the stations on the line running from Wooster to Wellington. Henry P. Camp was the first Postmaster in the village. He was succeeded by A. G. Newton.

The first mercantile business was opened by Asa Baird. He brought a small stock of goods, consisting of a small line of dry goods. linen, thread. twine, a few boots. shoes. hats and caps, and a small variety of sugars, teas, coffees and spices. He also established an ashery. In 1845. Henry P. Camp opened a small country store, in a little, new frame dwelling at the center of the village. The next firm in the business world of Homerville was that of Ainsworth & Newton ; this was a branch establishment of the business conducted by this firm at Lodi. In recent years, A. G. Newton has been the leading, and, during different years, the sole, merchant in the village. He runs a neat, well-constructed business house, and it is the village store par excellence. The village post office is connected with the store. with the proprietor as Postmaster.

Scarcely more extensive than the commercial affairs of the township, are its manufacturing

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developments. A water-mill for sawing wood was established as early as 1839, in the southeast part of the town, along Black River. Edwin Oberlin was the builder and proprietor. He was largely assisted by the settlers, who furnished timber and hauled it to the mill-site. A grist-mill on a small scale was attached to this a few years later. In 1840, John Barnes and James Freeman built a saw and grist mill a few miles east of the Center. Eight years after this, Samuel Stine and Gabriel Moyer had a mill erected on the West Salem road, one and one-half miles south of the Center. In 1850, Henry Camp built the old steam saw-mill now located near the village of Homerville. A few trade and repair shops have been conducted at the village at various times.

The discovery of galena in the river bed in the western part of the township, in 1847. led to considerable excitement among the inhabitants, and this extended beyond and to other parts of the county. The excitement was wrought to a high pitch, and rumor soon had it, that a rich silver mine had been discovered in the township. People came flocking in from every side and the little crystallized cubes in the gray bedrock of the river were looked upon with wonder and astonishment. A lead and silver mining company was organized forthwith, through the efforts of several of the enenthusiasts, and a large tract of land leased along the river bottom. Joseph Hibbard, a farmer living in Harrisville, was the real mover in the undertaking, and entered into the enterprise with all the vim and capital at his command. He was "assisted by P. Holt, Leander Baldwin and Samuel Vanderhoof. These four together, formed the company. Digging was commenced at a point, forty or fifty rods above the bridge that spans Black River, on the Lodi and Homerville road. The work was prosecuted for several weeks amidst great excitement ; but nothing more than what is known as scabs " among the miners of the West, wasfound. The enterprising diggers, were, after awhile, convinced of this delusion in hunting for precious metals in this neighborhood. With this conviction, the work was abandoned. Twenty years later, there was another lead and silver flurry among the people of Homer and Harrisville Townships, but nothing more except the digging of two or these small holes came of it, and since that time, no more has been said of it. By many of the people in the neighborhood it is considered as a good joke.

The pursuits of the Homer people are strictly agricultural. No railroad crosses its territory, and no effort has ever been made by its people to secure a line.

The soil of the township is highly productive, and the crops, in quantity and quality, that are taken from it, will compare quite favorably with any of the townships in the county. Wheat and corn are the chief cereal products. Stock-breeding forms one of the prominent features of the farming pursuits of the Homer husbandmen. In later years, many of its farmers have drifted into the dairy business, which, at the present date, has become a very profitable undertaking. A cheese factory was established by the Vanderhoof Brothers in the winter of 1871, in the western part of the township, on the banks of Black River, and operations commenced the following year. It is now one of the many factories which are conducted by Horr, Warner & Co., of Wellington. Most of the farmers in the northern part of the township are patrons of factories in Spencer, which also belong to the company above referred to. These factories are run on the creamery plan ; that is, making cheese and butter. The level stretches through the township are well adapted for grazing purposes, and, through this fact, more than anything else, the manufacture of cheese and butter forms one of the most prominent parts in the agricultural life of the Homer people.

Some years ago, from 1830 or thereabouts,

662 - HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

to 1854 and 1855, the North American passenger pigeon made the area of land lying in Homerville, Spencer and Harrisville Townships, their annual roosting-places in the spring. They came in large flocks, in countless numbers, and literally took possession of the woods. They built their nests, a few small sticks put together, and remained in the locality during the hatching season, raising their young. In many cases, before the young pigeons had become full-fledged. they would tumble out of their nests. and. for a short time, the ground would be literally strewn with them. The fat young birds made a luscious diet for the farmer's hogs. which were, in those days. rooting out their existence in the woods. In the years from 1850, this area on which the birds were nesting became the rendezvous of pigeon hunters from the East. with headquarters at Lodi. The pigeons were killed by the thousands and shipped to markets in the East. In later years. these birds have abandoned this territory as a nesting-ground, though they stop here now occasionally for feeding purposes, but in greatly diminished numbers.

Public worship commenced among the people of Homer colony with the days when their first homes were established in the new land. Prayer-meetings were first held in the little cabins, by the glimmer of burning logs on the rude hearth. Hymns of praise and devotion were sung with earnestness and holy resignation, by fathers, mothers, wives and children. The home of Isaac Vanderhoof, standing on an open bluff on the bank of Black River. in the west part of the township, was the place where the sturdy pioneers oftenest congregated to offer up their religious consecrations. As many as twenty and thirty people gathered at times. during the years 1833 and 1834. to participate in the devotional exercises. Circuit riders from the Wellington and Black River Circuits called at the settlement and conducted these meetings. very simple though they were.but no less impressive to the hearts of the worshipers than the most ornate and pompous church services of the present day. Isaac Vanderhoof was the leading spirit in these religious movements. In the fall of 1834, an organization on the broad plan of the Methodist Episcopal Church creed was effected. The first communicants in the colony in this church organization. were Isaac Vanderhoof and his wife. Elizabeth Mattison. Betsey Kelley and Mrs. Roxy Vanderhoof. the wife of Samuel Vanderhoof. Regular church services were held from that year on. in the log schoolhouse which stood in the neighborhood where these people resided. For the first few years after organization. regular meetings were held only once every four weeks. The Rev. James Kellum was the first stated minister of this congregation. This was in the years 1835 and 18343. In 1837. the Rev. Mr. Morey was the visiting minister in the colony. He was followed by the Rev. John Kellum. From 1840 forward. the Rev. Hugh L. Parish. of Wellington, had charge of this church organization. until. in 1843. when he was followed by the Rev. Mr. Reynolds and the Rev. John Hazzard. of West Salem. The meetings were now held every other Sunday, but they continued in the little schoolhouse in the Vanderhoof district until in the year 1861, when the present church edifice of this society was erected at the center of the village of Homerville. It now belongs to the West Salem charge of the Wooster District of the Northern Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Religious services are now held every Sunday. On the church record are now given the names of over one hundred members.

Some religious movements were made by the settlers in the northwestern part of the township, immediately after its first settlement. These people belonged to the Protestant Methodist Church. James Pennywell and Thomas Alberts were the leaders in these movements.

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The meetings were held in private houses, and for a time in the schoolhouse in that section. At irregular intervals, itinerant ministers made calls there, and preached the Gospel to the people. No permanent organization was ever effected, and after a few years the meetings were entirely discontinued. Some of these settlers and their descendants have joined the Methodist Episcopal society at the Center Church.

Some of the settlers in the southwest part of the township, in conformity to the faith of their ancestors, organized in the year 1840, in anion with Harrisville people of the same faith, a Presbyterian Church society, at Crawford's Corners, and maintained it separate and distinct for a term of five years. The Rev. Vernon Noyes was the officiating minister during this time. After that, they disbanded the organization, and nearly all of them joined the Presbyterian society located at West Salem, three miles distant in Wayne County.

The religious belief and training that had been inculcated in the German settlers at their homes in Pennsylvania, manifested itself, in its outward form, soon after their advent in the new settlement in Homer. The few families that were at first in the settlement, gathered at one of the houses, and worship was held there. This occurred regularly from time to time, though at no time did their gatherings reach a larger number than a dozen. The grand old German hymns, in the native tongue of Martin Luther, were sung in earnest tones ; these informal meetings were held at the houses of Eli Garman and John Miller ; and not unfrequently, during the summer days, they were held in a barn or in the open woods. When the first settlement of five or six families had been augmented to fifteen or twenty, by new arrivals, a church organization was effected in the summer of 1837. A plat of ground, where now the church edifice of this society is located, was leased by Eli Garman and John Miller, and in 1838 a little log church was erected thereon. In conformity to the old German custom of the Vaterland, the churchyard was used as a burial-ground for the deceased members of the church families. The first person buried in this ground, even before a church had been built upon it, was a young son of Eli Garman, who had died in the winter of 1837. The Rev. Johan Shuh, located as Lutheran minister in a German settlement in Orange Township, Ashland County, preached the funeral sermon. After the little log church-house had been erected in 1838, regular services commenced, and were held every alternate Sabbath day. The Rev. Mr. Shuh officiated as the Pastor, and the organization joined, as a separate parish, the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. The services were entirely conducted in German during these days. The first minister was afterward succeeded by the Rev. August Beckerman. The present church building, which is one of the largest in Medina County, was erected in the year 1855, on the site of the old log house which had been removed. Regularly stationed ministers were then retained, and the society grew in prosperity and influence. Over fifty families belonged to the church, and its membership embraced over three hundred persons. (As infant baptism is one of the sacramental doctrines of this denomination, the young are classed as regular members.) In 1862, a local schism broke out in this society and caused a separation. The seceding members formed a separate church organization, and connected with the "Joined Synod" of the German Reformed Church of Ohio. They erected a house of worship, one mile west of the old building, and commenced regular church services. The members of the new church were Dennis and George Miller, John Shelhart, Andreas Billman, John Bennader, Jacob Fursahl, Phillip Rice, John Rice, Adam Koons, Solomon Heiman, Jacob Nasal, Leonard Hummert and Henry Haulk. The Rev. Carl Wendy, of Phil-

664 - HISTORY OF MEDINA COUNTY.

adelphia, Penn., was the first officiating clergyman of this society. He located in the settlement for a number of years. The church services, which at first were exclusively conducted in the German language, are now conducted in both English and German.

Another church society established in Homerville, is the Evangelical (Albrights). It was organized in 1865, by Benjamin Weatherstine, John Herkey, Tobias Heberly, David Frank and Esther Beavelhammer. This is merely an adjunct of the church society of that name located in West Salem, and ministers of the latter society are supplied to the Homer society. An edifice was constructed in 1865, at the Center of Homerville, and, meetings have been held regularly since that year. Yearly revival meetings are held in this church, and the out-ward signs of religious enthusiasm generally run high.

The society of Dunkards—or "Fuswascher, as they were originally called in Germany, by the originator of the creed, Alexander Mack—forms a considerable portion of the church history of Homer Township. A few of the members of this faith had settled in the township in the years from 1845 to 1850. The first of these settlers were Samuel Hart and Joseph Rittenhouse, who had come from the Dunkard settlement near Germantown, Penn. Others came and settled with their families near them. True to their faith, they soon evidenced a desire to profess in the regular and accepted formula of their belief. Meetings were instituted at private houses and in barns. Their quaint and peculiar services were conducted in these places for a number of years. During the regularly appointed Pentecostal meetings of this sect, which occur in the spring and fall of each year, these Homer people would journey to a Dunkard settlement near Ashland, and participate in the religions festivities of a love-feast and " feet-washing." In the year 1870, a Dunkard meeting-house, very plain in its architectural finish, was erected through the efforts of the leading members of the church, and regularly appointed meetings commenced, Joseph Rittenhouse and Samuel Garver officiating as ministers. The people of the faith. who are scattered about in the neighboring townships of Chatham, Harrisville, Westfield and Sullivan, come here to worship. Aside from the striking simplicity of their church services. these people. in their daily walks of life and everyday habits, abstain as much as possible from interference with worldly affairs. They are exceedingly plain in their dress, and eschew the pleasures of tbe world.

Equal in general interest to political affairs of a civil corporation is the origin, rise and development of the system of education ; and. here in Homer, schools commenced as they did in the other pioneer settlements in this great land of the West. In many instances, the place of teaching the young minds was the rude log cabin of a settler. and some kind-hearted soul, father or mother or grownup daughter, volunteered their services to instruct the young. Then a small log hut. with logs for seats, no light except through the open door and an aperture in the wall. Such an one was the first in Homer Township of which we have any knowledge. It was built in 1833. and stood on the site of the present neat, well lighted and ventilated schoolhouse. about two and one-half miles southeast of the center of Homer.* James Park, a son of Squire John Park, the pioneer of the Township, a young man then about twenty-three years of age, was the first tutor. He dealt out instruction in the rudimentary branches of learning at this schoolhouse for a number of years, and acquitted himself in a very creditable manner. His wages, which had been at first only 75 cents per week and board, had been increased to $12 per month in the second year of his teaching. A few years after the establishment of this what is now known as the Duncan Williams Schoolhouse.

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schoolhouse, another was built in the Vanderhoof District, one and one-half miles north. Miss Lucretia Youngs was the first teacher in this district. In 1837, a schoolhouse, after the primitive pattern of pioneer schoolhouses, and identical in its makeup to its two predecessors. was erected at the center of the township. William Potts. here as the first. assumed the functions of a pedagogue. In the course of two or three years, several more schoolhouses were erected in the township one in the northwest corner. and one in the German settlement, in the northeast. The first subdivision of school districts was made in 1837. and a township Board of School Directors was created. There were then five school districts. In 1842. a redivision was made, and the number of districts was increased by two, making seven, the present number of districts in the township. When young James Park. in the spring of 1833, first assumed the functions as public instructor in the colony, there were just fourteen scholars. Only nine responded with their presence on the opening day of school. Very much in accordance with the ill-constructed architectural makeup of the little school cabin was the daily routine of teaching and the text-books used from which to draw the rivulet of learning. At the first enumeration of the school children between the ages of six and twenty in Homer Township, made in 1833, there were found 14. Two years later, there were 27. In 1840, the number of children of the proper school age was 229 ; ten years later, it reached 479. Since that date, the number has retrograded with the general population of the township to 210. Today, there are seven schoolhouses in the township, supplied with all the advantages of a modern, well-regulated schoolhouse; neat and cleanly within, attractive in their outward appearances ; healthful places, where the young children congregate, and a proper stimulus is given to their young minds.