CHAPTER X.
EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT.
THE first schools in Ross county were all supported by subscription or by assessment upon the patrons according to the number of children they sent to school. There was no law requiring the establishment of public schools, after the modern fashion, until 1825, and it was a good while after that before anything closely resembling the common school system of today had been evolved. It should not be hastily concluded from this that education was neglected. Parents who could afford it gave their children the advantage of good schools, as good as could be maintained, and among those who were very poor there was much self-sacrifice that the children might be educated and prepared for better success than their fathers and mothers in the struggle of life. Some very poor boys in Ohio, in that period when there were no common schools, supplemented the little schooling they could obtain by firelight reading, and so beginning, became in later years the great men of the State, and a few of them the greatest men of the nation. The difference, comparing the present with the early part of the nineteenth century in Ross county, is that now the schools are open without cost to boys and girls, without regard to their family importance or family wealth, and it is no disgrace to attend a free school. Then it was, and free schools were sometimes called "pauper" schools. So, it may be observed, we are more truly democratic today than the fathers who considered themselves the special champions of human equality.
The first schoolhouse in Chillicothe, says Williams' history, was a small log cabin, built some time before 1800, on the northeast corner of Fourth and Paint streets, on the spot afterward occupied by the residence of Joseph Sill. There was no such building there in 1810, and the location given may he wrong. But at whatever spot the school was kept, it appears that the first, or one of the first, to teach, was Nathaniel Johnston, of Irish extraction, and uncle of Mrs. James
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McLandburgh. After teaching many years in Chillicothe, he made his home upon a farm in Springfield township, where he died in 1837. Says the Centennial Gazette: "The first school house in this place [Chillicothe] was made of logs and stood near the old graveyard which used to be on the bank of the river immediately west of the present Bridge street bridge. It was built by private subscription about 1799, and was used as a school until February, 1802, when it was sold by trustee Thomas Dick." On April 1, 1802, John Hutt, a brother of the first supervisor at Chillicothe, opened a girl's school to take the place of the one that had been kept in a log house near the upper end of what is now Bridge street, on Water.
As settlements were made in other parts of the county, schools were established in a similar manner, often being held in such log cabins as happened to be empty. In Green township a log school-house was built near the home of Taylor Moore, as early as 1810, another near the old Pleasant church about 1815. Long school-house, of hewed logs, was built with Harmon DeHaven as the architect, about 1812, and others followed as the needs of the people increased. Among the early teachers were Jonathan Griffith, Jacob Evans, Hugh Sherry, Moses Brown, Henry Halverstot, Henry Emstow, Alexander Gordon.
In Colerain James S. Webster taught the first school at Adelphi, using a loghouse which also served as church. The first schoolhouse proper was built between the two little streams east of Hallsville, on the south side of the pike in 1827. In 1844 or 1845 the township boasted a brick schoolhouse, of one room, in which Thomas Armstrong was the first teacher, and in 1870 a handsome and expensive house, of two rooms, was built at Adelphi.
Union township had a schoolhouse at South Union about the year 1800, of puncheon floor, roof of clapboards, greased paper windows, and seats of split slabs supported by wooden pins, after the fashion of all the early schoolhouses.
In Harrison township the first schoolhouse was in the valley of the Little Walnut, where Samuel Yaple, father of Judge Alfred Yaple, was one of the early teachers.
In Liberty township schools were taught in the early part of the last century by William Slaughter and John A. Dailey, in section Fifteen. In Huntington the first school was taught by Thomas Gilfillen, not far from Ralston's run, and other early teachers were Benning Wentworth, Zebulon Dow, and Theophilus Wood. Concord township had among its pioneer teachers John McNally, Massie Mickie, Wall, Sperry, Ashton, Langdon and Charles Foster. In 1847 a building was erected at Frankfort for an academy, in which the township at. a later day established a graded school, with several teachers, that has done good work for the cause of education.
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The excellent graded school at Bainbridge and district schools of Paxton township had their predecessors, in the days of settlement, in log cabin schools taught by teachers of whom a few names remain, such as James Grey, Cowley, French and King.
Among the early teachers in Buckskin township were Benjamin McClure, Hugh McKenzie, John Organ and Aaron Cox, and Samuel Buck, the latter teaching about 1808 near Waugh's chapel. James Caldwell, who came to the county in 1805 from near Chambersburg, Pa., and taught on Buckskin creek, continued in his profession during the most of his life, and during the war of 1812 showed his patriotism by serving as first sergeant of Captain Kilgore's company.
James Finley, an old soldier of the Revolution, is remembered as the first teacher in Springfield township, in a house on the farm of George Haynes.
Further information regarding these beginnings of public education is given in the township chapters.
The Chillicothe academy, one of the famous schools of its rank in Ohio, was founded early in the nineteenth century, and the building was erected, in the center of a block on South Paint street, in 1809. It was an imposing edifice for that day and compared favorably with any public building in Ohio two stories in height, about seventy-five feet long by forty-five broad, and surmounted by a cupola, in which the bell was hung. For some years, however, the building remained unfinished. An Irish teacher, named Dunn, carried on a school for the teaching of English in the front lower room of the building, and a "Lancastrian" school was established in the largest second story room by Daniel W. Hearn. In 1816, after several years of rather irregular management, Rev. John McFarland, pastor of the Presbyterian Reformed church, was put at the head of the institution, which was reorganized. Mr. McFarland took charge of the classical department, and Mr. Hearn for many years was the instructor of the intermediate or English room. Hearn, and the books he taught, such as Webster's spelling book, Morse's geography, Pike's arithmetic, and Murray's grammar, are probably remembered better than anything else about the old academy. This worthy teacher of the old time always kept a good supply of rods on his desk and found frequent use for them. The noon hour he spent in writing copies in the penmanship books of the pupils, and in manufacturing pens for their use from goose quills, and the rest of the time, from eight in the morning till six in the evening, he was busily engaged in the instruction of boys and girls of various ages and acquirements. The task of such educational pioneers was far in excess of that encountered by any of the teachers of today. After McFarland's time the classical teachers were Rev. Robert G. Wilson, Rev. Joseph Claybaugh, Mr. Kellogg and Rev.
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William T. Findley, all of whom contributed by their efficiency to make the academy famous among the thoroughly good schools of the West. The old academy still stands and is in use as a part of the central school building.
Most noted among the early teachers of the girls of Chillicothe was Mary K. Baskerville. She was born in Powhatan county, Va., with, it is said, some of the blood of the Indian princess, Pocahontas, in her veins, and came to Ohio with her father, Col. Samuel Baskerville, in 1807. Their home was at London, Madison county, where she made the acquaintance of a party of Chillicothe lawyers, attending court--William Creighton, Richard Douglas, Henry Brush, Thomas Scott and Jesup N. Couch--who persuaded her to come to Chillicothe and undertake the instruction of their children. Her school was established in a low, one-story frame house on West Second street, where many of the ladies of Chillicothe received their first school instruction. By one of them she is thus described in the "Chelecothe Souvenir" : "In person Miss Baskerville was tall, erect and majestic: she realized in her air and costume the ideal of the Maiden Queen; she always wore the Elizabethan ruff and close clustering curls, and surely Queen Bess never sat her throne more majestically than our stately school dame the simple, high backed chair whence she governed her little realm. Her step of dignified precision gained effect from the high-heeled and buckled shoes that she always wore ; her dress, winter and summer, was of purest white, unrelieved, save by confining belt and buckle and the dependent chain and seals of her heavy gold watch." It is related that one of her pupils, Lucy Webb (afterward the wife of President Hayes), took to school one day a small cousin (known in later years as Gen. J. S. Fullerton) as a visitor, and for some reason Miss Baskerville found it advisable to apply the switch to the young man. Lucy flew at the teacher like a fury, twisted the switch from her hands and made a passionate remonstrance against the punishment of a visitor, and the grim old lady felt herself enough at fault to only smile and send the children home. In addition to the common branches of study Miss Baskerville taught the girls fine needle work and embroidery, an art in which she was thoroughly accomplished. Miss Baskerville died at the Clinton House in April, 1859, having outlived many of her friends of the early days.
In 1820 or 1821 Mr. Steinour, an Englishman, with his wife and sister-in-law, began a boarding school for girls in a one-story house on the corner of Mulberry and Main where the mill now stands, and afterward in a brick building on East Main street, near the house of John McDougall. The sister-in-law was soon married, and the others of the family presently removed to Philadelphia. Another among the early teachers was a Mr. Gregoire, who taught French,
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and whose little daughter inspired in Allen G. Thurman an attachment for that language.
In 1824 Mrs. Thurman, wife of Pleasant Thurman and mother of Senator Thurman, in association with Mrs. Wade and her daughters, began a very popular boarding school for young ladies in the house previously occupied by Judge Thompson. They offered to teach besides the common branches, history, natural and moral philosophy, astronomy, drawing, painting, embroidery on muslin and satin, wax-work, plain sewing, netting, music and French." Tuition was at the highest $5 a quarter, but wax-work was $10 extra, and board and washing was offered at the extremely reasonable figure of $2 a week. Some time before this, Mrs. Thurman was teaching, as appears from the advertisement of "P. & M. G. Thurman" in 1820 that they "have moved their school to the house formerly occupied by the Methodists as a preaching house, on Walnut street." This was probably the old log house, northwest corner of Second and Walnut.
In 1830 there was started on East Fifth street a "Female Seminary," by Rev. John Pumroy. His assistants, as told by the prospectus of the school, were Misses Eunice L. Strong, Cassandra Sawyer, S. A. Stearns and S. A. Smith. This was probably the start of the "Chillicothe Seminary," which afterward occupied the square brick building on West Fifth, built about 1835-6, and recently torn down to make way for the city high school. After the health of Mr. Pumroy failed, his assistant, Miss S. A. Stearns, was for many years the head of the Chillicothe seminary, aided for some time by Sophia Lyman, who became the wife of Dr. William Fullerton. Under Miss Stearns' direction the school became famous throughout Ohio, and attracted many pupils. When Robert Kercheval died, to whom the principal was affianced, Miss Stearns left Chillicothe, and gradually the glory of the institution departed. The school was incorporated in 1833, with John Woodbridge, W. K. Bond, R. Long, D. W. Hearn and Thomas James as trustees, James T. Worthington, secretary. The trustees of the Chillicothe academy in 1835 deeded the seminary a lot, and a building was erected in which a private school was kept until recent times, after the seminary had practically ceased to be. In 1000 the seminary trustees transferred the lot to the city, and on it was built, in 1900-1901, the present high school building.
The people of Franklin and Concord townships in 1819 started a boarding school, in which it was proposed that. the promoters of the schools should furnish a house and the pupils supply the furniture and caretaking. It was stated in the prospectus that. "Part of one day in each week shall be devoted to the teaching of the Catechism, the Rudiments of the Christian Religion, and the Principal Doctrines of the Everlasting Gospel."
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Near Salem, an ambitious teacher, named Nesbit, started a select school as early as 1820, which was called Nesbit's college. He gave instruction in the higher branches and classic languages. In 1842, Rev. H. S. Fullerton, pastor of the Salem Presbyterian church, proposed to his congregation and other citizens of the town the founding of an academy for higher instruction than the common schools afforded, and the matter was taken up with so much enthusiasm that a stone building was soon in construction, and in the fall of the same year the academy was opened under the direction of James S. Fullerton and John Huston, both Presbyterian ministers in the West in after life, and Martha J. Fullerton. who became many years later a missionary among the western Indians. Rev. John C. Thompson became the principal in the fall of 1843, and he was succeeded five years later by Rev. J. A. I. Lowes, who, with an intermission in 1858-59, during which Rev. I. J. Cushman was in charge, continued until 1870. Subsequently Revs. Heber Gilland, Thomas J. Dague, Thomas S. Huggart, and others have been in charge. The institution went into the hands of the Chillicothe presbytery in 1859, and has since been conducted by them. A building was erected to supplement the original edifice, an adequate corps of teachers have been employed, and throughout the years many hundred students have profited by this educational enterprise. Despite the loss of students during the civil war, and later inroads made by the increased efficiency of common and high schools, this famous "child of Salem church" has been maintained in existence, and throughout sixty years has not failed to graduate a class each year, a record that many of the small educational institutions of the State can not equal. In recent years there has been a gratifying increase in attendance. Among the students of the academy that have attained special distinction may be mentioned Stephen D. Merrill, D. D., LL. D., bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church, who was a student at old Salem in its early clays ; Granville Barrere, for a long time a prominent member of Congress; the late Judge Alfred Yaple, of Cincinnati; J. W. McDill, former railroad commissioner of Iowa, congressman and United States senator; Hon. J. J. Pugsley, and Senator Joseph B. Foraker.
The common school system had not been sufficiently developed, as late as 1849, to make academies superfluous. In that year Mount Pleasant academy, at Kingston, was organized by Rev. Timothy Stearns, the first suggestion being made by him when delivering an address there in memory of the fiftieth anniversary of the organization of the Mount Pleasant Presbyterian church. Mr. Stearns was successful in securing subscriptions for an academy, as a memorial of the church, and when a substantial two-story brick building had been erected, it was committed to the control and fostering influence of the Columbus Presbytery. The principal teacher at first was
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Rev. James Stirrett, and he obtained exclusive control of the school from the presbytery in 1857, but within a year or two afterward he died, and with the loss of his management the institution lost the prominence it had attained. Daniel Entrekin owned the property for some time afterward and he donated its use to the teachers who attempted to carry forward the work. In its palmy days the academy had some eighty students and considerable fame as an educational center. Finally, in 1867, James and John May, who then owned it, sold the building to the school district. The present principal, Prof. A. E. Ellis, an educator of well-known success, and a member of the county board of school examiners, has been at the head of the school for more than half the time since 1867, and other worthy instructors have been associated with him, making the Kingston school a name for thoroughness and practical work second to none in the county.
The public schools of Chillicothe were organized under what was known as the Akron law, about 1849, and in 1850 two building sites were purchased by the board of education, one in the northwestern part of the city, now occupied by the Western building, and one nearly opposite the present Baltimore & Ohio railroad depot. Bonds were issued to defray the expenses of building; in the following year a portion of the grounds of the Academy were purchased for a central building, and two of the buildings, the eastern and western, were completed soon after the great fire of 1852. Before the completion of the buildings, Allen G. Latham was the president of the board of education, and Daniel W. Hearn the first superintendent Thomas C. Hearn, principal of the high school for boys; Sarah M. Burnside, principal of the high school for girls. Besides these were secondary schools for each sex, and primary schools in which the girls and boys were mingled, and there was an enumeration of 2,168 of school age.
When the buildings were completed and the schools graded, L. E. Warner was made superintendent of the system, and in 1853, when the central school was completed, the high schools were brought together there. James Long was superintendent in 1854, and he was succeeded in 1855 by Edward H. Allen, who reorganized the schools with the grades of primary, secondary, grammar and high school, covering a period of twelve years' instruction, and a general superintendent was dispensed with, the management being reposed in a board of superintendence, including the high and grammar school principals. This system continued until 1874. The members of this board in 1861, Edward H. Allen, Benjamin F. Stone and James A. Morgan, resigned in the fall of 1861 to enter the Union army.
The first class to complete the course of study and graduate in 1859 was Maria McNeil, Margaret McKell and Olivia Alston. In 1855 the school library was established, which grew with aid from
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the teachers, local societies and the State, to seventeen hundred volumes in 1860.
The first eastern school building was sold, and a new building at the northwest corner of Main and Bridge streets completed in 1872 at a cost of about seventy-five thousand dollars, and about the same time an addition was made to the western building at a cost of $10,000. In 1874 the schools of the city were reorganized, under one general superintendent, with principals at each building, and the classification of primary, grammar and high schools adopted, with four years' instruction in each.
A building for colored pupils was erected on South Walnut street in 1874, and in 1875 the Old Academy building was refitted for the use of the central school, adding four rooms to the accommodation.
The board of education of Chillicothe consists of two members elected from each of the six wards, and its present organization is as follows: , President, Albert E. Culter ; clerk, F. C. Secrest ; treasurer, Geo. Wooster. Members of the Board: First ward, Forrest C. Seerest, Lucius Burgeon; Second ward, A. I. Fullerton, Geo. Wooster; Third ward, Albert E. Culter, W. W. Gunther ; Fourth ward, John Doerres, Charles E. Larimore; Fifth ward, Gilbert E. Robbins, Albert Keim ; Sixth ward, James I. Boulger, John Miller. The public schools occupy seven convenient and commodious buildings known by the following designations : High school, new high school, central school, eastern school, southern school, western school and Jackson school. These are in charge of the following named principals, in the order named: George H. Bemis, F. W. Yaple, Wade J. Byerly, Helen E. Veail, H. E. Streightenberger and Anna J. Hayes. There are five special teachers, of penmanship and drawing, music and German, and in the High School there are instructors making specialties of Latin and Greek, history, German and French, and natural sciences. Eighteen teachers are employed in the grammar grades, and thirty-two in the primary, with three substitute teachers under pay. The monthly pay roll, during the school year, aggregates above four thousand dollars. The contingent and schoolhouse expenses augment these figures materially, hence the school expenses of the city may be conservatively estimated at five thousand dollars per school month. The school property and apparatus, in the various departments, foots up into the hundreds of thousands. N. H. Chaney, D. D., recently retired, was superintendent of the city schools for several years, and possessed the confidence of teachers, pupils, and patrons in a remarkable degree. He is recognized as one of the ablest educators in the State, and his efficiency and good standing among his subordinates have had much to do with the high standard of excellence attained by Chillicothe's public schools. Dr. Chaney's successor is Prof. M. E. Hard, formerly of Sidney, O.
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In the smaller towns of the county there are excellent schools of higher grades than the common schools, of which mention is made in the township histories. Altogether the school system of the county is worthy of its historical importance and widespread fame.
Ross county now has in the township districts 170 schoolhouses for elementary schools, and three high schools; in the separate districts 16 elementary schools and three high schools, making a grand total of 192 school buildings, with 268 rooms. The value of the school property in the township districts is $126,550; in the separate districts, $131,000, making an aggregate of $257,550. Two hundred and seventy-three teachers are employed, teaching thirty-one to thirty-two weeks in the township schools and thirty-six in the others, at salaries ranging from $34 to $85 per month. The enumeration of children of school age (between 6 and 21) is 12,267, of whom 9,500 are in the Virginia military district. The actual enrollment of pupils is 7:1 per cent of the enumeration in the township districts and 82 per cent in the separate districts. There are six high schools in the township districts and four in the separate districts. The average cost of tuition of the pupils enrolled is $9 in the elementary schools, and $15.60 in the high schools of the townships, and $9.40 in the elementary and $31.40 in the high schools of the separate districts. The county received from the State, mainly from the common school fund, $20,957 for the support of education in 1900; from local taxation $104,935; from the sale of bonds, $47,099 ; from all other sources, $1,930, making the total receipts but a little less than $175,000, to which should be added a balance on hand September 1. 1899, of $58,457, swelling the aggregate funds to $233,381. Out of this there was paid $83,344 to teachers in elementary schools, and $8,455 to teachers in high schools ; $2,855 for supervision, $2,136 on buildings and grounds, $2,800 on bonds and interest, and $24,300 for all other purposes, making an aggregate expenditure of $123,942. On September 1, 1900, the close of the fiscal year, the balance on hand was $109,438.
In the city of Chillicothe, with its seven schoolhouses and seventy-two school rooms, the total value of school property is $105,000, sixty-five teachers are employed, at salaries ranging from $43 to $100 ; the enumeration is 3,878, enrollment 2,471, daily attendance 1,989. The receipts for the year were $90,950 and expenditures $45,330.
In the county there are the village and special districts of Bainbridge, J. A. Shannon, superintendent, and school property valued at $10,000, annual expenditures, $3,332 ; Frankfort, J. A. Drushel, superintendent, property valued at $8,800, annual expenditures, $2,766 ; Hallsville, J. F. Warner, superintendent, property valued at $3,000, annual expenditures, $1,085: Kingston, A. L. Ellis, superintendent, property valued at $10,000, annual expenditures,
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$2,190 ; and North Union, property valued at $3,000, annual expenditures, $1,940.
The county examiners of teachers are A. L. Ellis, F. W. Yaple and R. C. Galbraith. The teachers have a county institute annually, and a county and a tri-county meeting.
Among Ross county people who have become prominent in educational work may be mentioned Professor James Woodrow, formerly president of the University of South Carolina, son of Rev. Thomas Woodrow, at one time pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Chillicothe. In this connection may be named his cousin, President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, whose mother was a daughter of Rev. Thomas Woodrow, born in Chillicothe. The late Prof. William Williams, the oldest and one of the most distinguished educators of the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, was born in Chillicothe. Two connections of his, grand nephews, both of Chillicothe, hold places in the educational world, Dr. Charles Graham Dunlap, professor of English in the State University at Lawrence, Kan., and Dr. Frederick Levy Dunlap, assistant in the chemistry department of the University of Michigan. Lieut. Matthew Elting Hanna, son of Robert Hanna, a respected citizen of the vicinity of Richmond Dale, is distinguished for his work, under General Wood, in establishing the school system of Cuba, which was modeled after that of Ohio.