Warren County
Local History by Dallas Bogan |
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Dallas Bogan on 10 August 2004 |
Source: |
original article by Dallas Bogan |
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An item taken from a meeting of the Wayne Township Pioneer Association, dated
August, 6, 1886, gives in some detail the location of original School District
No. 2. This district, at the time, included Section 17, and parts of Sections
18, 12 and 11, all in Wayne Township.
Section 17 was purchased and occupied by South Carolinian Amos Cook
in the year 1803. Benjamin Evans, also from South Carolina,
purchased Section 18 in the same year.
Samuel Heighway sold to Jonathan Newman, who
emigrated from North Carolina in 1802, the southeastern quarter (160 acres)
of Section 12. Heighway, previous to the sale, built a gristmill
on the creek known as Newman's Run, just south of Waynesville. Nathan
Edwards bought the southwestern portion of this purchase in 1803, who
settled the land in 1804.
Ichabod Corwin and
Samuel Manning purchased Section 11 and afterwards sold the
northeast quarter to James Edwards, a native of New Jersey,
who located on the land in 1822.
The first schoolhouse constructed in the district was a log house with dimensions
about 16 feet square, which contained an eight-foot fireplace. Four small windows
were installed, two with four lights of 8x10 glass, and two with two lights
8x10. Part of a log was cut on the west side and filled in with glass, quite
a luxury in those days.
The writing desks were broad boards pinned up to the sides of the house. The
seats were rough benches, made from slabs of split lumber from the sawmill.
The schoolhouse was built in 1814 and stood in a Sugar Grove in Section 17 on
the land of Elisha Cook. Presumably, the name of the schoolhouse
was the Sugar Camp Schoolhouse.
Conditions of the school in this pioneer time were that there was no school
during the maple sugar season, with the schoolhouse being used during that time
for boiling syrup and making maple sugar.
A brick schoolhouse was built in 1827 on Section 18, Jonathan Newman
being the contractor. This building was used for school purposes from 1827 to
1866, when it was taken down and rebuilt, Josiah Craft and
Thomas Wilson taking the contract. Perry E. Kenrick
again rebuilt it in 1885.
Schoolteachers who taught in the old log schoolhouse prior to 1827 were Wm.
Hindman, Wm. Anders, Morris Place,
Wm. Edwards, Mary Newman, Owen Evans,
Fanny Smith (later Butterworth) and Benjamin
Stanton.
Jan Thomas, a superb researcher, provided the writer with
a report of an old octagonal stone schoolhouse that was located in Wayne Township.
The feature was written by Walter Kenrick who describes the
structure as probably being the second schoolhouse on lot No. 4 in Wayne Twp.
Wellington C. Connel attended here about 1842 and gives a physical
description of the structure.
"It was built of stone and of octagon shape about 30 ft. or over in diameter.
The roof came to a point and the stovepipe ran through the roof at the highest
point.
"The seats were puncheon with pins for legs, no backs and were arranged
to front the center. The door was on the west side and opposite was the teacher's
station. On the outside wall, resting on pins built in the outside wall was
a shelf of puncheons on which the pupils did their writing standing up.
"Heat was furnished by one large ten-plate stove in the center with the
pipe running out the roof, no chimney. These ten-plate stoves of which I saw
a sample in the white birch church in Waynesville were so built the smoke had
to travel several times back and forth before entering the pipe, thus getting
advantage of all the heat would be in a four ft. stick of wood."
Kenrick says that the school building was located on the south
end of the school lot of one acre, 1/2 of which was taken from two separate
farms.
The octagonal stone schoolhouse was replaced in about 1860 with a frame building.
The new frame schoolhouse was built on the two farms mentioned earlier in this
text. The building was used until sometime later when it was moved to the farm
owned by the late Ernest Harlan, and transformed into a dwelling,
which burned soon afterward.
Kenrick attended school No. 4 from 1876 to 1878 where the students
had to carry water from the old well about 350 feet south of the old stone schoolhouse.
A new well was dug about 1900 that was located just a few feet west.
The school ground was a significant location during the Civil War, where all
the musters were held, the young soldiers being drilled at this location.
The lot was about 500 feet east of the old Pinckney Road, or present Lytle-Ferry
road (the writer will pen a short history of this road at a later time), which
was connected by a narrow lane about two feet wide with high steps at each end
to weed out the stock.
John Tamsett owned the farm just west and adjoining the school
ground. His property is shown in the 1903 Warren County Atlas of Wayne Township
to be in Section 15, in the northwestern part of Wayne Township. The school
itself was actually located in Section 9 on the Janney farm.
The old octagonal stone schoolhouse was undoubtedly the only school structure
of its kind in Warren County. If any readers of this column have any more information
on this schoolhouse, I would deeply appreciate any assistance. I can be contacted
through The Western Star.
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This page created 10 August 2004 and last updated
28 September, 2008
© 2004 Arne H Trelvik
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