Guernsey County, Ohio - Chapter 8: Educational Development of County, 1911

Chapter 8: Educational Development of County

Guernsey, in common with almost every county in Ohio, from the earliest settlement, sought to provide good schools, both of a private and public character. Liberality has been the rule from the days when lands were given for such purpose, even to the present time, when none but modern buildings and the best of instructors are furnished to the people, cost what it does, and the taxpayers, as a rule, are not complainers of the amount of money thus expended.

Up to 1836. when the public school system was enacted by the Ohio Legislature, there had been no regular educational system, or regular public school building erected within the county. Private schools were taught in the various settlements. Anybody who desired to teach school got up a subscription paper proposing to teach a school for thirteen weeks, and the branches taught were the alphabet, spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic. There were eight school districts formed before Cambridge was set off as No. 9 in 1836. The first school taught in the town, however, was in the winter of 1809-10. by John Beatty, a Virginian, and the brother of Zaccheus Beatty. one of the town's founders.

The author of this work wrote the following concerning the first free school in Cambridge, for the columns of the Herald, in the autumn of 1902, and the same is the best authority now at hand on this subject:

First Free School In Cambridge

Professor John McBumey handed to us an article of agreement, dated February 25. 1833, between Joseph Bute, John B. Thompson and John Hersh, Jr., directors of school district No. 7, in Cambridge township, Guernsey county, Ohio, of one part, and Andrew Magee, teacher, of the other part, to-wit :

"The said directors agree to employ Andrew Magee, teacher of a common school, in said district, for a period of three months, commencing the first day of February, and ending on the 12th day of May. free for all chil- dren between the ages of four and twenty-one years, agreeable to the thirtyfourth section of the Ohio school law, passed March 2, 1831, and in consideration of his services as teacher, they do hereby engage to pay over to said teacher, at the close of such quarter, the sum of seventy-five dollars, out of the school funds belonging to said district. And the said Andrew Magee agrees with the directors that he will teach the several branches of an English education specified in the certificate of qualification granted by the board of school examiners of Guernsey county, according to the best of his abilities - to keep the same open for school exercises from eight to twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and from one to four o'clock on the "afternoon of each day of the week. Saturday afternoon excepted, from the twelfth dav of February to the first day of April next, and from eight to twelve o'clock in forenoon, and from half-past one o'clock to five o'clock in the afternoon of each day thereafter, to provide at his costs for use of said school, the room, desks and fuel necessary, and moreover to use all reasonable diligence and attention toward the improvement of those attending school."

School district Xo. 7 comprised all of the town of Cambridge west of the public square, extending north to Wills creek, and west and north of the National road to the Adams township line. Moses Sarchet was the clerk of the district, and Ebenezer Smith treasurer. At that time Joseph Bute resided in the old David Burt house, which covered the front of the lot now occupied by the Burgess, Schaser and Zanhiser properties. John B. Thompson resided in a small frame house on the lot now occupied by the Hutchison block. John Hersh was then editor and proprietor of the Guernsey Times, and resided in a frame house, corner of Steubenville avenue and Seventh street, on the lot now the residences of Dr. C. A. Moore and Rev. Dr. Milligan. The Guernsey Times office was in a small frame house on the same lot. The school was in the old Masonic building on North Seventh street. Moses Sarchet resided in the Burgess house, corner of North Eighth street and Steubenville avenue, and Ebenezer Smith resided on North Sixth street, in what was known as the Hersh house, and later the site of the Gooderl house.

This quarter of three months' free school was the first altogether free school in Cambridge township, and at the same time there was a school in District Xo. 6, which comprised the east of the township for a considerable distance east. At all the schools, heretofore, the state school fund was applied for the payment of teachers, but was not sufficient, and the residue was made up by levying a percentage on each scholar in attendance, which had to be collected by the teacher.

The paper cm which the article of agreement is written is well preserved, and should he kept in the school library, as a record of the first free school in Cambridge. The writer was a scholar in the school taught by Andrew Magee, and twenty-two years later was married by Rev. Andrew Magee, so thai with him he began a school life and matrimonial life.

Our Schools

Charles Marquand in early days taught a school in a house on the Kirkpatrick lot, on Wheeling avenue and South Ninth street. He was a good scholar and a first-class penman. Some of the scholars of this school afterward filled some of the county offices. One of these. Jacob G. Metcalf, was an ambidexter, writing a good legible hand, as the records of the county will show. Judge Joseph D. Tingle and Moses Sarchet, Esq., were, perhaps, the last living scholars of the Campbell school. Mrs. Nancy B. Noble, Mrs. Nancy P.. Albright, Mrs. Samuel H. Oldham and Mrs. Margaret Thompson were scholars of the Marquand school. These schools were all subscription schools. After these, there was a school taught by John W. Kipi>. in a part of the Ogier house on Wheeling avenue. This school was party paid by the state school funds and partly by assessment per scholar. Kipp was the compiler of a spelling hook, called "Kipp's Speller." This book and tuition could be paid for in trade: bees-wax. gentian, furs and snake root were regarded as cash, and were the staple articles at that time. A file of the first volume of the Guernsey Times. 1824, will show an advertisement of the "Cambridge Academy." William Sedgwick, teacher. This academy was located on the brow of the hill on the Harris lot. Wheeling avenue, in a small frame building. An eccentric old German, Elias Entz, had a saddle and harness shop in the front room, and the academy was in the rear. Entz was a teacher, as well as Sedgwick, and while Sedgwick, in the rear, was teaching the young idea how to shoot. Entz, in the front, was teaching the ravens how to talk, and notably one "Bony." whose fame as a talker was known from east to west along the old Wheeling road, afterward the National road. It may he that this academy was of great advantage to "Bony," and that his ravenship when on his perch in the saddler-shop gathered in the A I! C's and T O U's as the groundwork for his afterward successful raven scholarship. "Bony." when out on his perch in front of the shop, would help the teamsters drive up the hill by clucking. "Get up there,'' "Whoa haw." "Go up." etc. He would whistle up the dogs, and then cry, "Go home, you whelps." He would cry out to pedestrians, "Stop!" and then laugh at their surprise. And while all this was going on, the old German would be stitching away, enjoying the fun as prompter behind the scenes.

In 1825 the Legislature passed a law requiring a tax to be levied for the support of schools. But it was eight or ten years after before even this fund came to be available for the payment of teachers, and then for not more than three or four months during the winter season. As we have said, the Kipp school had the advantage of this fund, but the law then only granted the power to levy, and levies were only made by the school boards to afford a sum for the part payment of teachers, leaving the parents who were considered able to make up the balance. William Sedgwick was one of the early Baptist ministers of this section of Ohio, and often preached in Cambridge, and at the time of his academy taught a Bible-reading school on Sundav in the grand jury room of the old court house, which was attended by old and young of all denominations, and as these were the days of controversy, as to election and reprobation, sprinkling and dipping, there were often some very spirited and angry discussions.

The first altogether free school began, within the knowledge of the writer, about the year 1834-35. Andrew Magee, afterward a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church in the Pittsburg conference, was the first teacher. This school was in the lower room of the old Freemason lodge, now a part of the McConehey building on North Seventh street. The floor was of brick, and the benches were of the primitive style, slabs with pins for support, and the desks for writing were rough boards pinned up around the wall on one side, at which those who were advanced to writing took turns. The teacher meanwhile mended the goose-quill pens, and set the copies, "Command you may your mind from play, every moment of the day." The ink. often made out of polkberry juice or copperas, was hung to the wall in a bottle. The day of ink-stands was not yet. The boy or girl who had a slate, or a real slate pencil, belonged to the "upper ten" of that day, and even the boy who had a piece of slate handed down from away back, and a soapstone pencil, was a subject of some envy by those who had only a multiplication table roughly prepared on a piece of paper. This was the first step toward the slate, and when the slate came, how soon the average boy or girl became an artist, and horses, dogs, houses and kites often took the place of figures and brought to the back of the busy artist the ever-indispensable hickory, for it was by might and power the master reigned, his right no one to dispute.

Prior to 1838, Richard Hatton taught several terms of three months' school. In the winter of 1837 or 1838 the town was divided, and there were two free schools, called the up-town and down-town. The down-town school was taught by a Mr. Lowry; the up-town by an Irishman, William Latimore. At Christmas came the bar-out ; this custom followed the free school. The day before- Christmas the terms of the treat, usually gingerbread, cider and apples, were written out and laid before the teacher for his approval or rejection. If rejected, the next morning found the schoolroom in possession of the larger boys, the doors and windows well barricaded, and supplies of fuel and provisions laid up for a long siege. The demand to open the door by the teacher or directors was answered by a demand to sign the protocol. Sometimes the teacher succeeded in entering the house, and subduing the rebellion, but most generally the boys succeeded in holding the house until the besiegers surrendered. This was reversing the order of warfare; but sometimes some moat or breastwork was left poorly guarded, and a daring sally forced through an entrance, and the fort was taken and the boys led away to be beaten afterward with many stripes, and the little fellows on the outside, whose mouths had been watering for gingerbread and cider, looked on with hope deferred to some other day. On the day before Christmas, Lowry, whose school was in the basement of the old Methodist Protestant church, found the door barricaded and the boys in possession. He had refused to agree to the terms. He soon found an unprotected point, by an entrance through a trap door, from the church above, which he opened and bounded down into the room, and demanded surrender in terms as imperious as old Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, when he demanded the surrender of the fort in the name of the "Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," but the besieged didn't surrender. They pounced onto Lowry, and, opening the door, took him down the hill, overlooking the stone quarry, and, taking him by the arms and legs, they proposed to swing him over, counting "one, two, three," and then, if no cry of surrender was heard, to let him flicker, but he cried "Cavy." The school was resumed, and the gingerbread, cider and apples passed around. At the up-town school, the old Irishman, Latimore, met with the same resistance. This school was in a log cabin that stood on the Milner lot, Wheeling avenue. Latimore soon decided that he would scale the fort and smoke the boys out. He got a ladder, and was soon on the roof, covering the chimney with clapboards off the roof. The boys did not long stand the smoke within, but bounded out and secured the ladder before Latimore could get to it, and they had him treed. After they had marched around less than seven times, he demanded that he be let down and he would comply with their terms, and the gingerbread, cider and apples were passed around. This was a custom of barbarous days, and is happily now no more, but it was no more barbarous than is the custom of hazing, now practiced in the best colleges of the land.

We have now passed over the schools of Cambridge from the first in iSnj to the beginning of the free schools in 1836. We have not given all the schools, having named only those that seemed to be of the most note. During these years there were schools taught by Reverend Mills, a Presbyterian preacher, John McGuire, William Walker, C. J. Albright, Joshua Hunt. A. W. Beatty, J. D. Tingle, Mrs. Rhoda Needham. Miss Mary Hersh, Miss La Baire, Miss Gibbs and perhaps others. These were all the ungraded scholars, and they brought such books as they had, the "English Reader," "Introduction to the English Reader," and the Testament. These were the general reading books. Dillworth's and the "United States" were the spelling books. Arithmetics were the "Western Calculator," Smith's and Parke's. Uriah Parke lived at Zanesville, and his arithmetic was published, we believe, by himself, he being a printer. Owley's Geography was just coming into use. The Dillworth Speller was a partial geography, giving a description of the earth and its grand divisions, and a more general description of the United States.

The one main feature of these schools was the spelling class, which formed in a line on one side of the schoolroom, and the graduation was from foot to head. The lesson was first spelled by use of the book, then the book was closed, and the strife for head began. If a word was misspelled, it passed to the next until spelled, then the speller went up, and the strife was more animated when the lucky speller, if a boy, would chance to lie placed between two girls that he liked, and in those days the boys liked the girls, for in the fly-leaves of the spelling-books might have been found this stanza :

In 1838, William Sedgwick, on the part of the Cambridge lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, deeded to the "Cambridge Academy" lot 82 in Steubenville avenue, now the McConehey lot. This was a corporation under the laws of Ohio. Dr. Thomas Miller, Gordon Lofland, Jacob G. Metcalf, James M. Bell and Moses Sarchet were the incorporators and directors. This academy was opened in the fall of [838, William Ellis, principal and teacher. The academy sessions were for live months, and the tuition eight dollars per session. Tt was expected that the scholarship would pay all expenses, if not, the corporation guaranteed the payment. This school or .academy was the first attempt toward a graded school in Cambridge, and the hoys and girls of this school were supposed to be higher up than the common herd, ami were called by way of derision "upper crust," or "college bred." This academy was carried on with varied success, under the principalship of William FJlis, Mitchell Miller and Thomas Brown, until 1844. Thomas Brown, the last principal, brother of Turner G. Brown, of Cambridge, is said to have been the first common school teacher of Guernsey county who received twenty dollars per month for teaching. The writer of this passed out of this academy at the age of fourteen years, with a grade above ninety-five, in algebra, mensuration, geometry, trigonometry, surveying and history, which was the curriculum of the last session, having, as was then supposed, an education high enough for all practical purposes, and has regretted so far in his life that he failed to continue through the years from fourteen to twenty, which are the years of life, whether of boy or girl, that will tell if improved, in the manhood or womanhood of those who are so fortunate as to have the opportunity. A man or woman may educate himself, and this self-education may be of more practical advantage than that of the school, but its acquirement after entering upon the active duties of life means self-sacrifice and labor that but few are read)* to make.

The "old lodge." as this academy was called, was embellished with paper on the walls, representing Chinese towers and scenery, grand marches and imposing burials of orders, going back, perhaps, to the days of Confucius, and the border round the ceiling consisted of the pictures of Washington and Lafayette, as the two representative Masons. In this old room was held our Philomathean society, where we orated, declaimed and essayed, as young Ciceros: but 'following, as this did, the great Morgan anti-Masonic wave, we sometimes sat in awe and trembling, thinking that the ghost of some revealer of the "mysterious glorious science" might troop through the room headless, or shackled with clanking chains, as the representative of the dark mysteries which seemed to attach themselves to the order that was then thought to have abducted William Morgan. Morgan lived in the town of Batavia, Xew York. and. it was said, was about to publish an exposure of the secrets of Masonry in connection with the editor of the Republican Adz'ocatc, who, as well as Morgan, had been a member of the Masonic order. While this rumor of the exposure of Masonry, about to be made, spread through the country, the community was startled by tidings that Morgan had been seized and carried off, no one knew where. The greatest excitement spread throughout the community, committees of vigilance were formed, and an investigation initiated, which resulted in tracing the abductors and their victims out upon Lake Ontario, and led to the belief that Morgan had been consigned to its depths, as no trace of him was further heard. This gave rise to the anti-Masonic party, which sprang up in New York and Pennsylvania in 1827, and later in Ohio. Joseph Ritner was chosen governor of Pennsylvania in 1835 as an anti-Mason. The abduction of Morgan did not prevent the publication of the proposed exposure. Morgan's book was published and others that claimed to give the regulations, signs, ceremonies and passwords of the order and its traditional secrets. However true these books may have been, and the political opposition which was the outgrowth of the times, Masonry, for awhile, was under a ban, and it was ten years or more before a lodge could be reinstituted, here in Cambridge, and we know from past experience that the average boy of twelve years of age, at that day, after hearing the wonderful tales about the "Morgan killers," had to whistle up a good deal of courage to sit in a deserted lodge room, dimly lighted with tallow candles, where once the traditional goat bounded from cliff to cliff and the clanking chains were heard that bound the victim to unbrotherly servitude, and no flash of the mystic light shone on his way as he traveled toward the ineffable.

District School Notice

Nowadays, when the position of teacher in the schools is open, there are countless applicants, but in the earlier days a competent teacher was by no means easy to secure, as the following advertisement from the Guernsey limes of December 7, 1839, testifies:

"A person who can come recommended, as to character and qualification as a common school teacher, can get employment by inquiring of the directors of the Tenth school district in Londonderry township.

Rev. "William Wallace, Thomas Beahan, William Allison, John K. Fesler, Moses Oldham and William Morton were teachers of free schools in the old lodge before the adoption by the school district of the union school law, known as the Akron school law. There were also women teachers, in connection with these, Mrs. Martha Carnes, Miss Dorcas Reed, Miss Sarah Metcalf, Miss Anna M. Beatty and others.

The union school was organized in 1850 with Robert B. Moore, C. L. Madison, Thomas W. Peacock, Samuel Craig, James Hunter and Matthew Gaston as directors. The school building, the old lodge, was enlarged to four rooms. William M. Lyons was principal, Miss Dorcas Reed, Miss Lou Hill and Miss Kate McCluskey, teachers. William M. Lyons was a brother of Lord Lyons, once a minister from England to the United States. He took great pride in his high connection, and never tired in letting everybody know that he was the brother of a lord.

The Methodist Protestant church located a college here in 1850, and began its erection. Its site was the present site of the new school building on Wheeling avenue. This building was three stories in height, but was never completed. It was badly demolished by a cyclone which visited Cambridge in May. 1852. This so crippled the enterprise, which was in a critical financial state, that the project was abandoned. The building was bought for school purposes by the directors, raised to a two-story building containing five rooms, and was occupied for school purposes in i860, John McClenahan, principal. He resigned in 1861, entering the army as captain of a company in the Fifteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. This building was enlarged in 1865-66 by two additional rooms, and was destroyed by fire in September, 1*871, the school being continued in rented rooms in different parts of the town, until the building and completion of the present central school building, first occupied in February, 1874.

After the burning of the school building, a public meeting of the voters of the district was held in the court house, with a view of instructing the directors as to rebuilding. The question submitted was whether two buildings, one in the east and one in the west, should be built, or one central building, and a majority favored one central building. The directors bought a hole, the present site, and began to fill it up with earth and stone, but never succeeded, as the present elevation very plainly shows. Of the first directors named, all are dead but C. L. Madison. They were not connected with the last building, and only a part of them with the second. Professor Lyons was followed by James McClain, J. C. Douglass, Levi C. Brown, W. K. Gooderl, C. C. B. Duncan, John McClenahan and Samuel Kirkwood, now professor in Wooster University at Wooster, Ohio. Kirkwood resigned, and his term was finished out by John S. Speer.

John S. Speer was followed by Thomas Smith, and he by Prof. John McBurney. This brings the history of the schools down to a time with which almost everyone is familiar. Great and wise is the provision of the United States setting aside one-thirty-sixth part of all the lands to the state to afford a free education of its youth, with the hope that all the youth of the state may avail themselves of this gratuitous education, that knowledge may abound and truth and righteousness reign supreme in the land, and that intelligence and sobriety shall measure the advancing step toward universal brotherhood.

Cambridge Schools

The following history of the Cambridge schools was written by Wilson McMahon, a pupil in them, and read as an essay in his room. It was pub- lished in the Jeffersonian in June, 1880, and is so complete an account of important facts in the educational history of the county that it is worthy of preservation in the public press:

In the winter of 1809-10, the first school in Cambridge was taught by John Beatty, a Virginian, and a brother of Col. Zaccheus Beatty, one of the founders and original proprietors of the town. It was held in one of the several small cabins which stood on the north bank of Wills creek, near where the old bridge crossed that stream. He was succeeded by his sister, Mrs. Sarah McClenahan, who taught a school in one of the rooms of her father's dwelling-house, which stood on Lot No. 62. The next schools were held in a log building, that stood on Lot No. 21, and were taught by John W. Kipp, who afterward compiled a speller that was published; Elijah Dyson, the first sheriff of Guernsey county, and a man by the name of Acheson.

During the winter of 181 3- 14, a school "was taught in the same place by Thomas Campbell, the father of the late Rev. Alexander Campbell, of Bethany, West Virginia. From this time until the organization of the public schools under the act of 1836, there was no regular school building or any system of education established. Anybody who desired to teach got up a subscription paper proposing to teach a school upon certain terms - these usually being fifty cents per scholar for thirteen weeks - and the branches taught were the alphabet, spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic. The parents gave little attention to the schools. The teachers, generally, were not very profound scholars; they went in on their muscle, and if they succeeded in maintaining their authority no one complained.

Upon the organization of the public schools in 1836, Cambridge became school district No. 9. Andrew Magee was the first district school teacher. In 1843, Thomas and William Brown taught what they called the Academy.

William Morton, who taught in the school building now the McConehay property on Steubenville and Pine streets, from 1847 to I§49' 's entitled to notice as the best mathematician and most thorough grammarian in the state of Ohio. He taught the boys, and Mrs. Karnes the girls. Mr. Morton had about ninety boys in his classes, the names of most of whom were afterward borne upon the honorable rolls of the volunteers in the war of 1861. On the original rolls of the school appear the names of Moore, Rainey, Lofland, Metcalf, Grimes, Salmon, Jefferson, Logan, Evans, Tingle, Brown, Bonnell, Hirsch, etc. Lemuel Bonnell was assistant teacher for some time.

The Union school was organized in 1850. and William M. Lyons, a younger brother of Lord Lyons, the late minister from England to the United States, became the first principal, at a salary of thirty-five dollars per month. Mr. Lyons is now living in Zanesville. Ohio, on a pension which he receives from his brother. Then the school had but four rooms, the fourth room being taught by the principal. Under Principal Lyons the teachers were Miss Lou Hill, Miss Kate McCluskey and Miss Dorcas Reed.

The principals from 1850 to 1853 were William M. Lyons, James Mc- Clain, Miss Dorcas Reed and Joseph D. Tingle; salary, thirty-five dollars per month; from 1853 to 1857, J. C. Douglass, Levi C. Brown, W. K. Gooderl and C. C. B. Duncan; salary, forty dollars per month; from 1858 to 1861, John McClenahan was principal at sixty dollars per month. In 1861 he resigned his position to recruit a company for the Fifteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, of which he afterward became colonel. In August, 1861, Samuel Kirkwood, now professor of mathematics at Wooster University, Wooster, Ohio, became the first superintendent at a salary of four hundred and fifty dollars a year; but Mr. Kirkwood leaving before the year was out, John Speer finished the term. He was succeeded by Thomas H. Smith, at a salary of six hundred dollars a year. In August, 1866, Prof. John McBurney, now professor of natural science in Muskingum College at New Concord, was elected superintendent, at a salary of five hundred and forty dollars a year, which was afterward increased to one thousand two hundred dollars a year. In 1880 he was succeeded by Prof. J. E. Williams, at a salary of one thousand dollars a year.

The high school was organized in 1869. The following are the names of the teachers, with the time they taught: Prof. John McBurney, four years; T. H. Anderson, one term; Rev. W. V. Milligan, three years; William Fleming, one month; Miss Means, three years; J. H. Mackey, two terms; I. A. Tannehill, one year; E. L. Abbey, one year.

In 1872, the first class, composed of four girls, was graduated. After the loss of the former school building, and while the present building was in process of erection, the schools occupied such rooms as could be procured for them, and were subjected to every inconvenience. As a result, there were no classes graduated in 1873-74, but afterward they were graduated as follows :

In all. sixty-four. This year's graduating class was composed of four boys and seven girls, which, added to the above, will make twenty-two boys and fifty-three girls, making the total number of graduates seventy-five.

Changes in classification, grading, course of study and methods of instruction and of examining have been made from time to time, as the interests of the school seemed to require. The present course of study embraces all branches of a thorough and complete English education, together with German and Latin.

In iSdo a building in the east end of town was purchased for one thousand two hundred and one dollars, and finished for school purposes for five thousand dollars, making a total cost of six thousand two hundred and one dollars. It contained five rooms, to which two more were added in 1866. This building was destroyed by fire September 27, 1871. In January, 1872, lots Nos. 126, 127 and 128, on Steubenville street, were purchased and the present building erected, at a total cost of fifty-four thousand dollars. It was first occupied February 16, 1874. There were nine teachers when they first went into the present building, but in a few days another room was fitted up, and another teacher engaged. Xow, twelve well-trained and experienced teachers are engaged nine months in the year, in the instruction of six hundred and thirty children, at a cost, for 1876. of four thousand eight hundred and forty dollars ; this year, four thousand nine hundred and seventytwo dollars. The present building contains eleven large rooms, besides the superintendent's office, and his recitation room. Part of the basement is used as a storeroom, and one room is fitted up as a dining room. The building has a seating capacity of about seven hundred, but it has not the capacity for as careful and accurate a system of grading as it should have. However, it is one of the best in the state, and reflects much credit upon the enterprise of the people of Cambridge. The school taxes us at a rate of nine mills, but is worthy of jts costly support. The only things it seems to need at present are a small library of the commonest books of reference and apparatus for philosophical and scientific explanation.

With the further growth of the city, other school houses were demanded and were built in about the following order of construction : The Lofland school was erected in 1895, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars, the same being located on Fourth street, and is in an excellent condition.

I3O Guernsey County, Ohio

Orchard Place school building was erected in 1906 and opened January 1, 1907. Its cost was twenty-three thousand dollars, and two thousand more for grounds.

The same date last mentioned the Glass Plant addition school building was opened ; it is a fine brick structure, costing ten thousand dollars.

The latest and by all odds the finest school building in all this section of Ohio was the present Brown high school, containing twenty rooms, all modern throughout, as to heating, lighting and sanitary equipment. It is located on Steubenville avenue, between Eighth and Ninth streets. Its cost was sixty thousand dollars, besides ten thousand dollars for grounds and improvements of same. It is built of flinty vitralized brick. The building was first occupied for school purposes January 1, 19 10. The total valuation of school property in Cambridge is one hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

The schools of Cambridge have been under the charge of the following principals and superintendents since 1850: William M. Lyons, John Mc- Clanahan, James McClain. J. C. Douglass, L. C. Brown. W. K. Goderel, C. C. B. Duncan, John McClanahan, Samuel Kirkwood. John Speer, Thomas Smith, Prof. John McBurney. Prof. Williams. Prof. Yarnell. Prof. Abbe, Prof. O. T. Caron. Prof. H. B. Williams, Prof. C. L. Cronebaugh, Prof. J. M. Carr, Prof. H. Z. Hobson, who came in 1905

According to the 1908 state school reports, Cambridge had an enumeration of 3.210 pupils and an enrollment of 2,276. Daily average attendance, 1.935. I'1 tne high school there were at that date 76 boys and 88 girls. The population was then fixed at 8,241. The expenditures for that year were $51,807.

The First Commencement

[The following- article was written by request especially for the Guernsey Times. The author is the venerable Doctor John McBurney. who for many years was connected with the local schools. He was superintendent at the time of the first commencement in 1872.]

The first commencement of the Cambridge high school, held in the old town hall, June 7, 1872, was, viewed from our present standpoint, a very modest affair, though at that time it created quite an interest.

All that was needed to prepare the place in which it was held was to turn the benches in the west half of the hall to face the east and the stage. This was made necessary because at that time the hall accommodated two schools, separated from each other by having the pupils of the first grammar school face the east and those of the second face the west. At one o'clock on the - tli day of June, thirty-four years ago, the hall was well filled with an interested audience and the stage occupied by the members of the board, the teachers and perhaps some others. These four young girls, in their neatfitting and tidy calico dresses, occupying the center of the platform, made a pleasant impression, and modestly received the generous and well-earned applause of their friends.

After the usual introductory exercises, Miss Nannie E. Morton came forward without any announcement and delivered the salutatory, '['hen came Miss Sadie Jackson, with her essay, subject, "Silent Voices." Miss Dolly I\. Suite followed with her essay on "Sunshine," and Miss Maggie McCall had the valedictory. All the exercises were well rendered, and received hearty applause. By authority of the hoard, the superintendent delivered the diplomas. The exercises closed with music and the benediction, and these four young ladies, followed by the well wishes of their friends, stepped forth the first of the long line of bright, happy, hopeful high school graduates who are still going out in ever-increasing numbers from our schools and under much more favorable conditions than existed June 7. 1872.

And now, in closing this brief account of the days long gone by, allow us to step over the intervening years and extend to the large class of splendid young people who received their well-earned diplomas on the thirty-fourth anniversary of the first commencement of the Cambridge high school, a hearty greeting with the earnest wish that success may. crown every right effort of every member through all the coming years.

Among the earliest "free schools" known in this county was the one established in Richland township in 1814. It came in this way: While pioneer William Thompson was in Philadelphia buying goods for the first store in his township, and paying eleven dollars a hundred freight on same, he employed a school teacher there, named Isaac Woodard - a lame man - to come here and teach school for twelve months. 'William and Robert Thompson agreed to pay the teacher in full for his services. The salt works were then running day and night and many men were employed to cut wood for the running of the same. These men. many of them, had children and with others in the settlement made quite a respectable little school. The men were told to send their children to this school free of cost. Joseph and Abraham Dillv, having large families each, had small means with which to pav. but said they were willing to do what they could, as they disliked the burden to fall on two men. Later they did each pay their share. This is one of the earliest free schools on record in this country.

I32 Guernsey County, Ohio

From the primitive settlement of Byesville, the children attended school at Oak Grove school house, in Riddle Grove, near the White Ash mine. Later it was moved to Lucasburg, and some years later the Byesville settlement had a school of their own, the date of the latter being about 1881. The Byesville school occupied a two-room building that stood on the site of the Beckett's livery barn. This cost one thousand dollars. John A. Bliss was the first principal. In 1886 two more rooms were added to the vest side of this building at a cost of one thousand two hundred dollars. In 1892 more room was needed and after renting awhile, in 1894, when two more rooms completed the T-shaped building; this last cost one thousand five hundred dollars. It was soon found that the growth of the town was so great that still better accommodations must be had, and the present site was chosen and the present fine school building was erected at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. It stands on a sightly hill overlooking the place. It was first used in January, 1903. But not yet did the place have sufficient room, and in 1906, at a cost of one thousand two hundred dollars, the North Side school of the Ideal addition was built and still rooms had to be leased for the accommodation of the pupils.

A township high school was first organized out of the village graded school in 1890, then in 1893 it was made a special district, and in 1894 was raised to a second grade, and finally under the new classification of high schools was made first grade in 1904.

Pioneer School Discipline

In the early days in Guernsey county the whipping of children at school was a common practice, and one case in point will illustrate the effect it sometimes produced upon teacher, pupil and parents :

In Liberty township the first school was taught by a New Englander named Austin Hunt, who believed the rod was to be freely used when needed to correct children. The late venerable James Gibson relates this concerning this practice and was his own experience in "tannin' " :

"I went to keeping school, and kept school here in Liberty. Some of the boys from over the creek began to run off and stay around the creek to hunt mussels and crawfish. I found it out and brought them back and gave them a tannin'. They went home and told their parents that I had whipped them. The next day their fathers rode up to the school house, called me out to the door and said they had c hoys. I replied: 'What color business you can attend to it ni will do the tannin'.' There w; never hurt a hoy when he needed it

Present School Statistics

The official report made to the secretary of state for the year just ending (1910) has the following- figures concerning Guernsey county schools:

There are 19 elementary buildings, two high school buildings erected in the year; 101 elementary school rooms and 29 high school rooms. The value of the school property is placed at $347,250. The average term taught throughout the year is 33.35 weeks, with an average daily attendance of 86.91. The largest number of pupils was those taking arithmetic, 4,463 being enrolled in this study during the year.

In 1908 the reports show the following: Guernsey county contained 19 township districts and 133 sub-districts; 12 separate districts; total number of members of boards of education, 155; cost of new- buildings, $2,890. There were at that date, in the county, 253 separate school rooms. The value of school property was estimated by the authorities at $123,300 in township districts; $263,650 in separate districts; total of $386,950. The total number of teachers was 256; average wages paid to men, $41 in the elementary schools, and $40 to women. The wages paid to high school instructors was, for men, $50, and about the same for women. The total number of teachers was 267, of which number 121 were men.

The count)- examiners in Guernsey county are as follows : Worthy Dyson, clerk, Kimbolton, term expires August 31, 1910; W. O. Moore, Senecaville. term expired August 31, 1909; T. A. Bonnell, Cambridge, term expires August 31, 191 1.

Other Educational Institutions

One of the earliest educational institutions in Guernsey county was the Cambridge Seminary, and the Guernsey Times of May 21, 1825, has the following advertisement of the school :

Cambridge Seminary

"The subscriber has the pleasure of informing his friends and the public that he has procured the best books, globes, maps, charts, etc., and has commenced a regular course of Geography and Astronomy, which is taught upon the interrogative plan.

"The English grammar is taught agreeably by 'Hull's System' (by lectures), which is acknowledged to be the best in use, and for which from two to five dollars has generally been paid to teachers of that plan for forty-eight hours' services.

"After ten years' experience, the subscriber can with confidence assure the public, that he is fully prepared to teach all the useful branches of an English education correctly, and with as much speed as the nature of the branches, and the capacity of the pupils will admit.

"He pledges himself that no exertions on his part will be wanting, to render his institution as respectable and useful as any of the kind in the state. The terms are very moderate.

The Old Cambridge Academy

The old Cambridge Academy was incorporated by the Legislature in its session of 1837-38. with a capital stock of five thousand dollars, divided into five hundred shares of ten dollars each. Of this stock, seven hundred and forty dollars was subscribed by the citizens of Cambridge. The old Masonic lodge building on North Seventh street was purchased by the trustees for the academy building. This public announcement was made September 22, 1838. The board of trustees were William \V. Tracer, Esq., president; Moses Sarchet, secretary; Ebenezer Smith, Esq., Dr. Thomas Miller, Dr. Samuel P. Hunt. Nathan Evans, Esq., Hamilton Robb and William McCracken. The institution was conducted under the general management of Rev. James Mc- Gill. The students were under the immediate care and instruction of William T. Ellis. The course of instruction embraced all those branches of a thorough and extensive English education, usually taught in the best high schools and academies, and the Latin and Greek languages. The academic year was divided into two sessions of twenty-two weeks each, with a vacation of four weeks at the close of each session. Terms were : Tuition in all branches of instruction at eight dollars per session, one-half to be paid in advance, the balance at the close of the session.

Madison College

"The ensuing session will commence on the first Monday in November. Alexander Clark. A. B.. and Thomas Palmer, Esq., will continue to conduct the interior operations of the college. Boarding can be had at a very low rate in respectable families in town and country. Tuition, ten dollars per session. As a report has gone abroad that Antrim and neighborhood are unhealthy, the trustees feel it their duty to say that such is not the fact, that we are not subject to any prevailing diseases, more than the most healthy neighborhoods.

The history of this college, in short, is as follows : When Madison township was organized, there were four sections of land reserved by the state and set apart for public school purposes, numbers 1, 2, 9 and 10, situated in the northwest part of the township. These lands were directed by law to be leased to suitable persons for a certain period : they were to be built upon and improved that the value thereof might be increased and that a revenue might in time be derived to meet the object intended. The lands were leased and settled upon and the improvements made. When the term of the leases expired the Legislature passed an act ordering the lands to be appraised and sold to the highest bidder at not less than the appraisement. Under this arrangement the lands were sold, and were bought principally by the lease-holders. The proceeds of these sales went into the general state fund for schools. The same rule held good in the other townships of Guernsey county, too. The northwest quarter of section 10 was purchased by A. Alexander. The old road from Cambridge to Steubenville passed through this quarter section. Alexander was a man of much enterprise and conceived the idea of platting a town site on this land. Accordingly he surveyed out twenty-four lots, twelve on each side of this road. This was the beginning of Antrim. Subsequently, James Welch platted and laid off six lots as an addition to the place.

Doctor Findley bought the quarter lying west of Alexander's land and took up his residence in a log cabin there. When he was fairly well settled he began to make arrangements to start a school at the new place. Either in May, 1835, or 1836, he succeeded in enrolling the names of eight boys and young men of the vicinity as students. He used his cabin as a recitation room, and thus it was that Madison College had its establishment.

The people around Antrim gave their hearty support, and the students increased in numbers rapidly, so it was resolved, at a meeting of the town, that a united effort be made to provide suitable buildings for the embryo college. Subscriptions were made in money and material, as well as in work, many giving far beyond their means, so much were they interested. A site was chosen for the building at the east of the village, on the most elevated ground about it. David White, a resident, was the contractor. The building completed was a respectable two-story brick structure, containing two rooms on the first story, and one large room or hall on the second floor. The name given the new born institution was "Madison College." The board of trustees appointed under the laws of Ohio chose Doctor Findley as president, and Milton Green, M. D., secretary, who was the father of Mrs. Samuel J. Mc- Mahon. The institution prospered wonderfully. In 1846 Rev. Samuel Mehaffey, pastor of the Old-School Presbyterian church here, became president and this, possibly, became the means of the downfall of the institution. His successors were A. D. Clark, D. D., Rev. W. Doal, Rev. Thomas Palmer, and others who were employed as tutors. Then new members were added to the board of trustees and a college charter was obtained. Rev. Samuel Findlex-. Jr. (son of Doctor Findley), was chosen and installed president of the newly planned school. At this time the school was opened for both sexes, and seemed to prosper until the plan of erecting a large, costly building was adopted. There was much opposition to this move, but the new building was erected, completed and occupied. Rev. II. Wilson succeeded Doctor Findley as president, and his successor was Rev. William Lorimer, during whose term the crisis was reached. The creditors of the college were beginning to press their claims hard, the mutterings of the great Civil war cloud were heard, and finally, when that storm burst, Madison College and its plans for a future existence were carried down, never more to rise, like the slavery question, over which the war was so successfully fought out.