Mount Morris Downtown Historic District

SCHOOLS. The First School. - The Maryland colonists who first settled at Mount Morris were determined that their children should not want for educational privileges, and a school house was as necessary as a "cabin." When Samuel M.

Passage source: The History of Ogle County, Illinois, Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, Etc., a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens, War Record of Its Volunteers in the Late Rebellion, General and Local Statistics ... History of the Northwest, History of Illinois ... Etc, published 1878.

The school numbered twenty-six pupils, and a record of their names, so far as they are now remembered by Mr. Allen, will be interesting to their descendants in the present and in the future. Among this little group were Margaret C. Hitt (now Mrs. D. J. Pinckney), John W. Hitt (now an influential citizen of Mount Morris, and for several years past Supervisor of the town), George Hitt (since dead), Andrew M. Hitt, Joseph Hitt, John Hitt (now Deputy Collector of Customs, Chicago), Robert S. Hitt (of Chicago), Robert R. Hitt (now Secretary of Legation at Paris), Martin R. M. Wallace (Judge Wallace of Chicago), Elizabeth Reynolds, Caroline M. Reynolds, Ann E. Swingley (Mrs. Phelps), Urilla Swingley, John H. Swingley, Upton Swingley, Nathaniel A. Ankeny, Augustus H. Ankeny (afterward a leading citizen of Clinton, Iowa), Ann M. Ankeny (Mrs. Wm. Watts), Clinton Helm (an eminent physician at Rockford), James C. T. Phelps (now of Rochelle on the farm his father made), James Reynolds, Peter Householder, the Worden boys, and Richard McClain's children. Rock River Seminary was located here in the Spring of 1839, under the auspices of the Methodist Church, and the first term commenced in November, 1840. A more extended sketch of this important institution will be found on page 468. Mr. Allen taught school in the school house above mentioned during that Spring and Summer.

Passage source: The History of Ogle County, Illinois, Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, Etc., a Biographical Directory of Its Citizens, War Record of Its Volunteers in the Late Rebellion, General and Local Statistics ... History of the Northwest, History of Illinois ... Etc, published 1878.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Mount Morris Township - 12,108 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.