Perry County, Indiana - Chapter 32: First Teachers' Institute, 1916

Under a law enacted by the Legislature of 1867 the county commissioners were required annually to appropriate the sum of $50 (since increased to $100) to defray the expense of a County Teachers' Institute, and the first assemblage of this character in Perry County convened on August 26 of that year, at Cannelton, for a session of five days.

No complete record of the proceedings remains, though outline accounts published indicate an enjoyable programme of recitations, drills, illustrations, discussions and lectures. The enrollment showed a total of forty-one, scarcely one-third the average number now attending the regular sessions, but it is a noteworthy circumstance that two of the teachers then present are still (1915) active educators of the county, and hold a record of unbroken attendance.

Many more have long since heard and answered the roll-call from the life beyond. Some who were then teachers remain as residents of Perry County, others are living elsewhere and the present generation knows them under names which matrimony has changed. The officers were J. T. Martin, president ; Lizzie Whitehead (Mrs. James J. Wheeler), secretary; Sallie Patterson (Mrs. Irving Jones), clerk; MolHe (Drumb) Gregory (Mrs. Andrew J. McCutchan), Viona May (Mrs. Mathias M. Howard) and John W. Lang, programme committee. The others registering were: Adehne Knights (Mrs. James McGuiney), Emeline Mc- Collum (Mrs. Alfred Vaughan), Nancy Vaughan (Mrs. Wright-Abbot), Mary H. Batson (Mrs. Howard M. Royal), Josephine Batson (Mrs. Leander Yarito),

Elizabeth Batson (Mrs. James Daniel), Sarah Osborn (Mrs. Griffin Buchanan), Ellen W. L' Argent (Mrs. Richard Hopkins), Maggie Gregory (Mrs. Joseph Wetherell), Mary Patterson (Mrs. William H. Hackett), Loutora Moeller, Letitia Jarboe (Mrs. Elisha S. Weedman), Sallie Wheatley, Sallie Whitmarsh, Maggie Gregg, Maggie Wilson, Alice Graham, Jennie Brown, Bessie Wales, Ruhamah Wales, Susanna Butler, Joshua H. Groves, Samuel T. Whitmarsh, Charles H. Deen, James J. Wheeler, John Stephens, Daniel Stanley, Smith McAllister, John Lasenby, Israel L. Whitehead, Isaac W. Lyons, Heber J. May, Hiram Sanders, James S. Frakes and John S. Frakes. The sessions were esteemed of such value that the teachers expressed their interest and gratification by resolving to hold another institute the next year.

Just a fortnight after the original institute met, the cornerstone was laid for a new public school building in Cannelton, the formal exercises taking place September 10, 1867. All the fraternal orders and local benevolent societies turned out in procession to the block lying between Taylor, Congress, Sixth and Bry streets, which the town corporation had purchased for school purposes, and the Masonic ceremonial was conducted in the presence of many spectators, who listened also to addresses from Hamilton Smith, Sr., and Charles H. Mason.

The edifice, a substantial and commodious two-story brick, still in use, with some interior remodelling, was an excellent structure for its day, reflecting much credit upon the board of trustees who erected it, Alfred Vaughan, Roan Clark and Joseph F. Sulzer. In the face of much opposition these virtually assumed payment of the bond issue, which amounted to only $9,800 bearing six per cent, interest, and in a little over five years (April, 1873) the last was paid off, when the three trustees resigned from office, giving place to others.

St. Luke's Church at the time) was the first superintendent in tlie new building for the school year of 1868-69, and the teachers employed under him were Christian H. Dick, Misses Ruhamah Wales, Augusta Kolb (Mrs. Maurice J. McGrath), Nancy Vaughan (Mrs. Abbot) and Maggie Hollerbach (Mrs. Wether ell) .

The teachers' institute of 1868, from September 7 to 11, inclusive, was the first held in the new schoolhouse, and its officers were Heber J. May, president; Mary H. Batson (Mrs. Royal), secretary; John T. Patrick, assistant secretary. Professor D. Eckley Hunter gave instruction in normal methods, in which he was one of Indiana's foremost pioneers. Exercises in the major branches of common school were conducted with much profit. Observant critics who had been appointed, indicated such omissions or commissions as were thought noteworthy and a question-box supplied its amusement together with a degree of benefit.

Up to this time each county still had its school examiner, and the last but one in Perry County holding such a position, between 1868 and 1871, was Heber J. May, who had been a successful teacher and later won distinction for himself in the profession of the law.

Heber J. May was the son of David May, and was bom November 28, 1846, in Pike County, whence his parents moved about 1852 to Perry County, making it a home thereafter. His education was in the common schools, supplemented by some years of advanced training in a select private school conducted in Cannelton by the Rev. William Louis Githens, rector of St. Luke's Church, a man of strong and admirable character, whose personal influence upon the young people showed itself in many marked instances.

While still teaching school himself, Heber J. May next studied law, reading in the office of Judge Charles H. Mason, and soon after attaining his majority passed with high credit the required examination admitting him as a qualified practitioner before the bar. For two years he practiced law in Evansville, but in 1873 he returned to Perry County where he purchased the first Enghsh newspaper in Tell City, the Commercial, an eight-column weekly journal.

It had been founded May 3, 1873, as an independent sheet, but was changed to Democratic on passing into May's hands six months later. He continued to own and edit it until January 1, 1876, when he sold the outfit to W. P. Knight, who shortly removed the plant to Union City, Indiana, Mr. May resuming his law practice in Cannelton. The death of his first wife (Margaret Mayhall, of Hancock County, Kentucky) left him a widower for several years, with one daughter, and in 1880 he was again married to Gertrude (Huntington) Bunce, daughter of the late Judge Huntington, of "Mistletoe Lodge."

In 1882 he was elected Joint Senator from Perry and Spencer Counties and in 1885 his services as an active Democrat were given due recognition by President Cleveland, who appointed him Assistant Attorney-General to Augustus H. Garland, of Arkansas, then in the cabinet. From the time of his removal to Washington he made the District of Columbia his home for the remainder of his life. When the Republicans came back into power in 1889, he formed a law partnership v/ith Judge Garland, lasting until the latter's death, and was a trusted counsellor for several of the foreign legations.

Death came to him January 22, 1915, with distressing suddenness, and he passed away in the arms of his devoted wife, v/ho still resides at the capital with their only surviving son, who is a journalist there.

Theodore Courcier, of Leopold, a son of John Courcier, who had fought in the War of 1812, became the last school examiner, in June 1871, serving under that title until June, 1873, when, by a new law, the office was changed to County Superintendent of Schools. He assumed the added responsibilities and carried on its duties until 1879, when he was followed by Israel

In earlier years the teachers' institutes were held at various points in the county, following the same plan as was then customary with the monthly examinations for teachers' license. Superintendent George, however, inaugurated a system of alternation between Cannelton in the "odd" and Tell City in the "even" years, which has not been departed from, although the law now permits no examinations to be held elsewhere than at the county-seat, where the superintendent has his office in the court house, along with the auditor, treasurer, clerk, recorder and sheriff.

The press of Perry County, whose beginning dates from April 28, 1849, when Charles H. Mason founded the Cannelton Economist, was for twenty years limited to two papers, one in each of the principal towns, and the Tell City Anzeiger being printed in German, there was practically but one county journal.

The Economist may be characterized as a periodical of superior literary tone, its editorials from the pen of Judge Mason being widely copied, while its zeal for home institutions was its strongest local feature. Little news that would pass as such today appeared in its columns, though its files afford illuminating glimpses of contemporaneous thought. Plate matter was then unknown. Each country editor had to compile his own selections, and by such should the merit of the Economist be estimated.

William H. Mason became an associate proprietor and editor in August, 1850, and the brothers continued to issue the paper until November 15, 1851. Louis Lunsford Burke and J. M. Beatty began issuing the Express from the same office December 6, 1851, but it ran through only four issues. After two months, or March 27, 1852, it reappeared as the Indiana Weekly Express, pubHshed by J. M. Beatty and J. B. Archer. November 20, 1852, Beatty sold out to Archer, who

January 28, 1854, J. M. Beatty re-entered journalism, using the original outfit of the Economist but printing Number 1, Volume 1, of the Cannelton Reporter, which he published until January 13, 1855, when he sold out to J. B. Archer. All these papers in turn had been politically independent, but Archer changed both name and politics, printing as the Cannelton Mercury a Democratic sheet whose life lasted through seven short weeks. Beatty then came back for the last time, issuing, April 21, 1855, Number 1, Volume 2, of the Reporter, resuming independent politics with the old name.

Joseph M. Prior purchased the paper February 23, 1856, changing its name with the issue of May 24 to Independent Republican and again, on August 16, to Republican Banner, which lasted until its suspension, September 13.

George G. Leming and Henry Koetter soon purchased the outfit, and November 8, 1856, saw the name Reporter restored to the head where it remained for the next twenty years, politics becoming Democratic under the new proprietors. Jacob B. Maynard bought out Koetter March 14, 1857, and January 30, 1858, took over Leming's interest also. From this time the paper regained among Indiana periodicals the status which it had never held since Charles H. Mason presided over its columns. Colonel Maynard was a writer of striking force and brilliancy, belonging to what is now termed the "Old School" of journalism whereof Henry Watterson - the beloved "Marse Henry," last and most distinguished of his type - is now (1915) the only living representative.

December 25, 1858, the paper went back into the hands of George G. Leming and James M. Moffett, who sold out very soon to the Wade brothers, John C. Wade acting as editor. Colonel Maynard took the paper once more, January 7, 1860, and his editorials during the breathless Lincoln campaign, the period of secession, and the first months of the War between the States, were copied throughout the Union, giving the Cannelton Reporter a prominence such as few country newspapers attain.

Ability so pronounced wins in every case personal recognition for itself, so that Maynard was offered a position on Indiana's leading Democratic newspaper, the Indianapolis Sentinel. He had sold a half-interest in the Reporter to W. L. Moffett, December 6, 1881, and December 5, 1863, sold his remaining share to Henry Northup Wales, who became editor.

Wales bought out Moffett April 2, 1864, but October 1 sold out to Joseph W. Snow, who had been for some years a teacher in Cannelton and Rome. He was a man of classic scholarship, as the columns of his paper plainly attest, nor v/as there any falling off in taste or abihty when he sold out, April 12, 1866, to Thomas James de la Hunt, a fellow-graduate from the sam.e college, Genesee (now Syracuse University). Ownership of the Reporter was continued by Mrs. de la Hunt for a time following her husband's death, with Charles H. Mason in the editorial chair as a Republican, but in the summer of 1876 the establishment was sold to Henderson Marcus Huff and Hiram Osborne Brazee.

June 1, 1870, the Cannelton Enquirer had been established by a stock company whose control soon passed to Edwin R. Hatfield, Sydney B. Hatfield and Elisha English Drumb, the last two being joint editors of the paper, which was a Democratic sheet and founded for purposes of county politics, wherewith all its owners were actively connected.

William N. Underwood, a native of Delaware County, New York, came in September, 1873, from Topeka, Kansas, to Cannelton, purchasing a one-third interest in the Enquirer and becoming its publisher. He was a graduate of New Berlin (New York) Academy, and had learned the printer's trade in the state of his birth, working three years in the Chenango Union office. For a year he lived in Wisconsin, as pressman for the Janesville Democrat, but at the age of twenty enlisted in October, 1861, in the Sixteenth New York Heavy Artillery, serving until mustered out, August, 1865. After the war, he located in Carlinville, Illinois, marrying Etta Wargensted there, but went to Topeka, where he was foreman of the State Record until coming to Cannelton.

Drumb and Edwin R. Hatfield retired from the paper in June, 1874, and just two years later Underwood purchased the share of Sydney B. Hatfield. William E. Knights, a Canneltonian, who had been pubhshing the Grandview Monitor, became associated with Underwood in 1877, the two buying the Reporter from Huff and Brazee and consolidating both papers June 21, 1877, under the title Cannelton Enquirer and Reporter.

Knights remained as editor only until January 31, 1878, resuming then his work in Grandview, while the Cannelton office passed into the control of Underwood. On October 15, 1887, the name Reporter was dropped from the headline, but the sheet remained Democratic until purchased, October 12, 1892, by Thomas E. Huston and Charles T. Miller, who changed its politics back to the Republican faith, Huston selling out his interest December, 1899, to Miller.

For several months in 1878 a Republican weekly, the Cannelton Advance, was published by John F, Waldo, a young journalist from Vevay, but proved an untimely venture. The presidential campaign of 1880 saw two other Republican papers established in Cannelton, the Journal, of which John E. Daum was proprietor, with William Clark as associate editor, and the News, pubhshed by Frederick V. Rounds and William A. Silverthorn. Although both were good country sheets, full of local items, their career was not much more than two years in duration. Expenses were heavy, and notwithstanding both state and national victories for the Republicans, the party had but a small share

Similar conditions six years later determined the fate of the Cannelton Gazette, a weekly founded during the summer of 1886, as a feature of the campaign looking toward the election of Benjamin Harrison to the United States Senate. Louis L. Burke, for twenty years resident in the District of Columbia, returned to Perry County, and established the paper which lasted less than a year, as the Republican gains were not sufficient to overcome Democratic control of local politics. Burke removed his plant to Brookville, where for several years he published the American with fair success.