(Parts are summarized in blue.)
"OUR EARLY SCHOOLS
Interesting Paper Read by Henry B. Harris.
Interesting History Concerning Our Schools Read at the Dedication Exercises at the Third Ward School Building
on New Year's Day.
Henry B. Harris has kindly furnished the NEWS with the manuscript of his address on our early schools delivered at the dedicatory exercises at the Third ward school building Tuesday. The article contains much valuable history that will be of interest to everyone."
The first part of the address discussed the establishment of the New England Colonies and their establishment of a common school system. Then the Continental Congress of 1785 regulated the survey of land and provided for a place for a school in the townships. After the treaty with the Indians in Northwest Ohio in 1817, Ohio passed an act which, among other things, formed the county of Williams and established a land office at Piqua in 1820. At that point permanent settlers began to come to the area.
"The town of Defiance was laid out in November, 1822, though there had been an Indian trading post here before that time. In 1825, the village consisted of a small store, a tavern and five or six families. But even before that, in 1824, the first schoolhouse was built in Defiance..."
The settlers went about a mile above the town and cut and hewed the logs, sending them down the river to a point about where the canal meets the Maumee. There the logs were loaded and driven by a yoke of oxen driven by Brice Hilton, then a young lad. Brice was directed by his father, Joshua Hilton.
"The schoolhouse was a boxed log building about 21 x 28 (?) feet in size. It stood on the fractioned lot on the northwest corner of Perry and First streets, facing west. This school house had one door and several small windows, at first without window frames or glass. It had a plank door and a clapboard roof held in place by poles. Oiled paper served the place of window glass.
An immense fire place about twelve feet long supporting a stick and mud chimney was the heating apparatus and gave the pupils an opportunity to burn on one side and freeze on the other. One row of desks was around against the walls, the seats were made of slabs with four stakes in auger holes for legs. There were no nails or iron used in the construction of the building, even the hinges being of wood and the floor pinned down and the desks pinned up in a primitive, but substantial manner. The lumber was sawed at Brunersburg at Joseph Perkins' saw mill, then the only mill within forty miles of Defiance.
| This is the one room log school house at Lincoln's New Salem Village near Springfield, Illinois, and a good example of the first frontier schools. (www.angelfire.com) |
At the time there were no wagon roads and not a wagon in Williams county. The first wagon being brought by Wm. Travis in 1825 as far as St. Mary's, when the road seemed impassible and the wagon was taken to pieces, loaded on a boat and floated down the river, while the oxen and horses were loaded with part of the supplies and driven over land, or rather, through the swamp. In those days, all supplies were brought into the settlement by pirogues, packed on the back of horses, or dragged along the Indians' trails through the forests and swamps on travoix.
The first teacher in this section was Wm. Seamans, who taught two or more terms. There were about 35 or 40 pupils. The teacher received $2.00 per term for each pupil which was paid by the parents. The second teacher, William Edmondson, who taught three or four terms, is reputed to have been a five scholar and an excellent teacher. Afterwards, Wm. A. Brown and others taught there.
In 1826 or 1827, the rival village of Brunersburg wanted a school. So they built a log school house on the west side of Bean creek on the Speaker Bottoms, about midway between the Dey and Brunersburg bridges and employed Brice Hilton as teacher, who had so improved under the instruction of Seamans and Edmondson that from employment as a drive of oxen in the building of the school house, he had come to be the master at a rival school.
From the time of the formation of Williams county to 1824, the people had to go to Perrysburg, Wood county, to attend court. From 1824 to 1829, court was held at Defiance in some private building, generally in a room over Mr. Levell's store, in the frame building lately owned by Mr. Myers, the painter, just west of the fort ground.
In 1826 and 1829, the first court house in Defiance was built just north of the Presbyterian church on Wayne street. William Preston had the contract for building this house, but the brick were made and laid by Wm. Seamens and Robert Wason, who were both brick makers and masons. Their brick yard was where Washington street now is between Third and Fifth streets, that they were master masons is evidenced by the fact that the house still stands with sound and solid walls.
After this, Mr. Seamens was justice of the peace and studied and practiced law. When I was a little boy and had just come into the possession of my first slate, Mr. Seamens, then a guest at my father's house, congratulated me on my acquisition and said that he had chopped five cords of wood for the first slate he ever owned. He neatly scratched the letters of the alphabet and the figures around the edge of the slate and said he hoped I would learn to make them as good as the copy before I broke the slate. So that Mr. Seamens was one of my first teachers, and my figures resemble his to this day. His son, of the same name, a Defiance boy, inherited his father's physical and mental stature and is now a professor of chemistry in the Ohio Wesleyan University, and a teacher and author of international reputation."
To be continued...
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