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A history of these is now in order. As has been
stated, in the multitude of schools heretofore mentioned the patrons paid
tuition, and the teachers taught wherever they could secure rented apartments,
but in 1845 began the era of building Public School houses.
A tradition exists that on the site of the old Brick
School House, on the corner of West Ash and Avenue A, a frame school building
stood, prior to the time of the former, yet no particulars as to the time it was
built or what became of it, have been obtained. But if such a building existed
it was replaced in 1845 by the one-roomed brick, with an entrance way, which was
so long used for both private and public schools.
The East School House, on East Elm street, and the
“Little White,” as it has always been called, on South Main street, were also
built in 1845. How the lots for the location of the North and East schools were
obtained the writer has no means of knowing, but the lot for the “Little White,”
only a narrow strip on the corner of Main and Walnut, was purchased of Esq. Joel
Wright.
These three buildings served for fifteen years, with
the use of several hired rooms, to house the increasing number of pupils, and it
was astonishing how soon multitudes of children came to be six years old, the
age at which they were entitled to entrance, and then the call was imperative
for more school houses to accommodate them.
The present High School building was designed by
William H. Haskell, and the corner stone was laid with considerable ceremony
June 15th, 1860. It contains five large rooms—four recitation rooms and a
laboratory. The erection of the building proceeded so rapidly that several rooms
were ready for occupancy by the following October.
In reply to a note of inquiry as to the terms by which
the ground on which the High School stands was obtained, Mr. N. S. Wright says:
“When the High School was located, my father owned the ground, and Messrs.
Thompson Maple and James H. Stipp gave him other lots for one-half of it, and
the three then donated the whole to the School Trustees, my father giving half,
Maple one-fourth and Stipp one-fourth. My father executed the deed to the
Trustee, and when I suggested that he should insert a clause that it should
always be used for school purposes he said he would not hamper the gift with any
condition other than that the first building erected on the ground should be
used for school purposes.”
The “Little White” on the corner, and which had for six
years been used for the High School and grammar department, was moved further
west on Walnut street, and in the course of years remodeled and added to, until
it now contains three good rooms for the primaries.
The East frame school house of one large room was
replaced in 1862 by the present brick building of four rooms and named the
“Maple School.” The same year the old brick on North Avenue A was sold, and a
new location secured on the corner of East Spruce and North First Avenue, on
which a building of the same size and capacity as the Maple school was erected
and called the “Wright School.”
The old brick was bought by Hayden Keeling and
converted into a dwelling.
After some years of crowding and waiting, the call for
a school in the west part of town was heard and heeded, and the “Hulit School”
house of four rooms, on the corner of West Chestnut and Avenue C, was built in
1888.
But like Oliver Twist’s hungry appeal, the demand a
little later was for “more” yet, and the “Kellogg School House,” the ground for
which was donated by William P. Kellogg of Washington, D. C., was erected in
1890. It is a fine building of six rooms, and has a fine location on the corner
of East Oak and South Third Avenue.
And still at the time of this writing, 1894, the call
for “more” is again repeated, and will doubtless at the proper time have
suitable response. But to relieve the over-crowded condition of the present
buildings, an old unused church on East Locust street has been called into
requisition and affords a part of several grades with accommodations.
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