Richardsville Road

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My notes about Lewis Evans late 1800's school records to the reader:

I am sure the patience and dedication of the teachers in these schools were second to none, and I admire them for what seems today like would be an impossible job. On the front cover of each record book were detailed instructions on how the teachers were to keep the records. One of the first things it says is: "A teacher’s character is in no small degree indicated by the manner in which the monthly report is kept. However as I tried to transcribe these records......I found what we will call deviations from proper practices.  In one of the record books I found a "scolding" hand written note from the School Secretary G.W.Temple 1887 as follows:

Information Transcribed: The books show teachers name, student’s daily attendance, subjects, grades, name, male/female, age, any visitors were also recorded with how long they visited.

What you will find listed in these transcriptions is students Name / Age / Year (the year is the first legible recorded year I found the students name with age information.) To calculate birthdays of students you will need to subtract age from year.

A word of caution: It was not uncommon for a students name or age to be less than accurately recorded.

School locations: The only way I can offer locations is to use the two maps available to me from the late 1800's. It was not uncommon to see the same schools listed in slightly different places. I accept this as fact, guessing that if the class size would outgrow the building, or the building would become unusable, it would move to a close by building.

School name: I am not sure but looking at the map of the time, it looks like who ever owned the property the school was on, the name carried over. One example was Bowdish #4 became McIntoush #4, I assume the property was sold by Bowdish to McIntoush so the name changed. Also each school was also assigned a number that did not change. This may be helpful for Twp. Record keeping. If the actual school relocated to another building, or the property was sold and given a different name at least the number identifier for the school record would stay the same. Examples of the school location at different locations can be seen on the included map.

Teachers: I do not know if any special qualifications were needed to become a teacher, possibly a neighborhood would simply ask someone to do the job, or be voted in by parents or community. Very rarely did the same teacher go more than a few months, this may have been due to any number of reasons, I do not know exactly why, possibly sickness, or helping with crops at home, or they moved from the area? I did find where teachers would sometimes board with a students family if they lived too far away.

Attendance: Changed wildly month to month, may have had a lot to do with weather or crops, and even disease. I found an example of Measles that lasted nearly 2 months in one school. According to these records, the school seamed to close during this time. Also: It might be me, but it seemed like when more teenage girls were enrolled, the teenage boys attendance seemed to improve greatly. ..... Coincidence I am sure......

Some of the textbooks - subjects taught: New Testament was a constant, Osgood Speller- primary-advanced, Modern reader-first-second-third-forth, Grammar, Reed and Kellogs Geography amoung others, But the New Testament was a constant.

Average Teacher Pay $27.00 pr month: Since Teacher pay was by the month, Records were kept by the month. It did not seam to matter how many students were in that month’s class, (anyplace from 20 to some times nearly 50 students) or their ages (any where from 4 years old to 22 years old) but the pay did move around by a few dollars. I am not sure why?

Student’s age: Some ages are just missing, it seams it was not a requirement to record, although there was a place in the record for it.

Student’s name variations example: I found 4 different spellings of Lindimuth, Lindenmuth, Lindamuth, Lindemuth, for what looks like the same students in different months. Often a new teacher will spell the name different, or if the child was very young when they first attended school, the spelling sometimes changed after a few months or years, sometimes it did not. So it is very difficult to know what the spelling should be. The Lindenmuth name is if intrest to me because my mother was a "Lindenmuth" and there has been some question about the different spellings. This may explain how it could have happened, one of the first things a child learns in school is how to spell their name so it depends on what they learned to be right. Vandevort was another of many examples: Vandevert, Vandorvort, Vandavrt, etc. almost every variation you can imagine for the same child’ in different months records, I wound up choosing one spelling and going with it, not that I want to alter these records, it just became impossible to know what spelling was right. Even Delph, I suspect became Delp, Evens beacme Evans and so on.

These original 1800s Warsaw twp. school records are in the form of large hard covered legal ledgers.  These books from the Richardsville road project have now been entrusted to the Jefferson Co. Historical Society.