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Brent Engel, former reporter for the Hannibal Courier-Post, was saddened to learn that the grade school he attended in Augusta, Ill., was gutted by fire early Saturday morning, Jan. 28, 2012. Engel shared the following information.
By BRENT ENGEL
Here is the history behind the grade school that I attended in Augusta, Ill. (along with thousands of other kids over the years, of course). The following was adapted or quoted from “Augusta’s Story,” published in 1921 by the Martha Board Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
I’m attaching a photo of it that I took July 2, 2011. It was being used for storage at the time.
I have so many memories of the place that it would be hard to list them.
Until fire consumed it on Jan. 28, there had been a school -- or at least a school building -- on the northeast corner of Center and North Streets in August for 172 years.
In 1840, five years after Ruth Bateman taught the first school class and eight years after Augusta was settled on the hill where present-day Southeastern High School stands, a small frame structure was built.
In 1856, just months after the first Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad train came through Augusta, “the nucleus of the present building (the one consumed by fire on Jan. 28) was commenced,” according to “Augusta’s Story,” which was published in 1921 by the Martha Board Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
“It was often referred to as the ‘Academy,’” relates the book.
James K. Catlin, a son of town co-founder Joel Catlin, wrote in a Nov. 30, 1857, letter that “The Academy is finished and the school opened last week in the new building with an attendance of about eighty pupils to begin with,” according to the book.
The school had three rooms on the first floor and three on the second, with two winding stairways on each end. One was used by the girls and the other by the boys.
“Upstairs was a large central room where all upper grade pupils were seated, going to the recitation rooms on the north and south for their classes,” the book says. “Downstairs the primary room was on the north, while the middle room was used for intermediate pupils, with a recitation room on the south.”
The first principal was Benjamin King, and early teachers included Emily Merriman, Bernice Kingerlee, Ruth Palmer, S.B. McAfee, the Rev. George McAfee, Mercy Compton Newcomb and Peter Sickal.
In 1872 or 1873, the east wing was built and the west front was added in 1896. The “Augusta’s Story” account varies on when the first class was graduated, either in 1872 or 1875, but there was a graduation at the facility each year from 1886 until a new high school was built on the town’s original settlement site in 1920.
“The schoolhouse as it stands today, is a model of convenience and equipment, and the fame of the high school has spread abroad until it becomes necessary to prepare for still larger quarters,” the 1921 book reads.
It seems religion was the only thing more important than education to Augusta’s early settlers.
“Our forefathers, anxious that their children should not suffer from lack of proper teachers, made up a fund and sent back east for men qualified to reach the higher branches,” wrote Libbie G. Pierson Mitchell, who added that math and Latin were “taught perhaps more thoroughly then than at some other times.”
“Augusta’s Story” lists every graduate from 1875 to 1920. Familiar names that still can be found in or around Augusta include Holmes, Hamilton, Stienbarger, Farlow, Denny, Weinberg, Winters, Bilderback, Robbins, Sapp, Beard, West and Ogle.
Other names were lent forever to the family businesses or structures that once lined Main Street.
There was the Venable Building and the Pitney Drug Store. The latter stood until early the 1970s on the northwest corner of the intersection of Ill. 61 and 101, where a mural about the town’s history and a park are now featured.
On Sept. 18, 1858, U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln visited Augusta to give a campaign speech and took a meal at the home of businessman and minister James Stark, a long-time acquaintance.
The Stark house stood on the northwest corner of Center and North streets, directly across from the school.
The Stark family and the visiting politician dined on “Irish and sweet potatoes, honey, green beans, and peach cobbler,” reported “Augusta’s Story.” “Lincoln praised the beans saying he could eat a gallon if they were cooked as good as Mrs. Stark cooked them; refused a second helping of peach cobbler but asked if he might have it for supper; also asked if they would have any cold beans.” The house stood until the late 1960s or early 1970s.
An author listed in “Augusta’s Story” only as “A Voice From the Past” wrote about memories of the school property.
“The north half of the school house block is changed,” the person wrote in 1921. “As I remember it, there was an old story and a half house, surrounded with a great deal of shrubbery and a fine orchard extended to the east line of the block. It was owned by Samuel Parrot. This house and the school house were the only two houses on the block.”
The school operated as an elementary and junior high until 1970, when Augusta consolidated its schools with Bowen and West Point. In the 1990s, Plymouth was added.
The old Augusta school served kindergarten through fourth grades until the late 1970s, when it was closed.
The Augusta Lions Club later bought it and used it for community events.
Part of it also housed a museum, which included items such as an old Augusta High School Redskins sports uniform and a bottle of prepared chicken from Dennis Chicken Products Company, which was established by Augusta native David Paul Dennis and his father, Oren.
Brent Engel, former reporter for the Hannibal Courier-Post, was saddened to learn that the grade school he attended in Augusta, Ill., was gutted by fire early Saturday morning, Jan. 28, 2012. Engel shared the following information.
By BRENT ENGEL
Here is the history behind the grade school that I attended in Augusta, Ill. (along with thousands of other kids over the years, of course). The following was adapted or quoted from “Augusta’s Story,” published in 1921 by the Martha Board Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
I’m attaching a photo of it that I took July 2, 2011. It was being used for storage at the time.
I have so many memories of the place that it would be hard to list them.
Until fire consumed it on Jan. 28, there had been a school -- or at least a school building -- on the northeast corner of Center and North Streets in August for 172 years.
In 1840, five years after Ruth Bateman taught the first school class and eight years after Augusta was settled on the hill where present-day Southeastern High School stands, a small frame structure was built.
In 1856, just months after the first Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad train came through Augusta, “the nucleus of the present building (the one consumed by fire on Jan. 28) was commenced,” according to “Augusta’s Story,” which was published in 1921 by the Martha Board Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
“It was often referred to as the ‘Academy,’” relates the book.
James K. Catlin, a son of town co-founder Joel Catlin, wrote in a Nov. 30, 1857, letter that “The Academy is finished and the school opened last week in the new building with an attendance of about eighty pupils to begin with,” according to the book.
The school had three rooms on the first floor and three on the second, with two winding stairways on each end. One was used by the girls and the other by the boys.
“Upstairs was a large central room where all upper grade pupils were seated, going to the recitation rooms on the north and south for their classes,” the book says. “Downstairs the primary room was on the north, while the middle room was used for intermediate pupils, with a recitation room on the south.”
The first principal was Benjamin King, and early teachers included Emily Merriman, Bernice Kingerlee, Ruth Palmer, S.B. McAfee, the Rev. George McAfee, Mercy Compton Newcomb and Peter Sickal.
In 1872 or 1873, the east wing was built and the west front was added in 1896. The “Augusta’s Story” account varies on when the first class was graduated, either in 1872 or 1875, but there was a graduation at the facility each year from 1886 until a new high school was built on the town’s original settlement site in 1920.
“The schoolhouse as it stands today, is a model of convenience and equipment, and the fame of the high school has spread abroad until it becomes necessary to prepare for still larger quarters,” the 1921 book reads.
It seems religion was the only thing more important than education to Augusta’s early settlers.
“Our forefathers, anxious that their children should not suffer from lack of proper teachers, made up a fund and sent back east for men qualified to reach the higher branches,” wrote Libbie G. Pierson Mitchell, who added that math and Latin were “taught perhaps more thoroughly then than at some other times.”
“Augusta’s Story” lists every graduate from 1875 to 1920. Familiar names that still can be found in or around Augusta include Holmes, Hamilton, Stienbarger, Farlow, Denny, Weinberg, Winters, Bilderback, Robbins, Sapp, Beard, West and Ogle.
Other names were lent forever to the family businesses or structures that once lined Main Street.
There was the Venable Building and the Pitney Drug Store. The latter stood until early the 1970s on the northwest corner of the intersection of Ill. 61 and 101, where a mural about the town’s history and a park are now featured.
On Sept. 18, 1858, U.S. Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln visited Augusta to give a campaign speech and took a meal at the home of businessman and minister James Stark, a long-time acquaintance.
The Stark house stood on the northwest corner of Center and North streets, directly across from the school.
The Stark family and the visiting politician dined on “Irish and sweet potatoes, honey, green beans, and peach cobbler,” reported “Augusta’s Story.” “Lincoln praised the beans saying he could eat a gallon if they were cooked as good as Mrs. Stark cooked them; refused a second helping of peach cobbler but asked if he might have it for supper; also asked if they would have any cold beans.” The house stood until the late 1960s or early 1970s.
An author listed in “Augusta’s Story” only as “A Voice From the Past” wrote about memories of the school property.
“The north half of the school house block is changed,” the person wrote in 1921. “As I remember it, there was an old story and a half house, surrounded with a great deal of shrubbery and a fine orchard extended to the east line of the block. It was owned by Samuel Parrot. This house and the school house were the only two houses on the block.”
The school operated as an elementary and junior high until 1970, when Augusta consolidated its schools with Bowen and West Point. In the 1990s, Plymouth was added.
The old Augusta school served kindergarten through fourth grades until the late 1970s, when it was closed.
The Augusta Lions Club later bought it and used it for community events.
Part of it also housed a museum, which included items such as an old Augusta High School Redskins sports uniform and a bottle of prepared chicken from Dennis Chicken Products Company, which was established by Augusta native David Paul Dennis and his father, Oren.
