Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/497

 HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

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��mechanics, who speedily erected a comfortable frame schoolhouse in the northeast part of the town, which was occupied for school purposes more than twenty years."' Some of Barrs pu- pils were Joseph, Robert and Harriet Cairns, John and Hugh McCluer. Rebecca, (loorge and James Coffinberr}' — the latter is now a promi- nent Judge in the city of Cleveland — and p]liza- beth. Susan, Jane W,, Rel^ecca D.. George ^Y.. Mar}' and Sarah L. Carothers.

Some years after the Big Spring Schoolhouse was built, another was erected on the other lot donated b}- Gen. Hedges. It was called the " Red " Schoolhouse, and occupied the lot on the corner of Fourth and Mull^erry. where F, E. Tracy now lives. This house was standing in 1840. as Mr, J, H, Cook was a teacher at that time. One of the later schoolhouses was also erected on the south end of the market-house lot, and the school there was at one time taught b}' Moses Dickey.

It was not until March. 1846. that a petition was received by the Council, asking that the town be divided into school districts. Up to this time, but one district existed. In April following, the Council ordained. •• that said cor- porate limits be divided into three separate dis- tricts, to be known and called Nos. 1. 2. and 3."' District No. 1 to include all that part of the town east of Walnut street and north of the public square ; Xo, 2 to embrace all south of the north line of the public square, and east of Walnut, except that the line running north and south between Second and Third streets should follow Main street instead of Walnut ; No. 3 embraced all that part of town not in- cluded in the other two,

Fi^'e Wardens were appointed by the Coinicil for each of these districts, and. as the town in- creased in population, other districts were added from time to time, as the necessities of the case demanded, until they numbered six. In these three original districts, the schoolhouses were. No. 1. the Big Spring, on Fourth, where the first

��brick schoolhouse was afterward erected ; No, 2, the new brick on Southeast Diamond, now occu- pied as a normal school ; No. 3. the Red School- house, corner Fourth and Mulberr}-.

There is a gap in the history of Mansfield schools it will be hard to bridge over, in conse- quence of the total destruction of all the records of the Board of Education b}' fii'e, when H, C, Hedges' block was burned, about 1870 ; however, there is little valuable history of the schools before about 1855, when the present system, then, of course, in a rude state, came into existence. The following is copied from the Mansfield ffcraJJ, of January, 1857 : ■'Our schools were organized under the law of 1852, immediately after its passage, A Board of Education, consisting of J. H, Cook, A. L, Grimes and I. Gass, was elected in the spring of 1855. As contracts already existed for teaching one term in the several school dis- tricts into which our city was then divided, this Board did not enter fully upon its duties until the fall of that year, at which time prop- erly commences the graded system among us. The usual embarrassment attending the appli- cation of any new law as important as this, was felt by the Board in their early labors, which demanded the utmost discretion and skill in overcoming. We have had no access to the statistics of these schools previous to their organization under the new law. Such as we have are furnished l)y Dr, Catlin, the present Superintendent, Alexander Bartlett was appointed Principal of the High School and Superintendent ^of Instruction for the first year. He was succeeded by H. Merrel, who held the position seven months, George W, Waring succeeded I, Gass, and B, Burns suc- ceeded A. L, Grimes, on the expiration of their terms of office. The Board, as now constituted, consists of J. H. Cook. President ; G. W. War- ing and B, Burns ; the City Clerk, Alexander ]McIlvaine. acting, by virtue of his office, as Clerk of the Board.

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