History and images of historic Highland School

The final incarnation of historic Highland School vanished from its perch overlooking Lake Morris about three miles due east of Chariton shortly after June 28, 1958, when --- following consolidation --- the building and its contents were sold at public auction. At the time, the district (formed in 1855) was 103 years old and the building itself --- built in 1896 and the third to serve neighborhood scholars --- was 62.

The district's original 1855 building, constructed of logs without a nail just north of what now is U.S. 34, and the second, built in that location during 1861 with native timber framing and milled lumber hauled from Ottumwa, assumed legendary proportions in the neighborhood.

Their memory became the focal point of the Highland School picnic and reunion held annually from 1904 into the 1920s in nearby Threlkeld Woods and drawing as many as 300 attendees (in 1911).

This magnificent group photograph, kindly shared last week by Scott Threlkeld, was taken at one of those reunions --- the year wasn't noted. Nor were any of those former scholars, teachers and friends depicted identified. But I'm willing to wager that the woman seated in the second row with what appears to be a tablet in her lap is Miss Susan Day.

Miss Day (1854-1936) attended Highland as a child, taught there as a young woman, became one of Lucas County's most distinguished educators and also served as unofficial historian of Russell, where she lived, died and is buried. She also was a principal organizer and historian of the association that planned and carried out the annual September Highland picnics.

Now thanks to Scott, I'm able to pair this image with the text of Miss Day's history of Highland School, prepared for the second Highland reunion, held precisely 115 years ago --- on Sept. 8, 1905. The original handwritten manuscript is in the Lucas County Historical Society collection.

What I can't do, however, is locate with assurance Threlkeld Woods (where the picnics were held on tables set out under the trees). The headwaters of Little White Breast Creek were dammed just before World War II to form Lake Morris, flooding a good chunk of the neighborhood. And the old State Road was straightened to form what now is U.S. 34. So the landscape has changed considerably.

But wherever it may have been, here's the text of Miss Day's address, delivered on that long ago Friday in September. Be warned that it ends abruptly --- the final page apparently was torn away at some point and has vanished.

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A paper read before the Ex-teachers and Pupils Association of the Highland School District, Lincoln Township, Lucas County,  Iowa, Sept. 8, 1905.

Ex-teachers and pupils, and Friends: We meet here today for the two-fold purpose of holding the annual reunion and picnic of the Ex-teachers and Pupils of the Highland school, and to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the erection of the first school building and of the teaching of the first term of school in the district.

Highland School district comprises a territory of seven and one half square miles situated in the southeast corner of Lincoln township, being three miles north and south and two and one half east and west.

The first settlers located in the district probably between the years 1850 and 1853. In the spring of 1855 there was a meeting of the voters in the district and they decided to erect a school building, which they proceeded to do. The builders were Noah Threlkeld, Hugh Larimer, Freeman Moore, Wm. Whisenand, W.K. Larimer, Isaac Derrickson, J.D. Youtsey and a man named Cawhorn, they being at that time all the voters in the district. After due deliberation a site was chosen about three fourths of a mile southwest of the center of the district, on the principal road through the county, known as the State Road, in the edge of the woods bordering the headwaters of Little Whitebreast (S.E. corner of the S.W. quarter of the S.E. quarter of Section 26, Township 72 North, Range 21 West), an ideal spot for a school building, there being something over a half acre of cleared ground sloping very gently to the south for a playground to the north of the spot chosen for the building, while to the east, south and west were trees making delightfully shady retreats for rest and quiet games.

A log school building 18 x 18 feet in size was erected, with a clapboard roof, puncheon floor, the cracks between the logs chinked in with blocks and daubed with mud, three half windows in each side to give light, the door in the east end hung on wooden hinges.

Two holes bored in a log of the south wall, long wooden pins inserted in them, a brace from the wall at the floor sloping outward to the end of each pin, and a wide board placed thereon, formed the desk on which the pupils practiced penmanship. The seats were the proverbial old time ones of slabs with four holes bored in them and pins slanting outward to the bottom for legs. The seat at the writing desk extended almost the full length of the house, and if one or two pupils chanced to be sitting at the ends of the seat, all others desiring a place at the desk would seat themselves upon the central portion of the bench, raise their feet above it, twist themselves around, and lowering the feet upon the other side, comfortably settle down to work.

The school house was warmed by a large, oblong stove that would take in sticks of wood about three feet in length, and of any diameter up to about fifteen inches. The wood was usually supplied by the district, most of the kindling by the boys, and few shell bark hickory trees were to be found in the vicinity of the school house that had not been peeled as high as the boys could reach with poles to get the bark.

Not a nail was used in the construction of the building, wooden pins being their substitute in all places. 

The house being completed ready for occupancy, Mrs. Christiana Larimer was engaged as teacher, and began the first term of school taught in the district July 15, 1855, her pupils being Anna, John and Austin Threlkeld, Mary, Belle, Martha, Wm., and Alex Larimer, Caroline Youtsey, Alice, Jennie and Jeff Whisenand, James and Frank Moore, Nancy and Catherine Larimer, Columbus, Henry and Amanda Wilson, Elizabeth and Granville Cawhorn, and Mary Larimer, the little daughter of the teacher.

There was no term of school taught in the winter, and Hiram Moore moving into the district in the fall and finding no vacant house wintered in the school house.

This log school house was used until the spring of 1861 and the following persons taught one or more terms of school in it: Hannah Maple, Isaac Maple, Mr. Ulph, Mr. Callahan and Margaret Maple, who taught the last term taught in it.

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The patrons of the school deciding to build a more substantial and warmer house planned for the erection of a good frame building, and as the first district east of Chariton desired a school building also, early in the year 1861, probably February, W.B. Day, Wm. Moore, W.K. Larimer, Eli Larimer and John Dixon drove to Ottumwa and brought lumber, shingles and nails from that point with which to erect the two buildings. All the square timbers were hewn from native timber. During the spring the Highland school house so dear to the memory of our childhood days was built. A neat frame building 24 x 28 feet, ceiled from the floor upward to the height of about three feet, the rest of the walls well plastered.

Starting from each side of the door in the east, a wooden bench extended across that end and along each side of the room to the west end. Home-make desks were placed before it, so arranged that the pupils on the two sides of the house faced each other excepting one desk on each side of the door, which faced westward. A blackboard hung across the west end of the room at the bottom of which was a little trough in which lay not the neat sticks of crayon now used in our schools but chunks of chalk of very irregular shapes and sizes with pieces of sheepskin nailed wool outward to pieces of wood for erasers.

While this house was being made ready for occupancy, the spring term of school for that year was taught by Maria Lyman in an empty building on what was known as the Ruple farm in Cedar township, it being the east part of what is now the Colinson farm. The fall term of that year was taught by Wm. . Maple in the new school house and he was followed without any vacation by David Mitchell in the winter term.

They were succeeded by the following teachers: Sarah Davidson, Maggie McCormick, Nan Mitchell, Cell Vance, Tom Rowland, Dr. J.A. McKlveen, J.N. Hanlin, Margery Kennedy, Maggie Foster, Mary Stout, Elvira Marshall, Lizzie Day, S.D. Roddy, Harry Dungan, Anna Elcock, Anna Galloway, Ellen Huston, Fanny Matson, Laura Douglass, Ethan Shaw, Charles Smith, C.E. Whitten, Susan Day, John Werts, Lissie Bitner, Mary Shannon, Mary Clinton, Mary Patterson, Will Farber, Laura Copeland, Louise Osmonde, A.L. Whitten, Julia Chickering, Dell Taylor, Leila Blanchard, Mollie Freel and Edith Brant.

The school system of Lincoln township was first a township district composed of several sub-districts, but in 1874 it was changed and every sub-district became an independent district governing its own school affairs in all things.

The northern portion of the district becoming more thickly settled and there being no direct road across to the Highland school house, in the year 1880 a school house was built a little over a mile north and a short distance east from Highland, and one or more terms of school was taught therein every year until 1886. In May of that year, the Highland school house was moved to its present location, about three fourths of a mile northwest of the old site. Since its removal to its present location, the following named persons have taught this school: Victoria Powers, Tom Prather, Florence Tickle, Jessie Howard, Mattie Wells, S.W. Perkins, Sadie Pyle, Effie Keen, Nettie Howard, Villa Ashba, G.B. VanArsdale, Myrtle Gardner, Retta Clark, Emma Threlkeld, Jas. Treasure, A.L. Whitten, Tessie Courter, Kate Jones, Leonard Baxter, Delman Threlkeld, Susie Hupp, Lida Johnston, F.M. Flemming, Ida Patterson, May Linn, Ethel Paine, Bertha Keene, Myrtle Eastman,  Louise Moore, Amanda Westling, Bertha Mitchell and at the present Charles Johnston is teaching the school.

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The north school house having been discarded for school purposes, it was sold in 1893 to Wm. Baxter for $62. At this time, the question became agitated whether the Highland school house should be put in better repair or a new one built, and at the spring election in 1896 a vote was taken on the question and by a majority of only one or two votes, they decided to build a new house. The opposition discovered some flaw in the election, which rendered it illegal, and another election was called, and for the first, and so far the last time in the history of Highland district, the majority of the women of voting age were in attendance and voted, the result of the election remaining the same as the first one, as of course every married woman voted just as her husband did, and the spinsters as did their fathers.

The old building was sold to Elmer Shore for $12.50, by whom it was moved a half mile south and converted into a dwelling which is now occupied by the Misses Davidson, and the new school house, the one in use at the present, was built in 1896.

Of the Highland pupils who afterward became teachers we find Wm. H., Margaret, Sarah, Rhea and Mary Maple, Lizzie, Susan, Kate and Belle Day, Chauncey, Archie and Asa Whitten, Timothy Threlkeld, Alzina and John McCurdy, Delman Threlkeld and Minnie and Zora Bryan.

Of the pupils who were seized with a heart trouble which only a union of their hands and lives could remedy we see John Threlkeld and Sarah Moore, Wm. Larimer and Eliza J. Hall, Emery Whetstine and Kate Day, I.N. Threlkeld and Mate Bryan, Jas. Bryan and Isadore Threlkeld and Frank Youtsey and Anna Hatcher.

We see around us today many of the old time faces, changed it is true by the march of time, yet in our hearts we are all Highland boys and girls the same as we were in those dear old days when we were barefoot youngsters playing blackman or ball or wading the waters of the creek in summer or tobogganning down the hill southwest of the shool house in winter on a half of the old blackboad from the log school house which we used for that purpose. How many of us remember to our sorrow the thicket of blackberry vines at the foot of the hill into which we too often landed, crawling therefrom with (final page missing).