There are very few recorded accounts of Christmas in Lucas County's earliest days, in part because the holiday had not evolved into the extravaganza that it now is and such observances as there were were brief --- and simple. But here's one account --- embedded in Lucas County's 1881 history. The narrator is Isaac Newton Elliott, just 17 and armed only with self-confidence, a minimal education and a certificate when he set forth into the wilds of Union Township to teach the winter term at Goshen School during late autumn 1854. Lucas County was only eight years old at the time.
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Having been requested to furnish a brief sketch of my experience in school teaching in the pioneer days of Lucas county, I do so, thinking it may be interesting to teachers, in this county, of the present day.
I came to Lucas county in 1854, being then a boy seventeen years old. I had been attending school at Fairfield, and had gained some knowledge of arithmetic, geography and grammar, and concluded to "go west" and teach. Reaching this county, I soon found my services were wanted some 12 miles west of Chariton, on what is known as the Mormon trace road.
The school director who proposed to employ me was Jacob Taylor, whom many now remember as the Old United Brethren preacher who expected to live a thousand years, or until the millennium, and always preached from the prophecies of Daniel.
This old veteran of early pioneer life said to me that if I wold secure a certificate of qualification signed by James Baker, a leading lawyer, and Dr. Charles Fitch, a leading physician of Chariton, I should have their school. This I assented to, and after being taken through the ordeal of an examination lasting an hour or more by these two men, learned in the law and in physic, I was assured that victory was mine.
However, I remember that Dr. Fitch said to me, "We will give you one more stunner, as a test of your mathematical skill, and if you solve this, you shall be counted qualified and have your certificate." The "stunner" was this: "A woman started to market with six dozen eggs. She broke half a dozen dozen on the way, and sold the rest for one cent a piece. What did she receive for her eggs?"
I unraveled the knotly "stunner," which left the propounders somewhat astonished. Suffice it to say, I received my coveted certificate of qualification and left the learned examiners with proud satisfaction.
The school house in which I "taught the young idea of how to shoot" was located on a hill just west of where the old Goshen Baptist church was built in after years. It was constructed of logs, chinked, and daubed with clay, with a clapboard door. The seats were the primitive slab, with a rough oak board fastened to pegs in the wall for a writing desk, running the whole length of the room on each side. A large wood stove stood in the middle of the room, around which were rude benches, forming a square, upon which sat the smaller and other pupils, that they might keep warm, as that winter --- 1854-5 --- was a bitter cold one, accompanied with deep snow.
Outside of this square I took my stand, or rather beat, for I had to keep on the move, with a heavy blue blanket overcoat on to keep from suffering with cold, which coat I was compelled to wear almost during that entire term.
It was the custom at that time to board around, a week at a place, with your pupils. You teachers of today who have your nice, comfortable boarding places near your school, with your cozy rooms, and all the comforts of the present times, can never appreciate the luxury and novelty of what it is to "board around." Had I the ability of a ready writer, I might stop here and give a chapter on the old primitive term of "boarding around" which might be of interest to many teachers of the present day, but suffice it to say, I was treated with a kindness and generous hospitality by those old pioneers of Lucas county that I shall never forget.
A number of young men came to my school, some walking four and five miles, many of them older than their boy teacher by five or six years. It was a custom of those early school days of Lucas county for the teacher to give a treat to the school on Christmas, or do worse --- take a cold bath at the nearest pond.
So as Christmas time drew near, the large boys or young men, waited on me with the customary demand of a treat. I hesitated, and told hem I would see, but that did not seem to satisfy them. I was politely told "a treat or take a ducking."
You may be assured that raised the fire in my blood, and the hair on my head was already red, so I emphatically told them that I would under no circumstances be compelled to treat them, nor did I expect to take the ducking. But the boys were determined, claiming that custom made law, and law must be obeyed.
I appealed to the old director, but he had never been inside of the school room and did not propose to interfere now, besides, some of his own boys were among the leaders in this, then considered a laudable enterprise.
I well remember that memorable Christmas morning, of 1854, when I took my place in that old log school house, with much misgiving, but with determination that no such bulldozing and intimidation should awe me. The Chapmans, Taylors, Byrleys, Woods and others were all there in full force.
As soon as school was called to order, to forestall any action, I took the floor and gave the school a flow of eloquence in favor of justice and order. Suffice to say, the boys gave up; their better nature was brought to the surface and I had no trouble afterwards, and be it said to their credit, I believe that old relic of barbarism was never resorted to afterwards in that neighborhood.
We organized the old styled country debating club soon after my school was commenced, and it was kept up during all that cold and terrible stormy winter,many coming miles to attend. It was participated in mostly by the patrons of the school.
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Isaac was a native of Fulton, County, Illinois, son of Hayden and Mary (Reese) Elliott, but was only about 4 years old when his father died and 5 when his mother married a gentleman named, harmoniously, Lewis Lewis. The family moved west to Fairfield, Iowa, during 1846, then followed Isaac west to Chariton during 1856.
Isaac continued to teach for some years after his initial outing in Union Township, then moved to southeast Iowa for a time where he met and married Annie Royer during 1862 at Mount Pleasant. He enlisted during May of 1864 in Company H, 45th Iowa Volunteer Infantry, but was honorably discharged at Keokuk for unknown reasons 4 months later.
The Elliotts moved back to Chariton after the war and he opened Hillside Nursery on an acreage immediately west of town, a business he pursued until the late 1870s. He then accepted a job as mail clerk with the C.B.&Q. Railroad and moved his family to Indianola.
From Indianola, the family moved to Cainsville, Missouri, where they operated a hotel, then to Mount Pleasant, where they operated another hotel. By 1900, age 63, he was a Henry County deputy sheriff.
It's not exactly clear what happened after that, by Isaac and Annie left Iowa behind. She died in the West during 1903 and was buried in Salt Lake City's Mt. Olivet Cemetery. Isaac passed on Nov. 27, 1905, in Chicago but his remains were brought west to Salt Lake City for burial near Annie.
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