Author: Lora Radiches >
Surnames: Peacock, Thornburg, Hinshaw, Hadley, Cox, Kendall, Macy, Peacock,
Blackburn
The School
Jericho Friends Meeting
And Its Community
Randolph County, Indiana
Surnames in this are: Peacock, Thornburg, Hinshaw, Hadley, Cox, Kendall, Macy,
Peacock, Blackburn,
1860 TO 1900
The School
It has been stated that the first school on the site of the present church
property
was built in 1838. How long this frame school building was used is not surely
known.
The only reference at hand is a statement by Arthur Peacock that it stood, in
the year
1864, a mere shell with lightless windows. It may be that the new school was
built
two or three years earlier. Wayne Township was organized in the year 1838 in
its present
form though it existed, at least on paper, as a much larger territory as
early as 1820. By
the beginning of the Civil War, the organization of the Township had begun to
be felt in
the lives of the people. When the old Jericho School of 1838 became
inadequate for the
number of pupils and it was decided to build a new school, the folks of the
community
turned to the township Trustees for financial assistance. An agreement was
made that the
Township would build the school house but that the Friends should continue to
select
teacher sat an annual meeting held for the purpose. It was further agreed
that the
pupils
were to be allowed to attend fifth day Meeting in a body, as they had in the
past. It is
probable that the teacher continued to be paid by the Friends, at least in the
beginning.
The new school house was built across the road from the burying- ground in
the extreme
northwest corner of 531 R15E and stood just to the west of the place where the
Conservative Friends Meeting-house was later to be erected. The school was
hence forth
known as the No.7 School. The school as first built was only a one room house.
However, the attendance soon became so large that it became necessary to add
a second
room and to hire two teachers. It was in this school that the Literary
Society and the
Jericho Debating Society were organized. The arrangement of a two room school
and two teachers continued until about 1878, when the Conservative Friends
split off
from the Meeting and built the white frame meeting-house. It appears that at
about this
time they also with drew their children from the school and sent them to a
new school
which they had built at about the center of the north 1/2 of the northwest
1/4 of S31
R15E.This later became the land of Levi Thornburg. This defection of pupils so
decreased the attendance that the Township Trustees (now paying the teachers'
salaries)
refused to hire more than one teacher. The two rooms were accordingly thrown
together.
The Conservative Friends school was soon moved from its first location to a
place on the
northside of the road, a quarter mile west of the Meeting, in S25 R14E. It
stood on land
now owned by Charles Hinshaw. Teachers at this school of the Conservatives
are said
to
have been: Emily Hadley, Susanna Cox, Mattie Cox, Sally Kendall, Charley
Hinshaw,
Adeline Macy, Abe Peacock, and Abbie Blackburn. Allowing at least one year
for each
teacher,it is probable that this school continued for at least a decade or
more. Its pupils
were finally absorbed by the district school. The building is now a part of
the house
where Alice and Edith Hinshaw live, a little south and west of the last
location of the
school. About the year 1890, a dispute arose between the Trustees of Wayne
and White
River Townships as to the proper allocation of the cost of the Jericho or No.
7 School, it
being located on the line between the two Townships, though the building
stood wholly
within WayneTownship. While the majority of the patrons favored the old
location,
the Trustees wished to move the building to Sorghum Corner. As a compromise,
a new
brick building was built on the north side of the road, halfway between the
two points.
Thisis the building where James Chenoweth now resides. This brick building
was the last
ofthe one-room schools to be identified with the name of Jericho.When the
writer knew
it, it was heated by a single pot bellied stove in the center of the room.
This was later
replaced by a furnace-type unit set in the northwest corner. The school was
attended by
from fifteen to twenty children. A list of the teachers at the Jericho
School, for the period
under discussion, follows. It will be noted that two teachers are listed for
most of the
years from 1869 to 1880.This is the time during which the school consisted of
two
rooms.