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Passing of the Log School House The first schoolhouses built
in the county were of round logs, just as were the first dwelling houses,
some of poles. Dwelling houses constructed of hewn logs preceded the
schoolhouse of the same kind. Where and when the first hewn-log
schoolhouse was built is not known to any degree of certainty to anyone
now living. For the first twenty-five years in the history of the county,
all the schoolhouses were of logs, and fifty per cent of them the same up
to the time of the Civil War. The period of building frame schoolhouses
did not set in until at some time in the ‘50’s. When and where the first
frame was built cannot now be given from any known record. It has been
stated by survivors of the pioneer period that what was known as the BUTT
school-house, later the Crafton, perhaps, on the old Bowling Green-Brazil
road, a little distance west of the Adam MOORE place, was the original
frame in the county. This house was built at as early a date as 1855,
perhaps earlier. A number of small frame houses were built at an early
date in Perry Township. There are no existing records from which it may be
definitely known when and where the last log-house was built. Among the
latest, if not the three last, were the HAYS, in Dick Johnson, the
BARNETT’s Crossing, in Jackson, and the SHIDLER, or Danville, in Harrison,
which were built after 1860, within the time of the Civil war. The last
house built of poles was that at the EVANS’ corner, in Sugar Ridge
Township, a mile east of the JAMISON place. The last school taught in a
log house was that of the winter of 1871-72, in the SHIDLER district, a
mile and a half east of Middlebury, W. W. McGREGOR, teacher. Close this window to return to the website
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