(A joint district of Pike (later Somers), Mt. Pleasant, Yorkville, and Paris Townships)
"A meeting was held at the house of Chauncey Kellogg in Mt. Pleasant on Saturday, the 18th day of May 1844, to have and organize a school district composing the following sections in Mt. Pleasant, Section 31 and S.W. 1/4 of Sec. 32, T. 3 R. 22; and in the Town of Pike, Sec. 6 and W. 1/2 of Sec. 5, of T. 2, R. 22; and in Paris, Sec. 1and the E. 1/2 of Sec. 2 of T. 3, R. 21, and Sec. 36 and the E. 1/2 of Sec. 35, T. 3, R. 21, to be called the Sylvania School District, and known as such.
"Mt. Pleasant, Pike and Paris, May 18, 1844.
Gordon Secor, E.W. Washburn, George W. Parker, School Commission of Mt. Pleasant.
C. Marsh, S.C. Bacon, School Commission of Pike.
The above is a true copy of the original on file.
Oscar Hurlbut, Town Clerk"
The first school building constructed of logs and timbers hewn from the woods nearby, was built about a quarter of a mile south of The Corners. After a time this building was sold and moved to the Daniel Coughlin farm. A new site near the Methodist Church was purchased, and a new building was erected, which still stands. This school was long known as the Sylvania School, and for many years had a large attendance of pupils. Among the early teachers were Miss Adeline Wilson, M.P. Barry, who received $28 per month for three months, Miss Perkins, Miss Esther R. Shepard, E.W. Malone, Mary E. Spence, Helen Allan, Marinda Gager, Lorin Gould, Lavinia Goldsworthy, Will H. Spencer, David Powderly, Mary Burgess, Robert Pollock, Alice Murray Heidersdorf, and Nancy Murtagroyd.
Judge Roy Burgess, now of Racine, was a student at the Sylvania School. Attorney Peter Meyers was an early student also.
Among the early settlers of this part of Our Town, then called Pike, following the coming of the Kellogg families, were the Peter Meyers family, who came in 1855, Christian and William Heidersdorf, and Eliza Heidersdorf, who came from Germany in 1848. Christian Heidersdorf married Margaret Myers in 1857.
Their descendants are carrying on the homestead taken in the early days. There were five girls and five boys in the Heidersdorf family. Other families, the Alonzo Burgess', James Buckleys, the Fosters, the Holmes, the George and Horace DeLong families, the Coughlins, John and Jacob Haney, A.T. Gould, the Martins, and the Jason Davis's.
The water system at the Sylvania School was "The Old Oaken Bucket, the Moss Covered Bucket that hung in the well" at the rear of the A. T. Gould home. How we children loved to "go for water" and stop at the blacksmith shop to and from, and watch the sturdy smith as he pumped the rude bellows, or put a shoe on the farmer's horse. A.T. Gould loved the school children and they loved him. A.T. Gould's blacksmith shop stood at The Corners for 70 years.
It is said, from these little rural school houses in Our Town, that more boys and girls laid the foundation for higher things in life, than in any locality of like area. Many professionals were born and reared, descendants of those early pioneers, teachers, preachers, doctors, lawyers, missionaries, musicians, in fact, professionals in every walk of life.
Among the missionaries sent to foreign fields of work were Lucian Lee, who spent years in Turkey' Katherine Schaeffer (see below) devoted more than thirty years of useful labor in China; Herbert G. Ozanne did work in India for several years."
(Source: My Memoirs by Minnie A.G. Ozanne. Copyright 1948 - Minnie A.G. Ozanne. All Rights Reserved.)
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| (Source: My Memoirs by Minnie A.G. Ozanne. Copyright 1948 - Minnie A.G. Ozanne. All Rights Reserved.) |
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