THE SECOND SCHOOL YEAR: APRIL 1, 1881 to MARCH 31, 1882
 |
Since Amos Whiting was appointed Superintendent in March 1880, Kingsbury County’s first school year ended at the end of March, 1881. The Hard Winter was still raging, yet eleven school districts had been organized in the county during the first school year. These districts were in Nordland (District No. 1) and to its west (District No. 3), two near Lake Preston (Districts No. 20 and 23), four in De Smet Township (Districts No. 2, 31, 32, and 35), one in Erwin (District No. 30), one south of Lake Whitewood (District No. 17), and two in southern Mathews Township (Districts No. 38 and 45): see table at right [Note: on all tables, dashes indicate that no information was recorded]. Like the settlers that preceded them, the first organized school districts were located near the railroad, with the main flow of organization being from east to west.
Despite the Hard Winter, two districts were organized in January 1881, one south of Lake Whitewood (District No. 20) and another near the Clyde Post Office (District No. 51). The only schools for which records have been found, indicating that terms were positively taught in them during some portion of the Hard Winter, are for the De Smet, Nordland, and Lake Henry schools.
 |
April 1, 1881, Kingsbury County Treasurer Edward H. Couse made a report to County Superintendent Whiting informing him of the amount of school funds on hand in the treasury: $88.97 in the General School Fund and $100 in the School Poll Fund [1], for a total of $188.97. These funds, along with school taxes in the amount of $113.65 collected between April 1 and July 1, were apportioned to the organized school districts in July: see table at left. The amounts shown seem small even considering that each apportionment went solely toward the payment of teachers’ wages. In most cases, these early apportionments were held in district treasuries for future expenditure, as districts were generally organized several months to a year prior to the first term taught.
The regular semi-annual examination of teachers was held as scheduled on Tuesday April 26, 1881, but the railroad was not yet open and roads in the county were nearly impassable because of mud and flooding. The only candidates were ten young members of the current school class in De Smet, and none received certificates. Their names were not recorded. Superintendent Whiting indicated that their oral work was very unsatisfactory and they all showed a lack of clear understanding of even the simplest principles involved in teaching. [2]
A total of sixteen school districts were organized in 1881: see table below right. Newspapers in Kingsbury County included reports of schoolhouses constructed, school activities, and teachers employed. Schoolhouses became the center of both social and religious activities, as there were only two churches in the county at this time. In the “Little House”® books, Wilder described not only classroom activities, but religious services, literaries, examinations, exhibitions, and debates held in the schoolhouse. One meeting she did not mention, although by law she would later be required to attend these herself, was teachers’ institutes.
 |
In the 1880s the collection of fees for teacher examinations led to the formation of teachers’ institutes, initiated simply as a means to constructively utilize the collected fees. These meetings were designed to present advanced training for teachers so that they might become better at their profession. While teachers’ institutes were required of all employed teachers in the county, for a fee, anyone interested could attend. All fees were used to hire instructors and furnish supplies for the institutes. Meetings were scheduled as often as there were sufficient funds with which to conduct them.
The first teachers’ institute in Kingsbury County was held at De Smet, beginning October 24, 1881, and continuing for six days. During this time, classes were suspended as meetings were held in the schoolhouse. This first institute was attended by Florence A. Garland, Lovenia Garland (Florence’s older sister), Jennie E. Ross, Susie Power (“Little House”® character Mary Power’s older sister), N. Eugene Osborn, Mrs. James H. Hilton, Julia F. Dow, Adelia Lathrop, Thomas H. Garvin, Romanzo N. Bunn, Louis E. Whiting, and George W. Crater. Carey J. Thomas, a local businessman, was present part of the time, and he conducted exercises in arithmetic. Willard L. Seelye, teacher of the public school in De Smet that term, was also present part of the time, and he conducted lessons in penmanship. Territorial Superintendent William H. H. Beadle arrived Friday to deliver a public address that evening. Beadle also took general closure of the exercises on Saturday afternoon. County Superintendent Amos Whiting took charge of and conducted all of the institute except as noted. Florence Garland served as secretary. [3]
Wilder remembered Mr. Seelye (she spelled his name “Seeley”) as one of her teachers, but she placed his tenure in early 1883, not in the fall of 1881 as is on record. Wilder wrote in the Pioneer Girl manuscript that once she returned to classes after teaching the Bouchie School, her teacher was Mr. Seelye, a particularly disgusting man who was asked to resign in the fall. Wilder wrote that Mr. Seelye was constantly scratching his back with the pointer during recitations, running it down inside his shirt – when he wasn’t otherwise occupied in chewing the end of it. One day the girls had had enough, so they each brought something nasty-tasting to school (Laura’s contribution was cayenne pepper) and they boiled everything together, then soaked the end of the pointer in the brew. The first time Mr. Seelye put the pointer into his mouth, he was suitably shocked, and spat on the floor. This portion of Wilder’s memoirs was not used in any “Little House”® book, but a familiar sounding back-scratching teacher eventually appeared in one of the chapters of Roger MacBride’s “The Rose Years” books. [4] Based on newspaper reports, Willard Seelye seems to have been a highly respected citizen and educator in De Smet.
At the close of the first teachers’ institute in October 1881, semi-annual teachers’ examinations were given. Territorial certificates, which allowed a teacher to teach in any school in Dakota Territory, were granted by the Territorial Superintendent to Willard Seelye and Carey Thomas, based on the Normal School diplomas each had earned prior to settling in Kingsbury County. Territorial certificates were issued to Romanzo N. Bunn and Louis E. Whiting (son of Superintendent Amos Whiting) based on standings and successful prior teaching careers in Minnesota and Wisconsin. County first grade certificates were granted to Willard Seelye, Louis Whiting, Romanzo Bunn, Florence Garland, Jennie Ross, Mrs. James H. Hilton, Adelia Lathrop, and Thomas Garvin. A county second grade certificate was issued to N. Eugene Osborn. A county third grade certificate was issued to Herbert A. Whiting (another son of Amos Whiting). All certificates were dated October 29, 1881. Both married men and women were allowed to teach in Kingsbury County, a practice unaccepted in other parts of the country and not permitted just five years earlier in Dakota Territory.
Territorial Superintendent of Public Instruction William H. H. Beadle submitted a report for the school year ending March 31, 1882 to the Governor of Dakota Territory, Nehemiah G. Ordway. Both Beadle’s published report and the statistics provided to him by Amos Whiting were preserved. Beadle reported that in Kingsbury County there were thirty-four organized school districts and sixteen completed schoolhouses with a combined value of $10,950: see map below. Four schoolhouses were under construction. Thirteen districts had levied taxes for the support of schools during the previous year. The school population, based on the annual report of 1881, consisted of 253 enrolled students, or just over one third of the total number of available school-age children. The published report [5] also includes:
Total number of teachers employed during the year - 13
Average salary, male teachers - $25.00 / month
Average salary, female teachers - $21.00 / month
Males of school age – 392
Females of school age – 303
Total number of children of school age [6] – 695
Based on taxes levied, apportionments and published reports, the sixteen school districts which had schoolhouses as of March 3, 1882 were: Districts No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 17, 19, 21, 23, 30, 31, 32, 35, 38, 45, and 51. A hand-drawn map included in Superintendent Whiting’s record book indicated the original location of most schoolhouses.
|
|
Without exception, all of the certified teachers were over eighteen years of age (the average age was well over twenty-one); most had taught prior to settling in Kingsbury County and were themselves homesteaders. A brief biography is given for each of these first teachers employed.
Willard Levi Seelye taught the De Smet school from the summer of 1881 until the fall of 1882. Seelye, born in 1853, came to Kingsbury County prior to the Hard Winter from Fairbault County, Minnesota. He homesteaded just north of District No. 2 and for a while he had a tree claim there as well. He married Ada Geneva Owen in the late 1870s and they had a son, Owen, an infant when the family settled in Kingsbury County. Ada Owen Seelye had a younger brother who later taught Laura Ingalls in De Smet, V. S. L. Owen, the “Mr. Owen” of Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years.
 |
Florence Adelia Garland was the first teacher in De Smet and the sister of “Little House”® character Cap Garland. Florence Garland was born in March 1862 in Wisconsin, to Walter Garland, an Irish immigrant, and Margaret (Petit) Garland. Florence had one sister, Sarah Lovenia, and one brother, Oscar Edmund (“Cap”). Walter Garland died in 1874. In 1879, Margaret Garland and her children moved to Ortonville, Minnesota.
Florence, Lovenia, and Cap remained there for the winter with the Smith family, while Margaret and other relatives continued on to Kingsbury County, filing on homesteads and living on them during the winter of 1879-1880. In the spring, the Smiths brought the Garland children to their mother, in time to be enumerated on the 1880 Federal Census. Florence married Charles Dawley in March 1887. The couple moved to Clark County shortly after their marriage, and Florence continued her teaching career there.
Jennie May Ross was born in Pennsylvania in February 1860, to Russell J. and Viola B. Ross. She had two younger brothers, Gaylord and William. Several members of the Ross family homesteaded in the area near the Charles Ingalls homestead. Wilder remembered that Gaylord and Jennie Ross stayed with her and Carrie and Grace in the late summer of 1881 while Ma and Pa took sister Mary to the Blind Asylum in Vinton, Iowa. Laura didn’t remember the Ross family fondly.
Jennie Ross earned a first grade teaching certificate in both 1881 and 1882, and she filed on a tree claim near her father’s homestead in 1882. In May 1883, she married homesteader Walter Wheat. Shortly after the wedding, the couple was living in their barn while a house was being built. The barn was destroyed by a cyclone and the Wheats were so badly injured that it was feared they would not survive. They did recover and continued to live in the area, raising three daughters and an adopted son.
 |
Thomas H. Garvin was born in Wisconsin in 1856. He came to the county in the summer of 1879 and filed on a homestead northwest of Nordland. He continued to teach through the late 1880s, earning an advanced degree and the title of “Professor.” Garvin was an early superintendent of schools in Kingsbury County and later became a minister. July 31, 1886, he married Selinda E. Richards in Wessington. The couple settled first in Montana, then moved to California.
William Bradford Dodge Gray was born about 1845 in Ohio. He married Julia Payne in Illinois on February 8, 1866, and moved westward with his family in 1880. In addition to teaching in the Lake Henry schoolhouse, Gray was Kingsbury County Coroner, curator of the archeological department of the historical society in De Smet, and in 1885, he was ordained as a Congregational minister.
Louis E. Whiting and Herbert A. Whiting were two of the four sons of Alzina and Amos Whiting. Louis was born in February 1852 and Herbert about 1859. The Whiting family came to Kingsbury County from Wisconsin in the summer of 1879, and both father and three sons filed on homesteads east of De Smet. Son Wilton Whiting became the Register of Deeds. Louis Whiting married Elsie Sherwood and they lived east of De Smet; Louis served on the De Smet Township School board in 1887. Herbert Whiting and his wife, Pearl, are believed to have left Dakota Territory to live in Minnesota.
Romanzo A. Bunn was born in New York in 1856 and came to Kingsbury County from Redwood County, Minnesota, in April 1880 with his widowed mother, sister, and three brothers. The four brothers: Romanzo (called “Rome”), Willis, Alson, and Delevan, filed on adjoining homesteads between De Smet and Erwin. Romanzo married Mary Murdock and they raised two sons in the area. Bunn also served on the school board in Spirit Lake Township.
Carey J. Thomas was the first of three Thomas brothers to arrive in Kingsbury County. He filed on a tree claim just north of De Smet in 1880 and preempted a relinquished homestead the next year. In 1883, about the time that his brother Alfred arrived in De Smet with his wife and children, Carey left De Smet for a year to attend law school in Madison, Wisconsin. He returned to De Smet in the summer of 1884 and joined Alfred in the land business. A third brother, Austin, a physician from Michigan, lived in De Smet for a time. In October 1886, Carey Thomas married Alice Craw in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and the couple made their home there.
Lettie M. Hilton and her husband James homesteaded south of Erwin, first filing in May 1880. The Hiltons came to Kingsbury County from Dodge County, Minnesota. James Hilton’s father, Thomas, and his brother, Albert, also homesteaded close by. His sister Sophia married Ven Owen, who taught Laura Ingalls beginning in 1883. In 1885, following the death of her husband, Lettie Hilton married Wilton Whiting, son of superintendent Amos Whiting, and for a time they were publishers of the Kingsbury County News.
Adelia M. Lathrop was born in Vermont in 1853 and came to Kingsbury County from Eau Clair, Wisconsin, with her parents, two sisters and a brother. On the 1880 Federal Census, Adelia Lathrop was the only teacher listed in De Smet Township, although she was unemployed at the time. Adelia’s father, William, homesteaded just south of “Little House”® character Robert Boast. In July 1880, Adelia filed on a homestead five miles east of De Smet along the railroad tracks. Lathrop taught several terms of school, first in South Whitewood, then in Lake Henry and Lake Preston. In late 1882, she left for school in Ripton, Wisconsin. She then attended Carleton College, returning to Kingsbury County in 1885 to resume teaching at Lake Preston.
George W. Crater was born in New York in 1854.George, his wife Hattie, and their daughter Lois came from Wisconsin, and on June 5, 1879, Crater filed on a homestead two miles north of Lake Henry. Lois Crater died in 1881. In addition to teaching, Crater was Postmaster of the Lake Henry Post Office, walking a half mile to the tracks to collect the mail which was delivered from the train each day. Crater taught through 1885. He was then elected as Director of the De Smet Township Schools. In this capacity, he signed Laura Ingalls’ contract for her term as teacher of the Wilkin School in 1885.
Notes:
1. In 1866, the legislature authorized a per capita tax of one dollar in order to supplement meager school funds.
2. Record of Superintendent of Public Schools, Kingsbury County, 46.
3. Ibid.
4. See Roger Lea Mac Bride. “New Girl,” Little Farm in the Ozarks. (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994).
5. Statistics in Beadle’s report dated December 15, 1882, differ slightly from Whiting’s report dated March 10, 1882, because Beadle included some data on schools organized after Whiting’s report had been submitted.
6. These numbers include all males and females of school age whether or not they had been enrolled in school during the previous year.
