Notes from my Knapsack 10-11-18

Notes from my Knapsack 10-11-18

Jeff Gill

 

Tearing down the old school

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When last we met, I was telling you about Granville's first school building, a log structure but with a lot of love and extra bonuses built into it, considering the era.

 

From the winter of 1805 into 1809, the first log school house was used for a variety of purposes, but Our Fayre Village loved education and valued its place in the community from literally its very foundation. We finished the school building before a church was completed, using the interior for worship until the sanctuary across the way was done. The original log school sat where Centenary United Methodist Church is today.

 

According to Bushnell's invaluable "History of Granville" of 1889, there came a night eighty years earlier when "the boys, in their evening pastimes on the common, bethought them that it would be a very jolly thing to take down the old log school house. As it would help their sires thus much, they thought it would be a meritorious frolic rather than otherwise. Though it was on the public square, and their noisy proceeding must have been observed by older people, no one interfered with them. They first took out the glass windows with great care, which had replaced the oiled paper; took the batten door from its wooden hinges, and carried them, with all that was of any value, across the street, and stored them away at Mr. Josiah Graves'. Then, beginning with the weight poles, they dismantled it down to the joists. Then, becoming weary, they went home and to bed, and slept with quiet consciences."

 

Aside from noting that you really had to be hard up for fun to enjoy taking a building apart for amusement, it actually makes sense to me. A bunch of young men, knowing the structure was coming down soon: how often do you get to tear down a building and not get in trouble? So they did . . . and got in trouble. Sort of.

 

The justice of the peace, Timothy Rose, and a few other leading citizens, decided to teach them about lawlessness, and convened a mock trial. Which is to say, the men knew it was mock, the boys did not. They were gathered a few nights later, one of them actually being gotten out of bed, and brought together where a hearing was held in high formal dudgeon. The young men were smart enough to know they needed to confess all, and did; the court then assessed them a fine for unauthorized demolition: of one quarter apiece.

 

Inflation has taken a toll, but in truth from 1809 to 2017 that's maybe four bucks in today's money. The problem was that "Twenty-five cent pieces were very scarce at that time, and it began to look pretty serious to them. It waked up their ideas about law and order. Then all the officers, as the boys looked unutterably penitent, consented to throw in their fees..." and let them in on the joke.

 

Bushnell says of the new frame school house built the next year: "It was 24 x 32 feet, and nine feet between joists. It stood with the side to the road. The pulpit was in the west end, a little raised, with a window at either side. In front of it was the deacons' seat, where, according to the custom of the times, two deacons sat, facing the audience, during each service. To the right and left, extending well down the sides, and occupying the school desks, the choir was seated. In the end of the house, opposite the pulpit, was a large open fireplace, on the north side of which was a closet for the wraps and dinner-baskets of the school children, and the front door opened right against the chimney, on the south side."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he promises there's a point to this quaint series of historical tales. Tell him where you think he's heading at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.