The next morning was cold, with deep fall of snow during the night; but all the larger boys were inside of the school house with a hot fire and armed with ropes and strings, and plenty of wood and provisions to withstand a siege, before it was yet light. All the openings were barricaded with the benches, which consisted of heavy “puncheons,” with wooden pins driven in on the convex side for legs. One after another of the children came and were admitted, and when the teacher arrived, he found the house (cabin) full of jolly boys and girls, but could not himself enter.
After many ineffectual efforts to obtain admission, he started homeward. This was the signal for the boys, and the yelping, whooping crowd of all sizes and ages of minors, broke camp and gave chase. Robinson is described as an athletic specimen of vigorous manhood, and delighted in sport, and concluded to give the boys a fox chase through the forest and unbroken snow. He led the gang quite easily for a short time, but after several miles’ running the boys captured and overpowered the fleeing despot. Finding resistance useless he submitted to be tied and roped down securely to pieces of timber on either side with face in the direction of the clouds. The burial ceremony was performed by asking compliance, and marching around his body, singing funeral dirges, and piling snow upon his person.
A monument of snow was soon erected with an opening for breathing and conversation. He did not hold out long, and by pledging his honor the bill of fare should be on hand, and no punishment or ill-will entertained for the usage received, the prisoner was released, and all returned to the school-house, spelled for head, and were regularly dismissed for home.
The next day at noon a cart-load of good things arrived with those specified; and children and parents enjoyed the feast, after which there was an old-fashioned spelling-match, and all went home to remember with pleasure the Christmas of 1817. And at this writing (1895) only one of that jolly crowd is known to be living, and from whom the above reminiscences have been obtained.
The country was so thinly settled it was often difficult to make up a school (fifteen), owing to distance from the school cabin, and it was the common practice for those most interested, usually two or three neighbors, to “sign” for their own children and enough more out of the range to make up the required number. And often, in order to secure them, agreeing to pay the tuition and to board them during attendance. And so far as the advantages of these schools were to be obtained, the boys and girls shared alike. But if unable to afford the expense for both, the boys generally got the schooling.
Ohio School-house from 1796 to 1840.
The school-house was usually located in the woods. The building was of round logs, and presented the appearance of very little comfort, either without or within. The floor was of mother earth; the ceiling above, the underside of the roof; a number of rude benches; a few puncheon shelves, and a huge fire-place, constituted the necessary arrangement of the interior. It was known as the school-house, although used as a place to hold elections, lectures, debating societies, and singing-schools.
But notwithstanding the loss of an endowment much needed in primitive times, and the restriction of subscription schools from existing poverty, and that the log-cabin school-houses stood empty for long periods, there was no effeminacy in the desire for knowledge, for where there is a will there is a way, and volumes might be filled with learned and illustrious names who were once rocked in a “sugar-trough,” and took their first lessons in “Brush College.”
It was in this environment the scientist, statesman, and divine obtained that self-confidence and industry which leads to high and honored stations and has made the North-west a perpetual eclipsing shadow upon all other parts of the United States.