James R. Crabtree.
The fact this emigration to distant schools continued, after the establishment of Oak Hill as a boarding school, awakens a little surprise. Only a very limited number of them in later years, remained at Oak Hill to complete the Grammar course. The good old rule of local prosperity "Patronize Home Industries," or institutions, seemed to have been forgotten. The sentiment began to prevail that any school abroad was better than one at home. The general prevalence of this sentiment tended to put a slight check upon the successful development of the work at Oak Hill. It was bereft of the presence and co-operation of its older and best trained pupils, just when their example of self-control and habits of study were beginning to exert a good influence over the new ones.
XVIII
CLOSED IN 1904
In the spring of 1904, as there was no one available to manage it, the school was closed, and a student was entrusted with the care of the buildings, stock and crops.
As this was the year the land in Indian Territory was allotted to the Indians and their former slaves, individually, Mr. Haymaker remained until he secured the allotment of two tracts of forty acres each, on which the buildings of the academy were located, one to a graduate student and the other to a friendly full blood Choctaw woman; with the understanding that, when the restrictions should be removed, the allottees or owners would sell them to the Board of Missions for Freedmen, to be held and used as a permanent site for the institution.
In August Miss Bertha L. Ahrens of Grant, a missionary teacher of the Board, became the custodian of the buildings and other property belonging to the institution.