Douglass School History, Carroll County Arkansas Genealogy
History
of Douglass District
From files at Carroll County Heritage
Center
Copy of newspaper article with
no source or date given.
Sometimes it does a community good to look back upon the path they have
traveled. This little article draws the curtains from a past dating back
almost half a century. (Click photo for larger view and names.)
The scene opens upon a group of school children entering a newly built
school house, just a small, ceiled boxed house, two windows on each side,
a door in the north, a blackboard extending across the south, and long
benches made of oak lumber serving as desks.
Emma Coleman taught the first school. It being a subscription school. we
have no record of the attendance, however Joe Norris claims to have been
in the first primary class. He says he was not old enough, but they liked
to get him out of the way at home.
The district was organized in 1882. Milton Gregory, Spenser Hulsey and
Grandville Norris were the first school board. Two of them are now dead.
Grandville Norris still lives in the district and in his capacity as justice
of the peace is often called on to marry the “children of the children”
who attended this first school.
Lewis Meadors taught the first district school, at a salary of $25 per
month. He paid one dollar per week for board at Gregorys. McGuffey's readers,
Spencers writing, Rays Arithmetic, Websters spelling and various kinds
of geographys and grammars were taught to the following pupils: Chas. Young,
Aut, Will, Vash, Mary and Emma Hulsey; R. A. and W. T. Prather; J. L. Newcom,
J. S. Newcom and Millie Newcom; J. F., Lee, Andrew, John, Ida, Rhoda, Martela
and Julia Norris; Brink, Ira and Annie Reagan; Will, Orphia, Dora And Cora
McNemar; Leo and Richard Davis; John and Callia Hammel; Will, Emma and
Julia Fry; Lace, Elizabeth, Bindy and Martha Pendley; J. W., Newt, Stella
and Zella McMorris; J. T., Rutha, Ella and Lizzie Galloway; Nerva, Jennie
and Mary Lawrence; Agnes McNeil; Mary, Mattie, Lydia, Alice and Jennie
Short.
Lace Pendley, Vash Hulsey Norris and Martela Norris McNemar are the only
ones of the first school who still reside in Douglass District.
The present school house was built at Douglass in 1886, and the well dug
three years later.
There have been thirty-eight teachers at Douglass since 1881. They are:
Emma Coleman, Lewis Meadors, Sterle Shipman, Maggie Gregory, Alf Leathers,
Math Duncan, W. R. Phillips, MR. Roberts, James Lawrence…
The copy ends here. I will attempt
to locate this article, and transcribe the remainder of the text.
Fleta Aday
Genealogy Web Site