Passing of the Log School House

The first schoolhouses built in the county were of round logs, just as were the first dwelling houses, some of poles. Dwelling houses constructed of hewn logs preceded the schoolhouse of the same kind. Where and when the first hewn-log schoolhouse was built is not known to any degree of certainty to anyone now living. For the first twenty-five years in the history of the county, all the schoolhouses were of logs, and fifty per cent of them the same up to the time of the Civil War. The period of building frame schoolhouses did not set in until at some time in the ‘50’s. When and where the first frame was built cannot now be given from any known record. It has been stated by survivors of the pioneer period that what was known as the BUTT school-house, later the CRAFTON, perhaps, on the old Bowling Green-Brazil road, a little distance west of the Adam MOORE place, was the original frame in the county. This house was built at as early a date as 1855, perhaps earlier. A number of small frame houses were built at an early date in Perry Township. There are no existing records from which it may be definitely known when and where the last log-house was built. Among the latest, if not the three last, were the HAYES, in Dick Johnson, the BARNETT’s Crossing, in Jackson, and the SHIDLER, or Danville, in Harrison, which were built after 1860, within the time of the Civil war. The last house built of poles was that at the EVANS’ corner, in Sugar Ridge Township, a mile east of the JAMISON place. The last school taught in a log house was that of the winter of 1871-72, in the SHIDLER district, a mile and a half east of Middlebury, W. W. McGREGOR, teacher.
The first brick house was the County Seminary, at Bowling Green, which dates back to 1839-40. The first district common brick schoolhouse was built at Staunton, by Trustee A. C. VEACH, of Posey Township, in 1868-69, which antedated the Meridian Street building in Brazil by just one year.