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THE NEWPORT SCHOOLHOUSE
composition # 6
by Diana Ellis
written between 1810 and 1813
The Newport schoolhouse, a magnificent building -----Swamp Street nearly half a mile from the pleasant Ohio. Its walls are constructed of logs and clay which make a splendid appearance to the eye of the stranger, as he passes by. I gazed upon it and exclaimed “What can this be that makes so delightful an appearance, it can hardly be possible that a town like this can afford a schoolhouse quite so Elegant as this.
This house, though rather enclined to follow old age, yet we still retain a great hope that it will stand another season. It has long been the place of divine worship, and it looks as though it was the place where our for fathers were first taught to read. It commands a pleasant prospect of the wilderness that lies but a small distance off to the west, which makes it much more beautiful than all the rest, when the forest is covered with varieties of flowers and the brow of the little hills are o’erspr with evergreen and laurels. What can be more pleasing than to stand in the door of this elegant building and behold nature arrayed with all its beauty spread before us. But this schoolhouse almost exceeds nature for beauty; the windows are oranmented with flowers of many kinds and the crevices are stopped with moss and tow (?) that the children while in their leisure hours were employed in collecting to make them comfortable while they were engaged in their studies.
The following note is written on the back of the composition, and it was returned to Diana Ellis after she was married. I would presume that the writer was or had been the teacher at that school.
“Mrs. Burris, On looking over old papers, I came across this which I send you as a relic of the olden times, which though like ourselves it be somewhat faded may serve to remind you of youth and school pleasures long past.
J. Sawton
Pioneer Schools
History of Washington County, Ohio. H.Z. Williams,
p. 573,574
The first school in the township was held in the upper settlement. At first the children ere instructed by Caleb Greene at the family residence. This was as early as 1801 or 1802. Subsequently, the first school house in the township was erected, about fifty yards north of where Little’s tannery stands, only mark of the deserted site being a growth of locust trees thereon.
Caleb Greene, son of John and Mary Greene, conducted the first school in his home in 1801. Three years later the first school, a log structure, was erected in the Haysville community. It was replaced by a brick structure.
In later years two grade schools, one at Milltown and another at Newport, were established, along with a high school in the old Methodist church. The three schools were consolidated in 1889.
School opened in a new frame building and was charted for a high school. This frame structure was destroyed by fire, in January, 1894, and in 1895, a new brick structure, near Turkey Knob was opened.
In 1917, the four high school grades were transferred to a new building on Harrison street. The last class to graduate from this building was the class of 1968. In the fall of 1968, the students were transferred to Frontier High School.
Voters elected to build a new grade school in November, 1925. The three acre lot was secured from William J. Todd. The grade school was dedicated Friday, April 22, 1927.
Funds for a larger and newer gym and school addition were appropriated in the school bond passed by voters in November, 1954. The first basketball game was played January 18, 1956.
The first kindergarten class was started in September, 1967. The 25 pupils were under the instruction of Mrs. Sue Herlan.
--Eileen Thomas
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