Local History: Exploring the History of Clinton Schools
- Terri
- 4 hours ago
- 10 min read
The early education process was all about “readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmatic” – the three R’s – usually with a heavy dose of discipline. Here in DeWitt County, schools began to spring up well before the official creation of the county in 1839. Explore how the schools in DeWitt County and the City of Clinton have evolved over the years.
The History of Clinton Schools
Ahhh, back to school season! Summer break is over, teachers and students enter the hallowed halls with backpacks, lunch boxes, and great expectations. Parents entrust their offspring to the school system with a mix of trepidation and relief. Public education has been a mainstay of American society since the Revolution. From History and Evolution of Public Education in the US: “The Founding Fathers maintained that the success of the fragile American democracy would depend on the competency of its citizens. They believed strongly that preserving democracy would require an educated population that could understand political and social issues and would participate in civic life, vote wisely, protect their rights and freedoms, and resist tyrants and demagogues. Character and virtue were also considered essential to good citizenship, and education was seen as a means to provide moral instruction and build character. While voters were limited to white males, many leaders of the early nation also supported educating girls on the grounds that mothers were responsible for educating their own children, were partners on family farms, and set a tone for the virtues of the nation”.
The early education process was all about “readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmatic” – the three R’s – usually with a heavy dose of discipline. Here in DeWitt County, schools began to spring up well before the official creation of the county in 1839. It is commonly accepted that the first classes here were held in Jacob Coppenbarger’s cabin located in section 8, Tunbridge Township, taught by Edom Shugart in 1829. Edom was about 19 years old and did not have much education, but he could read and write and shared that ability with others in the early days. (Many years later, after leaving DeWitt County, Edom kept a journal about joining a few other families departing Iowa for Texas to start a new settlement in which he intended to open a school. His story is heartbreaking, but it is clear that his spelling and grammar were far from polished.) Fun fact – when the future teachers club was organized at Clinton High School in 1948, it was called the “Edom Shugart Future Teachers of America.”
The very early schools were taught in rough log cabins, sometimes ones that had been abandoned by settlers who decided to move on. They had no floor and sometimes just a hole in the roof in lieu of a chimney. A log would be left out of a wall in certain places and the opening covered with greased paper to serve as a window. There were no desks, but rather a puncheon (log flattened on one side) affixed under the “window” and another puncheon on legs for a bench to sit upon. Students of all sizes were expected to sit erect and quiet until called upon. The teachers in these early schools were men, and they were expected to provide book learning as well as proper manners. Students were well aware of the sting of the birch switch or the slap of a ferule (flat piece of wood, sometimes a ruler, used to strike the palm or other body part of an unruly student). In the teacher’s free time, he made pens out of goose quills and manufactured ink from oak galls. (Oak galls, sometimes called oak apples due to their appearance, are the result of wasp eggs laid in a developing leaf bud.) The first dedicated schoolhouse with an actual floor and glass windows was a cabin erected in 1833 in section 22, Wapella Township. In 1834, Howard School was the first frame-constructed schoolhouse, erected just northeast of where Kenney would be located years later.
As the population of DeWitt County grew, so did the number of schools. The 1840 Census data, gathered just one year after the formation of DeWitt County, reflected a population of 586 families with a total of 3,247 people, of which 316 adults were listed as illiterate. Already, the county was supporting 11 schools attended by 474 pupils. Reading and writing were taught separately, and there were boxes on the Census form to mark “Cannot read” or “Cannot write.” You may have noticed some of your ancestors signing their name with their mark, usually just an X, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t read. Writing for women, in particular, was not considered essential, but societal standards expected women to read the Bible and other religious material for the proper upbringing of their children.
Before long, women started entering the teaching profession, though it was only open to single or widowed ones, as married women were expected to fulfill their role in the home. Many of the early schools were by subscription – in other words, parents paid by the term for each child they enrolled. Teachers earned, on average, $2.25 per quarter per pupil and had 15 to 20 students, therefore earning anywhere from $11.25 to $15 per month. He or she would board with individual families, thereby saving that expense. On the other side of the coin, a large family might find it difficult to pay for all or even a couple of their children to become educated. In the city of Clinton, subscription schools came and went. One of our history books says the first school here was taught in the old courthouse in 1834, which seems unlikely because Clinton wasn’t founded until 1835 and there was no courthouse until 1839 when Clinton became the county seat. At any rate, a Mr. Lowry, who was also the first probate judge, was likely an early teacher in the roughly constructed courthouse pictured below.
A dedicated schoolhouse was erected in 1841, but it was poorly built and the citizens, believe it or not, blew it up with a cannon ball in 1846. Subscription schools were being held in various places around town, frequently in a church. Clinton was not incorporated until 15 Feb 1855, then after that, they could raise their own taxes. A referendum for a school tax, heavily supported by C. H. Moore, failed twice to pass. On the third try, Moore changed sides and campaigned against it. The reverse psychology won out, and the tax referendum was passed! The new school opened 5 Oct 1857 with Rev. T. N. McCorkle as principal. (He was also a minister and performed a few marriages in Clinton over the years.)
As shown in this ad, school terms were available all year with the fall and winter terms being a bit longer than the spring and summer ones. Note the first quarter is scheduled to end on Christmas day, then nine days’ vacation before the start of the next quarter. It looks as though much of August and all of September were their summer break. This school was a two-story, four-room brick structure that would frequently be called McCorkle’s School, though his tenure there ended after seven years. Graded schools were a kind of new way of classifying students, promoting them from one grade to the next, which led to having more educators teaching at different levels. Presumably, McCorkle taught the high school level and served as principal with three other teachers leading the lower grade levels.
By 1867, this building was becoming inadequate, and the citizens of Clinton approved a $40,000 budget to build a new school. Construction began in the spring of 1868 of a three-story brick building with a bell tower, the first of three buildings to be called Washington School. The full basement held four coal-burning furnaces to heat the entire building. A corridor ran down the center on each floor, with two classrooms on each side. The first floor held the primary classes, the second floor with three intermediate and one high school classroom, as well as the library and offices of the Superintendent and Director. On the third floor were two grammar (college preparatory) classrooms and an auditorium with a 500-person capacity. The first Superintendent and Director were men; all the teachers were women. The belfry held an 800-pound bell, of which the locals were especially proud. In all, the cost totaled $57,349.13, including furniture. There was a dedication ceremony on 9 Sept 1869, after which it was put to use.
In the 15 Sep 1871 issue of the Clinton Register, there is a lengthy front-page article about a visit to the now two-year-old school. In it, they report anywhere from 44 to 70 students under the tutelage of one teacher, the first primary department being the largest. (We think our classrooms are crowded now!) Still, they observed quiet halls and well-behaved children. There were four recesses per day, but the children were not allowed outside to play, as the belief was that physical activity made the students overstimulated and not at their best for learning. The only negative observation reported was a poor choice of books in the library, both in number and subject matter. The school, however, was planning some exhibitions from which the proceeds would be used to that end. They also paid a visit to the “colored school,” which was held in a frame building on the corner of Main and Madison. There were 10 students, and their teacher was Clara Andrews, a 16-year-old white girl. For some unknown reason, this school was abandoned the following year, and the black students started attending the new brick school, though they were segregated to the bell tower and kept a schedule 15 minutes behind the other students to prevent mingling with them. In 1873, there were 24 black students enrolled at that school, but I have been unable to pinpoint just when complete desegregation was achieved.
It took about 20 years for this school to become full beyond capacity, and elementary schools started popping up around town. Douglas Grade School opened its doors on 5 Jan 1890 to relieve some of the crowding, though it was only four rooms and four more had to be added a few years later. Lincoln School was built in 1897 and Webster in 1905. Now Washington School #1 could be devoted to high school education, but that didn’t last long. The high school many of us remember (though if you graduated 50 or more years ago, you may have gone to junior high there) was dedicated on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, 12 Feb 1909. This school was on the same city block but faced Jackson Street.
At the end of the school year in the spring of 1916, the original Washington School was razed and the second Washington School was erected in its place. This school cost $45,000 and opened its doors to students on 4 Dec 1916. Close to the middle of the school year, students had until then been squeezed into the other elementary schoolrooms and even held some classes at the YMCA. Eventually, it would be dedicated to the junior high level, and 7th and 8th-graders from the other schools would go to school there. Many readers will also remember this building if for no other reason than it held the “cracker box” gymnasium.
St. John’s Catholic Church organized a parochial school in 1912 and built a brick schoolhouse in 1916 for grades one through eight. Even though the high school was just built in 1909, by 1919 there was a movement for a new one. By now, more and more scholars from the country schools seeking a high school diploma were enrolling, and the high school was beyond capacity. The high school district purchased Washington School #2 from the grade school district, thereby making all of what is now the green space on north Center Street high school property. The grade school district used the profit from that sale to erect Washington School #3 (couldn’t they think of another name?) on north Mulberry Street in 1925.
In 1934, construction began on the next high school expansion, one which many will remember, facing Johnson Street. This building featured a large gymnasium-auditorium with a stage, bleachers and balcony. It also provided new school offices and a modern biology laboratory. An addition to this building, which had an entrance off of Center Street, began construction in 1954 and provided 22 more classrooms. I didn’t need to do any research to place the current high school in this timeline because I was among the first graduating class in 1973. It was only a few months ago when I realized my parents were the first on either side of my family to earn a high school diploma, none of my grandparents remaining in school past the eighth grade. How things change!
The DeWitt County Genealogical Society did a deep study of the country schools over the past several months. Those changed rapidly over time, too! We soon discovered that we would need to divide them into two groups – the “old” schools and the “old-old” schools. Some of the very old schools were built before the organization of DeWitt County in 1839, and they appear on the 1875 plat map. The newer old schools were built after that and appear on the 1894 and 1915 plat maps. School consolidation occurred in 1948, with the country schools closing and the students transported by bus to centralized schools in Waynesville, Kenney, Wapella, Clinton, DeWitt, Weldon and Farmer City. We did our best to compile information on all these old schools, well over 100 of them, into three large binders. We also created a map showing where each school was located. If you want to see where your great-grandma went to school, we can probably show you. We might even have a picture of her class!
Resources
DeWitt County newspapers on microfilm
The History of DeWitt County, Illinois, W. R. Brink & Co., Philadelphia, 1882
DeWitt County, Illinois, Volume I, Pioneer Publishing, Chicago, 1910
The History of DeWitt County, Illinois 1839-1968, DeWitt County Board of
Supervisors, 1968
Clinton 1835-1985 & DeWitt County 1839-1985, compiled by the Sesquicentennial
Board, 1985
United States Federal Census
Wikipedia
Center on Education Policy, ED606970.pdf
Illinois State Archives, ilsos.gov
Terri Lemmel was born and raised in DeWitt County near Kenney. Upon completing her education at Clinton High School, she lived in Bloomington for several years before returning to Clinton in 1990. Her interest in genealogy was piqued in the mid-90s when she found unidentified obituaries in her late grandmother's scrapbook that family members could not identify. While she initially dabbled in the subject, it wasn't until her retirement in 2018 that she jumped in with both feet. Terri joined the Genealogical Society and has been serving as its President since 2022. Research is a passion of hers, and there are lots of interesting stories to uncover! You can find Terri in the DeWitt County Genealogical Society room at the Vespasian Warner Public Library every Thursday completing research and helping others with their family and local history research.
To learn more about the DeWitt County Genealogical Society, feel free to reach out to them via phone at 217-935-5174, email at dewittcgs@gmail.com, their website, or their Facebook page.
The Vespasian Warner Library, located at 310 N. Quincy St. in Clinton, IL, features an extensive collection of local history and archives. To learn more, visit our Local History Page on the website or stop by in person! We are always excited to showcase our local history resources and discuss DeWitt County's local history.