Caroline Emery Mead

When Carolina Emery Mead, her husband Jessie Townsend Mead, and their baby daughter Juliaette moved in their covered wagon from near Tiffin, Ohio, to Shunk in 1843, Mrs. Mead became the first teacher in that area. The young mother had a good command of English, could cypher, and knew some geography, for she had attended schools in Maine and New York. The pioneer community was being settled by New England people who brought with them their great desire for education. As soon as the Mead cabin was completed, the men and boys of the community hewed logs and built a school. It is not known how Mrs. Mead was chosen, when, or for how long she taught. Her daughter Juliaette remembered attending that school.

The school was located on the north side of the road, just west of what was then Asa Center's farm. It was not a "regular" location (one school for each four miles square), so it is doubted that a building succeeded it. It would likely be called a subscription, or private school, because the community collected money among themselves to pay her. At the end of at least one term she was paid in gold pieces, $20. we are told.

The building was approximately twenty feet long, fifteen wide and seven high, with a gabled roof, no ceiling. The logs were flat on two sides. The door was of rough planks. The two windows had oiled paper until glass could be had. Furnishings were five or six puncheon logs, flat on top for seating, each with four stick legs. Another puncheon log, with longer legs, stood along one wall to be used for writing. There was a chalk board, which might rightfully be called a "stone board," because writing implements were soft stones picked up in the creek bed. Erasers were used pieces of cloth. Ink and quill pens were made at home, usually by the teacher. Drinking water was carried from a neighboring farm home, likely the Center's, while a dipper of wood was the common drinking utensil. There were no out buildings.

Juliaette Nash Mead, about 1874. Juliaette married William Mead of Englishville, Michigan and moved with him to Grelton, Ohio, where they made their home. Juliaette's parents, Jessie and Caroline Mead, purchased government land near Shunk in 1846.

McGuffey's books were unknown to these people. Whatever books they used were bought from home by the pupils, the Bible, Parley's A History of the United States, Pineo's Grammar; Olney's A Practical System of Geography, Adam's Arithmetic, Noah Webster's Blue Black Speller and the teacher's copy of Lindley Murray's English Reader. Learning was chiefly by memory or rote. Teaching was individual, the study-recitation method used. Much time was used in arithmetic practice, while parsing sentences was so popular that at times community classes were held in the evening.

The twenty or so pupils ranged in age from seven years to the upper teens. Discipline problems were minimal, with Mrs. Mead being capable of using the switch if she thought it necessary. Pupils often helped the teacher with sweeping the rough floor, tending the fireplace in cooler weather, and carrying the drinking water. Pupils played games, unsupervised, at the two recess periods as well as at noon, when they also ate their cold lunches. Attendance was poor among those old enough to help with the farm work, or go hunting when game was needed. And there was much illness. The school term, which may have been as brief as sixteen weeks, was adjusted to those times when there would be fewer absences, and fewer dangers on the road, for some of the pupils had to walk quite far.

Note: My family claimed that my great-grandmother was the first school teacher in the Shunk, Ohio area, andthat her's was the first school. I have here condensed some material my uncle, Dr. A. R. Mead had published in the Educational Forum in January, 1963, about her and that school, titled "One Pioneer Ohio School."

Mrs. Stewart Smith (Berniece Mead)