Today's high school district
continues to serve seven public elementary district schools
and ten private schools. While each has its own unique
history, the students that enter Hartford Union High School
become a part of the history of education in Hartford.
The Hartford History Room in the public library has a tremendous
amount of historical information available for research
into the many facets of life, including education. Our
thank you to the staff for their assistance in bringing
to our alumni an opportunity to look back and sense the
feel of "community" that our shared history invokes.
The following is taken from the centennial book researched
and written for the community celebration in 1983.
The beginning of a town
meant the beginning of its educational history...
The social feeling of a community of pioneers, with their buoyant vigor,
was intense, and much of it centered upon education. Such was the feeling
in 1845, at which time the first school system was established in Hartford.
The first school-house, a crude lot construction, was erected at the
corner of, now, Sumner and Main where the present Hilt building stands.
The first schoolhouse could not have met the needs for long, however,
for a new building was constructed in 1848 on the site of the old Westphal
home, where South Main and Branch Street intercept.
Gad Root, nineteen years old and on a prospecting tour, offered his services
as an instructor and was hired at twelve dollars a month, to teach one
of the first classes consisting of twenty to twenty-five pupils. The
following narrative from an early newspaper account tells of the trials
and tribulations for young Gad Root during his teaching career.
"I came west on a prospecting tour when I was a lad of nineteen, and reached
Hartford in the fall of '46. A schoolhouse had just been built, and as they were
looking for a teacher, I offered my services. The demands of the examiners, Benj.
King, who lived on the Schoenke farm near Pike Lake, and another man were not
very exacting, and I entered on my duties with the large salary of $12 a month.
I was to board around at the homes of the pupils, my stay with the various families
be determined by the number of children he had attending school.
There was only one district in the town at that time. The schoolhouse
was a small one-room log house, about 12x20 stands. It stood then in
the midst of thick timber. One side of the room was a large fireplace,
while a bench ran around the other sides. This bench was made from slabs
sawed at the mill, with pegs stuck in it's support. Back of this bench,
another slab, next to the wall served as a desk on which the pupils could
write, by turning their backs to the teacher.
I had twenty-five or thirty pupils, ranging in age, all the way up to
20 or 25 years. We were not very well equipped for text books, the pupils
using such as they brought them from the east, and there were not more
than three of a kind. I had to divide into classes the best I could,
not according to ages, but by what they had previously studied. Our course
including the "Three R's" Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.
We had only three months of school at that time, and nearly all the children
who could be spared from home were sent to learn what they could. Among
my pupils were: Hanison Winters, Joe Barker, Ned and Chas. Winters, Ezra
Rumrill, S.J. and J.M. Wilson and their cousin, Erastus Wilson, Lester
Burdick, and the four Bissel girls the Wiley girls. Mr. Bissel must have
been mistaken about the three boys being drowned in 1846, for they attended
school to me that year. They were drowned the following year, '47.
The scholars were as full of mischief as those of the present day, but
I had no particular difficulty with them, although some of the boys were
larger, stronger, and older than I. The greatest trouble I had with them
was their delight in playing truant. About once a week the Indians would
come into the settlement to shoot at a mark, and three of the boys, O.C.
Bissel, Sol. Washburn and Ned Winters would stay to watch them, coming
in at recess. I had tried scolding them for this, but it didn't have
any effect, so I finally told them I should punish them the next time
it happened. Well, the next week, when I called school at noon they were
all absent. I knew I would have to punish them, but did not at first
know how I was going to manage it, especially as they had put their heads
together and decided not to take any licking. At recess I called them
in, and from the door I could see the boys coming. I let one boy in,
and leaning against the door to keep the others out, and prevent their
seeing in, I gave him a slap with a ruler, sent him to his seat, and
let one more in, giving him the same dose. In this way, I punished them
as I could not have managed all of them at once.
The boys would have their recess first and then when they came in, the
girls had theirs. In the room they were seated with the girls on one
side of the room and boys on the other, beginning from either side of
the fireplace. But when the pupils were all present they filled the bench
so that they had to sit near together at the of each row.
One day while the boys were out having recess, Mary Bissel who sat next
to the boys, placed a tack, where Ned Winters sat on it. Of course he
blamed it to Joe Barker, the boy next to him, and in short order they
were having a regular scrap over it. On being separated they decided
to have it out after school, but Mary, seeing the trouble she has caused,
put a stop to further hostilities by owning up. That term was enough
for me and I gave up school teaching."
After his term as teacher expired Mr. Root returned to the east where
he was married and finally returned here in 1854, settling on a farm
near Hartford. On his return he found the country was still all woods
from here to Rubicon but the land was nearly all taken up and the settlement
had grown considerably. The effect on the school population was evident.
In 1856, a resolution was passed by the school board compelling the people
of the north side of the settlement to create their own district. The
dividing line between the two sections was to be the Rubicon River. Records
reveal this resolution created two school districts, two tax rates plus
prompted a feud that was handed down to each succeeding generation. A
second elementary structure was built on the north side to fill the needs
of the new district.
A divided system....
Meanwhile, the growth of the community on the south side prompted the
need for yet another schoolhouse and in 1859 a two-story structure was
built on the corner of Church Street and South Street. There were three
departments... primary, inter-mediate and senior. For a time, both the
South Side and the North Side schools possessed aspirations to become
full fledged high schools. Both offered studies required by a high school,
and each tried to make its course complete enough to qualify as such.
In this, the North Side was only partially successful. For a time, its
pupils took one and two years of high school work and then, much against
their will, were obliged to attend the South Side School in order to
take the studies -that would earn them a high school diploma.
One building at last...
"In youth lie all our hopes and all our expectancy for tomorrow. We must
capture and hold the interest and imagination of youth, and they must be taught
a patriotism that is at once both glamorous and emotional." These were the
words of a former principal, W.E. Elmer in 1914, when the community of Hartford
felt a growing need for high school space. Increasing demands for admission from
neighboring towns and villages became evident. A bond issue was floated in the
amount of $200,000 plus a grant of $72,000 from the Public Works Association,
giving substantial backing for the construction of the high school at the Mill
Street location.
And then, one district...
In 1949, the separate Boards of Education asked the voters for permission
to consolidate the two districts, Washington, and the South Side School.
Thus, all students, from rural areas as well, might have equal educational
opportunities and educational costs might be more equally divided. This
consolidation process was not completed until 1954, at which time the
present outlying school districts were included.
We continued to grow...
Soon buildings reached their capacity, and building programs needed to
be launched as another step toward a more sound educational program.
In 1958, construction was underway for one of the finer high school buildings
in the state. Hartford Union High was built on a fifty-five acre tract
at the south end of Cedar Street. The former high school building on
Mill Street became a junior high school until 1969 when the ninth grade
students were transferred to the enlarged high school, and the junior
high became a middle school for 6th, 7th and 8th graders.
Until the originals grew old....
In 1990, the walls of the old high school and later, middle school could
simply no longer safely house the energetic educational programs for
the youth of the area. A middle school was built south of the present
high school on Cedar Street. Because of the contaminated soil under the
old high school, the building remained empty and unsold until the end
of 1995 when it was purchased by a local businessman. The building itself
was torn down to make room for a city parking lot. A partner-ship between
the Downtown Business District and Hartford Union High School has been
formed to build a historic marker on the sight using bricks from the
building. As a fund-raiser for beautification projects to be done by
a partnership of high school students and community members, the bricks
will be sold for the engraving of alumni name and graduation date. (Any
alumni interested in preserving their name for posterity can contact
the Administrative office at the high school). The marker will be dedicated
to all who have and will play a part in the most significant community
responsibility - the educating of its youth.
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