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Show Utah's Oldest School Building Part of Pleasant Grove's Heritage whittled from slate rock -some of which we found in a hill near the mouth of Battle Creek Canyon ." Before taxes were levied, lev-ied, tuition was usually paid with produce or barter equaling equal-ing $3 per student each term, which was sixty days. "The teacher might receive wheat, potatoes, butter, eggs, beef, wool, or even a load of sagebrush sage-brush or other fuel." Though the turnover of teachers was common, the focus was always al-ways on providing a sound education for the children of Pleasant Grove. (" Timpanogos Town " has been a great source of information and insight by Howard R. Driggs, grandson of early settlers of this community) . , - -' i. v." , I j by Geri Taylor J Editor's Note: This is the I first of a multi-part series on j the Old Bell School. ' A principal focus of the Mormon pioneers was to build schools soon after es- : tablishing their homes. In ; the newly formed settlement of " Battle Creek," the need j was temporarily satisfied by j using the two-story cabin i built by William Stevens i two miles west of the main group. Situated next to a natural spring, the Stevens' j home became the gathering j place for church, community J activities and school. J In 1852, this fast grow- ing town was designated ! School District No. 5, which i included territory south to the Provo City corporation line, thus becoming the incentive in-centive to build a school house. In the book Timpanogos Tim-panogos Town, Howard R. Driggs relates how President Henson Walker approached ! the task in typical pioneer I fashion: ! At Sunday services Walker announced: "Breth-I "Breth-I ren, we must have a school ! and meeting house. One j week from tomorrow. I want j you to join with me in build- j ing one. Meantime, we shall j have a committee choose a convenient site near the j center of town and have the I plans ready." It was a given j that everything from materi- ' als to labor would be donat ed by the citizens. It took from September ; to late November for work- i ers to complete the building J that stood near 600 West and Center Street. Three resi-j resi-j dents, George Clark, Samuel White and Thorit Peck, who j marched with the Mormon Battalion, had learned how i to make adobe bricks used ! , in the Indian huts in New I Mexico. They had used this skill to construct Fort Moore J in California and now shared I their knowledge to erect a new school house in Pleas- ant Grove, i In December of 1852 the i first students commenced reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, geography and j grammar with Alonzo Win- ters as their teacher. When he moved from the settle- i ment the following spring, 21 -year-old William Framp- ton was chosen to take his place. He had arrived in Salt Lake the previous August with the John Higbee wagon train and soon made his way to Pleasant Grove. The first celebration in the newly formed community commu-nity was held July 4, 1853 and featured the children performing a song they had recently learned. Framp-ton Framp-ton was particularly adept at teaching rote singing, or harmony, and the students sang to the more than two hundred settlers under a bowery erected in front of the school. Classes were resumed at the. close of the celebration since there was no vacation for students or teachers. The population was recorded that Fall at 290 persons. When Brigham Young counseled the towns to build forts for protection against the Indians, it was decided decid-ed to move the new school building inside the fort itself. it-self. Shortly after Independence Indepen-dence Day the structure was dismantled brick by brick and reassembled near the southwest corner at what is now Second South and Main. The move, which included the efforts of many women and children, took only one day to complete and would now be used as school, church and recreation center. During the crowded winter win-ter term, Frampton was assisted as-sisted by Frank Farnsworth, a 19-year-old who had driven driv-en an ox-team nearly 1,700 miles from Indiana to Salt Lake , arriving in September Septem-ber of 1853. Another young immigrant, George Harris, conducted a private writing school one night a week in the school building, and was known for his love of poetry and penmanship skills. He was among several in the community who organized their own academies which helped with the overcrowded public school. Frampton recorded his early teaching experience this way: "We used quills for pens, the teacher having hav-ing a sharp knife to keep the quills ready for action. Ink had to be made from oak bark boiled with copperas (ferrous sulfate). Since paper pa-per was scarce, however, the main stay for writing was slate. Slate pencils were Alonzo Winters taught for a few months at the first public school. ., " ; '') ''"'V;;'-' ;.".'v " ' . . . i : ; . 'y. . . ' . . -V.'-..' 1 ':M-::.-6fK ' - '" ' ;V"" '' 'r L. . .... A .".j-r..S:-J. - - Willaim M. Frampton was the second teacher of public school in Pleasant Grove. |
