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This feature is from our original domain of the period from 2000-2002. Most of the links below this panel will lead to dead-ends. This story is due to be updated in 2007. The links above to the new Skagit River Journal domain-homepage will work, however, as will the Email link. And the search box and the guestbook link at the bottom will work; use the search function if you reach a dead link for your subject. If you have any questions about the story or if you can help us with corrections or copies of documents or photos, please email us. We never ask for your originals. Our homepage link is always free of charge. If you are not currently a subscriber to our online magazine, you can see a full list of stories back to Issue 1 at this link for the Subscribers-Paid Journal magazine online. You can learn about the previous schools in Sterling and on the Van Fleet and Batey homesteads from 1883-89 at this Journal website. This school section will be totally updated, with additional chapters with lists of children's names that were derived from various school censuses.
Early Sedro-Woolley Schools, Chapter 2
©2002 By Noel V. Bourasaw, Editor, Skagit River Journal of History & Folklore
Township road school, Sedro Graded School
and Woolley Graded School, 1890-98
How schools are funded and Barefoot Schoolboy law
William Bell teaches at the new Sedro Graded School on Township road
We are always fascinated with the attempts by frontier families to provide education for their children, regardless of the challenges of this remote area. That was certainly true as the village of Sedro formed north of the Skagit river. The little country schoolhouse on the Van Fleet homestead was way overcrowded by 1889, as crews arrived to lay tracks for the three railroads that would begin running over the next year. That early school was located about where Earl Van Fleet's house later stood near what would become known as the Hoehn road in the Skiyou district. The nearest road was a little west of the Van Fleet homestead. It ran from the river north to the Bennett mines It would soon be known as the Cokedale road and is now called the Fruitdale road. In 1886 the school was designated as Skagit county School District #27.
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This is a drawing of the new Sedro Graded School at the corner of Talcott and Sixth streets in 1892. Note the ornate bell tower, which housed a bell that could be heard more than a mile away back in the days when there were neither car noises nor electronic buzz. See photos of the school below.
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Since a market center was forming near Mortimer Cook's original village, a location west of the Van Fleets was chosen for a new school. A letter from William S. Bell to the (summarized in Sedro-Woolley Courier-Times on June 28, 1956) noted that he taught at the first Sedro school in 1890. Bell was 87 in 1856 and returned to Sedro-Woolley for the first time in several years to meet with the Territorial Daughters of Washington, whose first chapter was located here. His correspondence to the Daughters and the newspaper are a marvelous look at the early school. Originally called the Sedro Graded School, it was located in what was variously described as either the old bunkhouse or the original family home of William Woods' on Township road [Township was unaccountably called Townsend street in the article]. This school would be called Franklin, starting in 1902, but we will explain that in Chapter 3. Woods employed several cowboys and laborers at his ranch. He was one of the original four British bachelors who settled the future Sedro area in 1878 and his homestead extended east from Township, which was the eastern border of section 24 of Township 35 North, Range 4 East. His original ranch of 147 acres was in section 30 of Range 5 East. The school was located at the southwest corner of Jennings street and Township.
The first term at the Sedro school began on July 28, 1890. Bell was paid $60 per month for the four-month term. H.L. Devin, Sedro real estate developer and postmaster, and George A. Brosseau, a Sterling farmer whose wife sewed the first Sedro flag for the Fourth of July celebration, were two of the directors and A.A. Tozer was clerk.
According to Bell, the beginner classes were taught on the second floor and the older pupils were taught on the lower floor. "In trying to teach both rooms and keep order among all the children I was kept busy running up and down stairs. Later a lady was hired to teach the beginners. "In the August 1890 edition of Washington magazine, we read a description of the infant town:
Improvements include a large hotel, business blocks, and grading & planking of streets. Sedro Board of Trade is a living active thing, located in a handsome building, only in existence a few weeks. The Skagit river here is 800 feet wide. Sedro is pretty well the head of navigation for large boats. Daily traffic on the water is rapidly increasing. The scenery is very charming; a run from Sedro to the mouth of the river is enchanting indeed.
The hotel in mention was the Hotel Sedro, a three-story affair that stood on the west side of Third street where the high school gymnasium stands in 2002. About 200 men were busy at work felling trees in that area, pulling up stumps with aid of horses, grading the lots and streets and planking both Third and Township streets.
As you will read in other sections of the free homepage, the three rail lines were building towards peak traffic of eleven trains daily. Also keep in mind that the dream was still alive for a transcontinental line that would cross the mountains near Cascade Pass. In that scenario, the westward train would shed part of its freight along with immigrants and travelers at Sedro. It would then continue westward to its terminus at Ship Harbor, which is now the international ferry landing west of Anacortes. When Seattle was chosen instead for the terminus and a nationwide financial panic struck, both in the same year of 1893, that dream dissipated quickly, but what a ride those early folks enjoyed. What an exciting time to live within a mile or two from what is now Riverfront Park on the north shore of the Skagit in Sedro.
In an earlier letter (summarized in Sedro-Woolley Courier-Times of March 8, 1956), Bell noted that the Woods property later passed on to Charles and Martha Adams, early pioneers here. We know that Guy Rowland, son of a pioneer family, owned it later in 1965. Bell's first term at the new school on began on July 28. His salary was $60 a month and the term was for four months. We know from interviews with old timers that school was timed to be after local harvests because a majority of students were from farming families. Berries, hay and beans were big cash crops back in those days. We do not know how long the term lasted, but we wonder about how the fall harvest affected it.
On Jan. 5, 1891, he began teaching another term of three months and his salary was raised to $65. If you are a woman, you may not be surprised that a year or so before that, Fairie Cook (Sedro-founder Mortimer Cook's eldest daughter) taught the full 3-month term at the Van Fleet schoolhouse for just $100 total. The 1937 History of School District #70 called Bell's original $50 per month a "bargain salary." The directors and clerk were the same for the 1891 term.
Surprisingly, Bell never addresses in his letters the legend that he built a desk on the stairs between floors so that he could supervise both groups of students at the same time. Many second and third-hand sources mention the legend as gospel. So, just like with the legend that Tusko was caught because he fell into a vat of home brew and got drunk, we decided to look behind the curtain. We checked the research by Ethel Van Fleet, who was only a wee babe when Bell taught here, but she learned about him from her older sister Eva, who attended his class. In her version of the Bell story, he attempted to teach both rooms by standing part way up the stairs, which he described to her during a visit here in May 1954. Ray Jordan does not address the Township school at all. So the source of the desk story appears to be the Sedro-Woolley profile in the Illustrated History of Skagit and Snohomish Counties, which was written by Harry Averill in 1906:
A peculiar feature of this pioneer schoolhouse was the use of both the lower and upper floors. [And] when the sudden influx of population came, [both floors were supervised] under one teacher, whose desk was placed on a platform arranged so that he could look after both floors at the same time.
Averill's work is often considered gospel, so we will accept his version, even though elsewhere in his story Averill confuses Bell's wife with her sister Edith, who was married to another significant county educator. We know this because the famous county historian, John Conrad, profiled both sisters when they died, as part of his work secretary of the Skagit County Historical Association. He noted at the time of her death in 1953 that Ida Bell was a daughter of the John Peck family of LaConner, whose eight children were referred to as a "bushel of Pecks." Her family came to the Skagit valley from New Brunswick. Unfortunately we do not have any such information about William Bell. He was a widower when he wrote the letters to Sedro-Woolley in 1956.
Regardless of how he attempted to teach both floors of students, their sheer number soon demanded another teacher so a Mrs. Bates was added to the staff. Somewhere along the line a writer misread her name as Batey so you may read in places that Dr. Georgiana Batey taught there. She did teach her own children along with neighboring Indian children for awhile in the home that her pioneer husband, David Batey, built near the county highway west of town, but we have no record of her teaching in the system.
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Click on these thumbnails
for full-size photos
Far left: Township road school, 1890, looking north. See student names in the upcoming Appendix A.
Center: Ruins of the Township road school, 1976, looking east from Township street. Jennings street is to the right.
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Photo at left is from the 1953 special Courier-Times edition, celebrating the centennial of Washington Territory. Photo at right is courtesy of the late Howard Miller.
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Mrs. Bates taught the younger students upstairs for only a month at the Sedro school and then left, according to Ethel's notes. But she doesn't answer a key question: did the little dears drive the new schoolmarm batty? A Mrs. Blatchley finished the term of two more months. In another Courier-Times article of May 20, 1954, about Bell's visit here, we learn that he was born in 1869, so this may have been his first position. He also noted that he was a postal inspector for many years after leaving teaching and then he practiced law "for a number of years before his retirement." In the upcoming Appendix A, you will find a list of the students from those early classes. The Township school was torn down sometime in the 1970s, according to neighbor Lena Scales. I remember when it was used as a haunted house on Halloween back in the 1950s and '60s, although I did not know the nature of the building back then.
Sedro graded school, Franklin and Irving
By 1891 newcomers were arriving on each sternwheeler and the rickety old stage, and some even came by canoe to snatch up jobs on the three rail lines or in the woods all around Sedro. From Big Lake to Warner's Prairie to Samish Island to the Cascade foothills, men were arriving in droves and they were bringing their families. The Township school was soon bursting at its seams and when Sedro incorporated in March, a new school was the top priority.
Norman R. Kelley, the bachelor empire builder of new Sedro and the Seattle Lake Shore & Eastern Railway donated a full square block, #61, from the Sedro Land and Improvement Company holdings. There was a spot for a new school set way back from the southeast corner of Talcott and Sixth streets. That was roughly the same location where Central School was built in 1926. During the summer a six-room building was erected with large spacious rooms. Only two were filled initially for the fall term but the planners showed great foresight in allowing for immediate growth in the school population. At a special school election on Dec. 27, 1890, voters approved bonds by a vote of 39 to one to be issued at $10,000 value: $3,000 for five years, $3,000 for ten years and $4,000 for fifteen years. In March, bids were sought for a $6,500 building that could seat 300 pupils. The county school district provided $1,000 for furniture. It opened that fall and Isaac P. Rich and Miss Mina Cederbrand were the teachers, with Rich's salary set at $80 per month. Sedro druggist A.E. Holland was clerk; he had to walk only four blocks east from his store [present site of the high school] for meetings.  |
Franklin school class from an 1899 Courier-Times.
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Students for this school came from areas all around the new town, up to three miles away. When the school was being built, Skiyou students were still included in the census and funds were pledged, but then Skiyou parents decided to form their own district, which eventually became #39. Since the Sedro district planned on serving those students, the decision caused considerable consternation and this is the first instance we can find of lawyers being called in to solve a school-districting problem.
In the 1892-93 term, J.J. Gallagher was hired as principal and Miss Cederbrand was his assistant. For that term, the board fixed the tuition of non-resident students at $10 per quarter. The fear of smallpox in these small frontier communities was evident since a pupil was not admitted unless he or she either had a history of smallpox or had been vaccinated.
New teachers were hired for the 1893-94 term: Fairie Cook, who had to return home from Wellesley College when the 1893 financial panic struck, and the Rev. G.L. Cuddy, the beloved minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, moved over to Sedro after teaching at Woolley. The next three years were economically devastating for the local area as well as the nation, as capital dried up and dozens lost their homesteads and employment during the panic that was just as severe as the Depression 40 years later.
For the 1894-95 session, J.W. Faulkner and Miss Lulu Richards were hired. Years later, Mattie Hight Wicker (wife of Charles Wicker Sr., the owner of Skagit Realty) recalled that her family moved here that year. They moved from Ballard, another small timber town that was growing north of Seattle, and Mr. Faulkner's brother was her teacher there. For the 1895-96 term, Catherine Coutaut and Miss Eunice Smithson were hired as teachers and F.E. Wiggins was clerk. 1896-97: Susan Lord Currier from Mount Vernon taught six months; Mrs. M. Drake also six months; R.M. Wansbrough [maybe Wainsbrough] two months. F.F. Willard was clerk.
That was one of the last, if not the last, teaching position by Miss Currier. She had quite a future ahead of her. Born in Concordia, Kansas, in July 25, 1871, she moved west with her parents as a young girl and took college-level courses at Coupeville after graduating from LaConner. She then attended Oberlin college in Ohio along with Nina Cook, Mortimer Cook's daughter, and graduated in 1895. She took post-graduate work at Berkeley before returning to Skagit county to teach. In 1898 she was elected as county school superintendent and was reelected in 1900. On Oct. 30, 1902, she married Frederick L. Ornes, editor of the Anacortes American newspaper. From 1900-04 she was also publisher of the Skagit School Bulletin newspaper. She died very young, maybe in about 1910. We have her obituary but it is unfortunately undated. We hope a reader can correct us.
The term of 1897-98 had the first recorded nine-month term. The teachers were R.M. Wansbrough and M.M. Look and George Hoskinson was clerk. We do not have lists of teachers for the next two terms.
Woolley graded school
Back in 1890 a new company town was growing less than a mile northwest of the Sedro school. P.A. Woolley moved his wife and family out here in the fall of 1889 and built the Skagit River Lumber & Shingle Company at the crossing of the three rail lines just northeast of where the Sims Ford Ranch stands in 2002. Although most of the workers were bachelors, they were a handful of families with children. Beginning that spring, Mrs. Catherine Woolley taught them all at a small school set up in part of the mill cookhouse/commissary. Because the records are confusing, we are unclear about whether the cookhouse was located next to the mill or in the 200 block of Puget. She also taught Sunday School in her non-denominational "church parlors" in her home on Gibson street. Ethel Van Fleet's records indicate that "interested parties" donated funds for the school. P.A. was not yet a wealthy man but that would soon change. According to the Illustrated History of Skagit and Snohomish counties, written in 1906, she soon taught 22 pupils, some who walked two miles through the forest for the privilege.
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This photo of the Woolley Graded School was probably taken near the end of its use as a school, roughly 1897-99, judging from the large number of students.
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By the fall term of November 1890 George Raymond was hired to teach a full term, probably three months, in the larger upstairs room of the cookhouse. School continued in those cramped quarters because the town was not yet incorporated, which was necessary to acquire tax funds. P.A. began organizing his company town as a city on April 9, 1890, it was platted on June 3, 1890, and a ratification election approved incorporation as a city of the fourth class on May 11, 1891. For the 1891 school term, school district #45 was formed and a schoolhouse was erected at the corner of Northern Avenue and Puget Avenue, north of the Seattle & Northern tracks. Although they are now called streets, the north-south streets east of Murdock from Puget through Central were originally designated as avenues.
The first directors for the new school district were David Moore, whose family named Moore street, now Highway 20; George Gregory and F.A. Douglass. Land for the school was donated by the Grand Junction Land Co., which was organized by William Murdock. He was elected the first mayor of the town of Woolley that year. Ethel noted that funds for the building were raised by popular subscription and donations from mills. Men of the town donated their labor to clear the land and erect the building and another room was soon added as more families moved into Woolley. The 1937 History of School District #70 notes that subscriptions were taken, lectures given and individuals made donations for school funds. Edward Uhland taught the first 1891 term. The clerk was W.T. Odlin, who was originally a clerk for Mortimer Cook's store at Sterling and would soon be the cashier for C.E. Bingham's bank in Sedro.
Many discussions were held, starting in 1892, to consolidate the two districts but they remained separate until 1899, after the merger of the towns. At first, Rev. Cuddy conducted Methodist Episcopal services at the Woolley school but as room was needed for a growing body of students, the ME services were moved in July 1892 to the new church, which was located on Township street in old Sedro in the St. Elizabeth's Hospital building. When the summer term started on July 7, 1892, Uhland was hired to teach for 24 weeks at $60 per month. Lulu Richards was soon hired to teach 12 weeks at $50 per month. F.A. Douglass, the pioneer Woolley druggist, replaced Odlin as clerk. For 1893, Rev. Cuddy taught for 24 weeks, Thomas Roush for 12 and Miss Lulu Richards for 12. 1894: Rev. Cuddy then moved over to Sedro Graded School to teach. Roush and Richards taught, with Norris Ormsby, the owner of a freight business, serving as clerk. In 1895, Philip Cole and Helen I. Wells taught. 1896: Philip Cole and Helena Rouse taught.
In 1897 A.L. Swim taught for eight weeks and Clara Garl Morrison, daughter of a Burlington pioneer, finished the last eight weeks of the term. In 1898 T.H. Look and Miriam Elliott taught and F.A. Douglass continued as clerk, having started in 1895.
How schools were funded and the Barefoot Schoolboy law
Back in March 1891 the Graphic magazine featured a Washington Special Section where the town of Woolley was featured. Here we get a hint of how schools were funded in those early days. The story notes: "The handsome new school house would do credit to a city many times its size. School lands five miles from Woolley appraised $80 per acre but brought $156 at public sale." In the Book of Counties, written in 1953 for the centennial of Washington territory, we get more information about local school taxation. First, every white male in the county over the age of 21 paid an annual poll tax to the county and then all property in the county was classified as to tax status. If it was government land or belonged to a school district, a religious or charitable institution, or a public library or cemetery, or was owned by an Indian or reservation, it was exempt. It is also interesting to note that that a man could choose to donate work on county roads in lieu of his taxes.
The county assessor was charged with making up an assessment roll, which he delivered to the county commissioners for their annual June session. The commissioners determined the amount of money to be raised for county purposes and figured in the school taxes required by law, which were one mill for territorial purposes and two mills for schools. General county taxes could not exceed four mills and the total property levy for the county, including school taxes, could not exceed nine mills.
Before our constitution was adopted, the General Land Ordinances were written in 1785-87 and the continent was divided into postage-stamp sections of townships and ranges or the purpose of selling land. Section 16 in every township was reserved specifically for the support of schools within those townships. When California was admitted as a state in 1850, it became the first state to receive two sections per township for schools, and other Western states followed.
The next significant change in school funding came in the election period of 1896, when the country was still trying to recover from the Financial Panic of 1893 and populism took hold. That year was the genesis of the Equality Colony near Bow, about ten miles northwest of Woolley. A coalition called the Fusionists, which included a mix of Silver Republicans, Democrats and Populists, overcame the prior Republican domination in Washington state and John R. Rogers of Puyallup was elected governor.
While in the state legislature, Rogers drafted and secured passage of the "barefoot schoolboy bill," which is credited as being the beginning of free public school education in Washington state. The law required the state to pay school districts six dollars per year for every child enrolled in school. It also required cities to bear part of the expense of funding country schools. That egalitarian idea especially aided districts in rural areas such as in Skagit county.
Continue on to Chapter 3
Further reading about schools:
- The upcoming revised Chapter One of the updated section will cover the schools from Sterling and Sedro on upriver from 1883, before there ever was a Sedro, through the early 20th century. This was our original schools feature from the Free Homepage section. This file is being updated and will include many more names and photos during the week of Feb. 18.
- Chapter Two of the Sedro-Woolley/Upriver Schools Section covers the Township road school, Sedro Graded School and Woolley Graded School, from 1890-98. This includes the story of William Bell and the school with two floors and only him as the teacher. How schools are funded and Barefoot Schoolboy law. Many rare photos featured.
- Chapter Three of the Sedro-Woolley/Upriver Schools Section covers the merger of the Sedro and Woolley schools, construction of the multi-use Union High School #4, Mary Purcell, and the naming of Franklin and Irving schools.
- Chapter Four of the Sedro-Woolley/Upriver Schools Section covers the construction of the new Sedro-Woolley Union High School #4 in 1911, its expansion in 1924, and the construction of Central Grade School in 1926.
- The upcoming Appendix A will include lists of students and teachers in various schools, memories of early school days by local writers, students and teachers, and great stories from the 1901 Criterion Annual.
- The story of the Sterling School, which began in 1883, includes other subsequent schools through 1889 at the Batey and Van Fleet homesteads.
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