Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1885-07-30
An Unfortunate End.


the Montana mines. where he had spent
some twenty years. man by the name
of Matteson s. Smith, who had been
somewhat identified with the early set
Element of Grant county. He taught
the first school in the Hurricane, COM
mencing in the fall of 1889. He spent
a little time after his return in visiting
among old acquaintance, though he
appeared listless, poor and destitute.
de was man of good habits, though
improvident and, perhaps. indolent. AS
winter came on, | heard he had gone
to the county poor house, after which |
heard nothing more of him. Meeting
the superintendent last week, inquired
about Smith, and learned he had been
dead over month. He had been some
what reticeHt, and had not mentioned
friends or relatives, so the superintend-
ent did not know whom to notify of his
sickness or death.
As he taught several years in Grant
county, there must be many of his old
scholars surviving. His death wildly
recalls that first school, and looking
back through the mists and shadows of
nearly forty-six years, can see the old
log school house as it looked to my
childish eyes when first entered it as
a scholar. 1t stood on the hill south of
Hurricane Corners, but the exact spot
is hard TO designate, as the site was in
a field that has been cultivated since its
destruction. The house was built of
round, unhewn logs, which had APP
parently been cut by guess as to length,
as the ends protruded from the corners
of the building with no uniformity. In
one end a log was sawed out and the
interstice filled with glass; the sash be-
ing the height of one pane of glass by a
dozen or more in length. There was
also twelve-light window in one side.
One of the more conservative patrons
favored filling the sash with CREASED
paper, as being more economical, but
was overruled. The floor and seats
were of puncheons, made by splitting
logs into slabs and hewing one side
somewhat smooth with broadaxe
The seats were rude benches upon which
we little ones sat with our feet swing
ing clear of the floor. Some shelves,
fastened to pins driven in the wall bore
the inappropriate name of desks. School
commenced in the winter when there
was good depth of snow on the ground,
and the school house had neither stove
nor chimney. A huge log fire was built
outside, from which a big iron kettle
was kept filed with Goals and set in the
middle of the school house to give
warmth to the inmates. Within q few
days, however, Esq. Hannum. living
near Fairplay, and who was afterward
patron of the school, brought us a
stove from Galena, it beng the first
heating stove ever brought to the Hur-
| ricane.
The school district at that time COM
prised the greater portion of the towns
of Lancaster, Beetown, Waterloo and
Potosi. The school house was well
filled with scholars of all ages and sizes,
from grown men and women down to
the writer, then between three and four
years old
1t filed its mission for few short
years, when some friend of progress one
night removed the stove and books and
reduced the building to ashes. There
were few to mourn its loss, yet to those
who had been inmates of it, there were
many fond recollections clustering
round the old building Rough and
uncouth IL was, yet from its portals had
gone forth brave hearts to struggle on
the tempestuous sea of life. Some were
soon overcome, and from the outset
down to the present time. one by one,
they have wearied and succumbed to
the merciiess surges and drifted to the
further shore. Some few are still buff
feting the restless tide, tempest tossed
upon the rough, unfriendly pillows, and
have drifted wide asunder. AS we gaze
back along the uneven shore of Time,
through the labyrinth of years, there is
long vista of irregular mounds mark
ing the resting places of those who have
gone before. The summers of those
long years have left their impress in the
| burrows on the brow, and the winters
have left the tracery of their frosts upon
the silvery threads that have imper-
ceptibly crept into the locks of the
youngest of that group; while the alter
nate dews and frosts have spangled the
grass above the Wondering forms of
many. 0, how many! X.
July &c, 1885.