Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1939-11-04
Montana's First Teacher
Taught I'm Gallows Shadow

cred the "GraSshopper diggings" in
July 1863 He was murdered six
months later. That was the tempo of
Bannack-the winter rendezvous of
Henry Plummer and Jack Cleveland
and Haze Lyons and Charley Reeves,
who went out one night and shot and
killed three Sheep-eater Indians and
one white man who we're camped just
off Bannack'S main thoroughfare,
simply because Mr.. Reeves (who SJf-
fered no worse a fate than Danish
ment had had a disagreement with
one of the Indian SQuawS. Thomas j.
Dimsdale in his "VigilanteS of Mon
tana' says, 1T is probable that there
never was a mining town of the same
size that contained more desperadoes
and laWleSS characters than did Ban
mack during the winter Of 1862-63."
In this town Lucia Darling, daugh-
ter of the effete east, arrived in Sep
TENDER, 1868. In October she was ready
to open the first school Montana was
to have. For Bannack'S population was
not made up entirely of the road
agents and the bad men. Rather, the
majority of residents were citizens of
sterling stock who realized that one of
the first steps In setting up any sort
of a society was a place where their
children could be educated. They asked
IfALoo OdAAnl W ONCA Vic JOD
Writing of her experiences many
years after, Miss Darling recalled the
first problem was one of finding suit
able housing. She heard of man who
might be willing to rent his little
shack for school room so she went
to call on him. He was lying in the
middle of the floor a little drunk but
nightly interested in education which
4 k344v
he would be willing to rent his little
cabin Finished on the inside with mud
wallS) for the trifling sum Of $50 per
month. His offer was not accepted and
Miss Darling finally opened the school
in her own home. The Edgerton party
had been fortunate enough to secure
a five-room store building as a resi-
dence for their stay that winter and It
was there the little soholarS-2O OF
gathered to recite their lessons
and do their sums.
No Two Textbooks Alike
The school operated only during the
and the books the students
used came from everywhere from
Maine to Minnesota. No two were alike
for in this rough wilderness there were
no standard texts. The school operated
until the Christmas holidays, then did
not resume until spring because the
weather was so cold it was impossible
to hold classes. The first students that
winter were: Emma Zoller, Emma
Cutler Susan Burchett, Mary TeeterS,
Charles Van Camp, j. Edward Watson,
Wright Prescott Edgerton, Matilda
French, William Jones, Henry French,
Della Cutler, George Burchett, George
Teeters, Jennie Bennett, Euphemia
Van Camp James u. Sanders, Mollie
Dye, Margaret French. Pauline Edger
ton, George French.
Whatever discipline problems Miss
Darling may have had certainly were
unlike those any other teacher ever
encountered. The grim gallows of Ban
mack stood within sight of the school
and well can we imagine a couple of
The Drawer boys of the school plotting,
Heck. let's not go to school today.
They're a hangin Haze Lyons this
watch that"
Lucia Darlings educational trail led
from that first school in Bannack back
10 one of the casts most historic
school nStitutions-Berea, KY, and
here we've lost track of her. But when
you count those who helped lay Mon
.ana's social cornerstone don't forget
he woman who once taught school IN
sight of Bannack's gallows.