Slick rascals and the peachy keen discount on my Urgroßvater’s livery stable (.edu)
By: Wilhelm Kühner
Tags: Politics, Education, History, Philosophy, Religion

“That a school or schools shall be established by the Legislature, for the convenient instruction of youth, with such salaries to the masters, paid by the public, as may enable them to instruct at low prices; and all useful learning shall be duly encouraged, and promoted, in one or more universities.” — Article XLI, Constitution of North Carolina: December 18, 1776.

The original North Carolina constitution recognized the need for investments in public education, but aside from the creation of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1789 the task was left largely to churches during colonial times. In the South generally, it wasn’t until Reconstruction that Republican governments established the first (racially segregated) public school systems supported by general taxes. But in North Carolina, the first free, whites-only public school opened in 1840, in Rockingham County, and public support for whites-only education was expanded significantly prior to the Civil War.

On the recommendation of Archibald Murphey — the “father of education”— Whigs in the General Assembly passed the North Carolina Public School Act in 1839. The legislation provided for both state and local funding of education, “[b]ut political pressures almost immediately made the local tax voluntary and changed the formula to favor eastern counties with large slave populations” (NCPedia). Still, whites-only public education expanded in the state significantly after the legislation was ratified by all but seven counties — Columbus, Davidson, Edgecombe, Lincoln (which at the time included Catawba, founded in 1842), Warren, Wayne, and Yancey.

“Even as late as 1840, one out of every four white men and women, and practically all Negroes, could not read and write. North Carolina had one of the highest rates of illiteracy of any state in the Union.” — Hugh Lefler, as quoted by the NC Department of Public Instruction (1993)

According to a history of public education in the state created by the Department of Public Instruction (1993); “By the outbreak of war in 1861, there were approximately 4,000 common schools with 160,000 pupils, an average of 40 pupils per school and 350 academies with approximately 15,000 pupils, an average of almost 43 pupils per academy.” But neither the “immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships” (as Ben Carson refers to them) nor their descendants would benefit from public education until after the Civil War when they finally started being served in the early 20th century—separately and unequally.

After the Civil War, public education in the state was in near-total ruin, but “Carpetbaggers” from the North quickly adopted a even more progressive State Constitution (1868) that required the General Assembly to “provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of public schools, wherein tuition shall be free of charge to all of the children of the State between the ages of six and twenty-one years.” This system remains largely intact today, with the expense of public education coming primarily from a combination of state and local (property) taxes — and, today, a lottery.

“An ancestor blessed with longevity could have been born in Rowan County in 1753, married in Burke County in 1778, fathered children in the counties of Burke and Lincoln in the 1780s. and died in 1842 during Catawba County’s formation year while living on the same land all the while. His land simply became part of the new counties as they were formed.” — James W. Miller. Jr

In 1858, George Washington (GW) Keener (my great-grandfather) was born in the new county of Catawba, in what had been the old county of Lincoln near what later became the town of Maiden (1883). GW apparently couldn’t read or write and probably never attended any school. The first Compulsory Attendance Act wasn’t passed until 1913.

Snip: The Newton Enterprise, February 25, 1916 — via Newspapers.com.

As mentioned in my eBook and a previous blog post, GW owned a livery stable in Maiden and almost went into the aviation business with D.M. Carpenter and Barney Spratt. The adventure ended unexpectedly after a fire destroyed part of GW’s business (and the materials they were going to use to build the airplane). In 1916, GW sold his livery stable at a 10% discount to protest a local vote in favor of taxes for public education of whites. From the Hickory Daily Record:

Maiden School Fight

Newton, Feb 28. [1916] — A by-product of the recent graded school fight in Maiden has come to the court house in the shape of a deed for $1,800 transferring a storehouse and a livery stable from George W. Keener to Smith Campbell and W. B. Murray. Mr. Keener was very much oposed to the tax for schools and after the vote had been declared that night, he said he considered property worth less in Maiden than before the tax was voted, and offered to take 10 per cent from a price of $2,000 for the property named. Campbell bought it on the spot, and Murray came in later to share a good thing.

GW was apparently a pretty slick rascal. A distant cousin also owned a livery stable, in Lincolnton. Elijah Washington Keener was the father of Walter Ney and the son of Lawson, who purchased the old Keener homestead and ran a lime kiln and iron mine (in Iron Station) which helped fuel an industrial revolution in the area. Limestone from Lawson’s kiln was used to build many of the first brick buildings in Lincolnton. Elijah had his own run-in with a slick rascal of a different nature in 1899, having nothing at all to do with public education. From the Lincoln Journal on September 1, 1899, and reprinted in the Burke County News (September 08, 1899):

A Slick Rascal

Mr. Elijah Wishimadie [sic] Keener had an experience this and last week that was a powerful strain on his character as a consistent member of the church. A fellow giving his name as G.D. Earnhardt, claiming to be from Salisbury, and professing to be an optician, hired a horse and buggy from him Saturday morning to take a trip into the upper part of the county, promising to return that afternoon. He never came back, and Mr. Keener fully impressed with the appropriateness of his middle name, began a search for him. By Tuesday he had traced the rascal and the team to Ball’s Creek campmeeting; thence to Maiden, thence to a man named — , near Denver; thence to Conover, where the fellow disappeared. He had tried vainly to sell or swap the horse and buggy. He had wrecked the buggy and pretty nearly ruined the horse. Mr. Keener recovered the horse and the remanent of the buggy, but the fellow got away…

However, today we do still have slick rascals attacking public education in North Carolina and nationwide. According to the Charlotte Observer (April, 2016); “This year, the state has spent $12 million on Opportunity Scholarships to help families of modest means move their children from public to private schools. About $11 million went to Christian, Islamic and other faith-based schools, with about $800,000 going to secular schools.” The largest recipient of this new public funding has been an Islamic Academy that was in financial trouble previously. And at least one Christian school now receiving public funds was in the news recently regarding embezzlement by their former headmaster. Opportunity indeed, but for whom? Slick rascals who apparently want to return our State’s education system to its segregationist and colonial roots, on the public’s dime! And just like Mr. “Earnhardt” they unfortunately seem to be getting away with it!

“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves…is sinful and tyrannical.” — Thomas Jefferson

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like my eBook about my paternal ancestors in the Catawba Valley.