History of Goshen Schools

page 2

        A bit of history by P.C. Hill seems to fit in well at this point. Mr. Hill was a student and a  teacher of Goshen Township Schools around the middle of the century. He is now a resident of Glendale, Ohio. The location of Goshen was determined by Mr. Wood, the father of Elias wood, early in the 19^th Century. Some of the inhabitants of the village of the 19^th Century were; Elias Wood, Samuel Nichols, Jared Height, Hector Lynch, Charles Vaughn, Hector Seeley, Ephriam Smith, Peter Ringer, Daniel Holmes, Andrew Hill, Moses Freyburger, Squire McKinney, Squire O’Neal, Jeremiah Robbins, Abram Teetor, Richard Bell and Samuel Smith. The latter was Post-Master for a long time and lived near the school house.

       The Leevers, the Leepers , the Myers, the Roudebushes and the Applegates owned farms in the vicinity. The first houses were logs but were soon supplanted by frame and brick as the old saw-mill run by Donnelly on the O’Bannon creek made lumber from logs for building purposes and the brick formed from the clay soil. The churches of 1840 were the Methodist, the Presbyterian and the Universalist. The latter was on the "Other Hill" as the North of the town was called.

      A brick school house of two rooms was built near the eastern part of the town on the brow of the hill overlooking the creek. The seats in the north room were only benches, some with backs and some without. The hall separating the two rooms extended clear through with a door at each end. In the south room the seats were large and the aisles sloped toward the hall so that the rear seats were four feet or more higher than those in front.

     The terms of the Public Schools were usually short and were frequently followed by a short term of private instruction with the parent paying about a dollar a month for each pupils. Some of the pupils attending these schools about the middle of the Century were: Oscar Wood, Thomas and Will South, Louise Smith, Ann Shannon, George Holmes, Margaret Teetor, Elizabeth Hill, Clay Vaughn, Daniel Reed, Davis Milner, Bradford Ringer, Gaddis Freyburger, Bell McKinney and P.C. Hill.

      Near this time, the Marietta R.R., now the B. & O. was projected to pass along the east line of the present school ground but as only two of the inhabitants were willing to give aid and all the property owners wanted damages for passing through their land, the route was changed from Blanchester to pass through Pleasant Plain and Cozaddale to Loveland.