As one of the largest one-room schoolhouses in Bureau County, Bryant School operated for a little more than 100 years before being closed at the end of the school year in 1959. The brick building, built in the summer of 1902, now stands as a residence just south of Princeton on the road between Princeton and Tiskilwa on the same property that was purchased in 1858.
On Oct. 1, 1839, Lazarus Reeves bought 80 acres of land two miles south of the Bureau County Courthouse. He sold nine-tenths of an acre of that land to the Board of Trustees of Schools on June 30, 1858, for $1. The property was located across from what was a large apple orchard owned at the time by Arthur Bryant. This area was known as the “Bryant District.” According to “History Of Bryant School,” compiled in 1958, the first Bryant School was located on the south side of what is now known as Lover’s Lane Road, and that building was moved to the property sold to the district by Reeves. L.R. Bryant, one of the oldest living pupils in 1937, said he remembered the day when the school house was moved to the present site. It was a low type wooden frame building. A front hall was added to the building at the time.
Mrs. Atherton Clark, nee Jerusha B. Whitmarsh, 1840-1928, wrote in her journal she and her brother attended the Bryant School. She wrote, “At this time, a teacher from the East taught in the Bryant district, two and a half miles south of town. As we had a horse and buggy, Mother would take me, with my brother, Horace, down to the school in the morning. We took our lunch with us and walked home. The children of Mr. Pillsbury, the Presbyterian minister, went to the Bryant school, but they lived in the country.”
A report made on Dec. 15, 1873, stated there were 29 students enrolled with an average attendance of 24. Annie Fisher was the teacher. A similar report published March 5, 1874, stated in U.S. history, Willie Murphy earned an A, in spelling Mary McMahan a B and Myra Butts a B.
The Bureau County Republican of Jan. 1, 1903, published this excerpt, “Another old landmark disappeared from the site upon which it has rested for over 50 years, two miles south of Princeton on Tuesday of this week. We refer, of course, to the old frame school house near the old Arthur Bryant home. Recently a new brick school house was erected just south of the frame. The old frame was bought by John Powers and was Tuesday placed on trucks and two traction engines hitched to it and moved to Mr. Power’s lot on the west side of town where it will be converted into a comfortable dwelling. The two traction engines moved along at a good rate of speed ... passing along north on Pleasant Street about as fast as a loaded team of gravel moves.”
Edward R. Bryant, who attended the Bryant School in 1902, remembers the wood structure. “They moved it just to the north; it stayed there (pertner’) a year. Then it suddenly disappeared. They took part of the fence out on the north side, and it sat in the field.” He remembers attending the wood structure school building. When returning from summer break the next school term, the brick structure being in place. Olive Downing was the teacher at the time. Eddie also mentioned that both structures had basements.
Eddie Bryant also told of a stabbing at the school. “Harry Butts was his name, the oldest boy in school. They gave him the job of firing up the coal furnace in the winter. Frank Brown and Harry Butts got into a fight one day. I can remember Harry calling Frank a ‘Redheaded Gingerbread, 5 cents a loaf.’ Followed him around bugging him. So I guess Harry mixed with him with his fist. Groggy (Brown) pulled a knife on Harry, swung at him with the knife and hit him just below the heart. It was inside the school just after recess. Brownie came in then, following Harry, and Harry was holding his hand over his breast, blood coming out on his fingers saying, ‘I’ll bleed to death’. Miss Langford, the teacher then, did what I thought was the dumbest thing that could happen. She sent the stabber home to the tenants’ house in the grove; he worked for L.R. Bryant. Sent him home with the kid he stabbed. They got a doctor, the blade never hit the main artery, but it was really close and he recovered.” Eddie also talked about how the older kids would “Climb trees, dig a well and drink the sap. We called them sap suckers.”
Another story that Eddie told was about a game called Pong Pong Pull-A-Way. “There would be a kid out front until he caught someone. He’d be ‘it.’ They’d yell ‘Pong Pong Pull-A-Way, if you don’t come we’ll pull you away.’ This (Ninion) Nelson kid, he devised the idea of making mud balls and putting them in a sling slot. When the kids would run across, he’d let them have it.”
In 1919 a teacher’s salary was $75 per month; the number of students was 24; the number of trees on the property were 15; and there were 125 books in the library. A school day lasted from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. with recess at 10:30 a.m.; lunch from noon until 1 p.m.; and last recess at 2:30 p.m.
Grades 1 through 8 were all taught in the same room. These grades were split up into individual classes and study times for each grade, generally running about 10 minutes long. For example, at 10:55 a.m. the second grade had spelling, at 11:05 a.m. fifth grade had reading, and at 11:15 a.m. grammar was taught to the seventh- and eighth-grade classes.
On March 28, 1921, the school was temporarily closed due to an outbreak of scarlet fever. Classes resumed on April 25. To make up for some of the lost time, students attended two half days on Saturdays in May. The teacher, Jessie Dean, wrote the school needed to be “redecorated.” Twenty-seven students attended the school that year, and the library had 66 books. There also had been three cases of the mumps reported that year. In 1925, a music class was added and taught by Mrs. Mercer.
On Oct. 11, 1934, the BCR reported, “The Bryant School, located south of Princeton, has an enrollment of 36 pupils. There are 18 girls and 18 boys in attendance. Their teacher is Mrs. Ormel Gilbert, who has been instructor there for seven years. It is unusual to have such a large number to attend a rural school ... believed to be the largest in the county. Recently a candidate for office visited the school and proceeded with his usual practice of passing out dimes to the pupils. The large number of students was a surprise to him, and he ran out of dimes before he had gotten around.” The school also participated in a play day held at the fairgrounds on April 26, 1935.
Mrs. Minnie Lange (Underwood) attended the Bryant School and graduated eighth grade in 1935. She spoke of the ball diamond in the pasture, north of the school. It was owned by the Pierson Family whom also had children who attended the school. Mrs. Lange said, “Elmer (Pierson) and I, I was the catcher, and Elmer was the pitcher; we used to go around and play all the schools in the territory. I was the only girl on the team. They thought I couldn’t hit the ball; well I got up and hit a homerun. The bases were loaded. It got the papers. We were playing Gosse School; they had beat all the schools; we were the first to beat them.”
The BCR on April 25, 1935, ran this story, “Last Friday the Gosse School came down to the Bryant School to open up the spring baseball season and the Bryant school won 29 to 6. Miss Minnie Underwood being the winning catcher and Elmer Pierson the winning pitcher.” Mrs. Lange also mentioned the bathroom facilities were still located on the outside, “Over in the northeast corner was the girl’s. Over in the southeast was the boy’s.” Elmer Pierson stated that his father owned the pasture north of the school and kept it as a permanent pasture “It was left so the kids could play ball. (We) used to play in the basement in cold weather,” remembers Pierson. “Sometimes when the teacher was working with the middle grades, some of the older kids would help the younger ones with math.”
“I don’t know how good the (basement) floor is? We roller skated all the time down there in the winter time when it was cold and played marbles,” remembers Mrs. Alice Schindel (Polson) who attended the school from 1942 until 1948. “I remember the Christmas programs. We had like a stage and a curtain that pulled across. We always had the best Christmas programs.” The Bryant School also had a legendary merry-go-round. “We sure could get that thing going fast and hit that metal post,” said Mrs. Schindel. “We’d bounce from one end to the other, got some skinned knees out of it.” The merry-go-round had been added in 1937. The cement area for the merry-go-round can still be seen on the southwest side of the property.
Ward Kitterman also mentioned the Christmas programs, playing in the basement in bad weather, and Pierson’s pasture. Kitterman, who graduated eighth grade from Bryant School in 1956, said, “We would prepare for this (Christmas program) the whole month of December. The kids would do skits and read poems and short stories. The parents would bring a covered dish for potluck.” Kitterman also mentioned that enrollment at the school was down until a family named Jensen moved into the area. “They had 9 boys,” stated Kitterman.
In May 1946 the teacher, Esther Tragordh, wrote to the school board in the annual report that “A telephone would be a convenience.” In 1949 the teacher, Eulalia M. Clark, wrote in her report to the school board that a “New globe is needed.” Rumor had it someone shot a hole in it with a BB gun.
On March 31, 1959, a petition was submitted to the County Board of School Trustees, Bureau County, Illinois. This petition contained the signatures from 71 of the 91 legal voters who lived in the 119 School District, Bryant School. The petition contained a request “In The Matter Of Dissolution of School District No. 119, Bureau County Illinois, and the change of the boundaries of School District 115 Bureau County Illinois.” Virgil Polson, president of the Bryant School District in 1958 and 1959, stated there were three board members, Jim Yeazel, Howard Roggy and himself. Their job was to choose the teachers and take care of the school. Polson also had the job of getting voters in the district to sign the petition to close the school. One night they went door to door to get 75 percent of the voters to sign the petition.
“Howard Roggy wasn’t in favor of closing the school,” said Polson. “But agreed to sign the petition if 75 percent of the voters signed.” Roggy eventually signed. Polson also said, “Finding teachers was getting to be a problem.”
At a hearing held at 8 p.m. on July 6, 1959, before the members of the Bureau County Board of School Trustees, Polson testified the reason for the petition, “We feel that the children can get a much better education and a much better facilities and transportation in the Princeton School (District 115).” At the same time Polson testified that if the Bryant School was to be maintained, “We would have to build a new school ... the cost of the new building would be $30,000 per room ... We would need two rooms.” When asked by attorney Roger Pierson if the present site is large enough for a building of the type, Polson said, “No, it is not.” No one opposed, and the hearing, as well as the school were closed. After more than 100 years, Bryant School was no more.
District 115 later decided to sell the building, property and all its contents. So on Saturday, Nov. 5, 1960, at 2:30 p.m. everything was auctioned off. Also up for auction on that day were the one-room schools of Sisler and Hazel Grove. Herbert J. Swartzendruber, then of Route 2, Sheffield, came in with the highest bid and paid $2,725 for the building and the property. Some of Swartzenduber’s children had attend the school, and he had served on the school board for a short time. Swartzendruber took the old school and made it a home. Using some of the materials that were already there, he made the one-story building into a two-story dwelling. The girls and boys bathroom doors were used as bedroom doors in the upstairs. The original hard wood floor was kept as well as one of the sinks, which was installed in the basement. The house was sold in 1977 to James Borsch and his family. His daughter, Julie, currently lives there.
The building looks different these days. A new front room has been added where the porch was, a new back porch also. There is an old rusty desk in the garage; the garage once served as a storage shed for the school. Someone with the initials “H.R.” carved them in a few of the bricks (Maybe Henry Rieker who attended the school with Eddie Bryant? Later Rieker ran a bar at the Log Cabin curve, and his children also attended the school). The hooks where the children hung their coats is in the stairwell of the basement. Out to the northeast and southeast fence, there still exist the cement foundations of the old outhouses. And parts of the fence in the front and surrounding the property are still there. Many a mind were cultivated in that building, and all the one-room schoolhouses throughout Bureau County.
Sources:
• History of Bryant School District 119 1858-1958 compiled by Mrs. Donald Hassler.
• Interviews conducted in the late 1980s with Edward R. Bryant, Alice Schindel, Ward Kitterman, Elmer Pierson. Mrs. Minnie Lange, Virgil Polson and Francis Hassler.
• BCR June 25, 1959; April 5, 1935; June 3, 1937; Jan. 1, 1903; Oct. 11, 1934; April 18, 1935; April 25, 1935; Jan. 1, 1874; March 5, 1874.
• Abstract Of Title.
• A journal by Mrs. Atherton Clark nee Jerusha B. Whitmarsh, 1840-1928, supplied by the Bureau County Historical Society.
• Daily Register and annual records for School District 119 for the years 1919, 1921, 1925, 1946, 1949.
• Petition filed before the County Board of Schools, Bureau County, dated March 31, 1959.
• D-98 July 6, 1959, Petition to Dissolve Bryant No. 119 and annex territory to Princeton Elementary No. 115, testimony by Virgil Polson, then president of the school board for District No. 119.
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