The American Missionary — Volume 36, No. 8, August 1882 — John Shaqi
The American Missionary — Volume 36, No. 8, August 1882Various
History
The American Missionary — Volume 36, No. 8, August 1882
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
Miss Maria Muzzy, an experienced teacher, one of Berea’s corps, had
been engaged to take the school. Very frequently she was warned by
good friends who knew the mountain people and Kentucky habits that
there would be no safety for her in that school, she would surely
be mobbed, no lady should be asked so to expose herself, she should
not think of staying a night without a pistol. She almost feared
that it was a rash undertaking. But calmer counsels, with trust in
God, sustained her. No indignity was ever offered her, and no one
ever had more friends among such a people.
At the close of the first week she wrote to Berea that she hadn’t
the heart to turn away so many, and asked for an assistant, who
should exchange with her in teaching in the woods. This arrangement
was made; and for two months a part of the school was in the house
and a part in the grove. The assistant was Miss Kate Gilbert,
another of Berea’s corps of teachers.
[Illustration: FAMILIAR SCENE IN LOUISVILLE, KY.]
She offered to forego her summer vacation, and teach in the woods,
with no promise of compensation.
Not the least difficulty was to find a boarding place for the
teacher. A lady who was to teach eighteen months in succession
without a vacation must be taken care of. Not a room could be found
in the neighborhood, with a window in it, which she could have to
herself.
A man was found who needed a new house, and for an advance of
$100, for a part of two years’ board, built a log house near the
school-house and furnished her a room fifteen feet square, with two
windows, and a lock to her door. There is no other such room in all
the region.
The school closed grandly and beautifully, with an examination and
an exhibition.
But the common school was abandoned for not a pupil could be found
to attend it.
The following are the friends who furnished the money for this
important enterprise. I thank them most heartily for their
promptness and liberality:
Asylum St. Church, Hartford, Ct., $50.00; Euclid Av. Church,
East Cleveland, O., 50.00; First Cong. Church, Cleveland, O.,
21.25; Mrs. Mary H. Penfield, Rockford, Ill., 50.00; H. Ford, E.
Cleveland, O., 8.00; Mrs. A. A. Brakenridge, Cleveland, O., 6.00;
Miss Lucy A. French, Cleveland, O., 6.00; Frank Fairchild, Mt.
Vernon, O., 20.00; Mrs. S. E. Bosworth, for Ladies’ Benev. Soc.,
Elgin, Ill., 15.00; Mary I. James, Brooklyn, N. Y., 30.00; F. S.
Sessions, Columbus, O., 25.00; Cong. Church, Muskegon, Mich.,
25.00; Sunday-school class of girls, Brooklyn, N.Y., 10.85.
For special reasons of a local character, it became necessary to
find a benevolent man who would purchase 150 acres surrounding the
school-house. Rev. Wm. Kincaid, of Oberlin, is the good man who
takes it at $1.50 per acre.
The house is situated on a lofty ridge, six or eight miles long,
the route of the main road in that part of the county, but over
which a team does not pass more than once a week, and there is no
house in sight of the school-house.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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