Until about the year 1852, when the select school building was erected at New California, the schoolhouses were all built of logs.  The schoolhouse attended by the children in the vicinity of the village was located in the center of a great woods, about three-quarters of a mile northwest from New California, on the farm of Perry Buck.
     There was no cleared ground and the paths leading to the schoolhouse were marked by blazing the trees, and ran through the woods in many directions.  The house was built of heavy logs, one room about thirty feet square, fitted with benches without any backs, and the desks consisted of long boards about a foot and a half wide, resting on wooden pins fastened into the logs by an inch and a half auger hole.  Windows on three sides, and the front wall, with the one door in the corner, was taken up by the blackboard.
     The house was heated by a long, heavy iron box stove.  The children from at least twenty families attended this school,  and in those days the families were not as small as they are today.  I think it is safe to say that there were sixty scholars in the district, and it seems an impossibility, as we go back in memory today, to see how they could all be crowded into a room of that size.  Still, we did go to school there and learned something - in fact, the writer and many others never attended any other district school.
     The district was in a radius, say commencing with the farm of James Robinson on the Watkins Road, now owned by Mr. Seigman, taking the McCampbells, Woodburns, Mitchells, Gills, Currys, Cones, Beards, Bucks, and Taylors on the Marysville Road.
     We had a lot of fun in winter, playing fox and hounds in the snow, running miles through the woods, choosing and having our snowball battles.  Base, Black Man, Corner Ball, Town Ball, Anti-over, and two-ol' -cat and three-ol'-cat were the favorite games.  The professional baseball of today was fashioned from the old town ball, played in the early days.  The ball was made by unraveling old woolen stockings, winding the thread around a burnt cork, wetting it so that it would shrhink and harden, and then covering it with sheepskin.  There was a pitcher, a batter and a catcher.  The other participants did some desultory outfield work and took their "turns" at places on the infield.  Good pitching batting, catching and running were all developed in town-ball playing, and there was plenty of material to draw from when professional baseball was first organized.
     Of other games and sports, there was running and jumping, wrestling, boxing, and now and then a real fight with knuckles, for there were clans and gangs in those days.  In the summer time the boys would build play houses out of poles and cover them with green leaves and twigs for the girls, where they had their stores of May-apple blossoms or berries to exchange for Genseng or Snake-root, as that was the usual commodity in trade.
     There were spelling schools frequently when the good spellers from surrounding districts would come in for a contest and the excitement would be up to fever heat as one by one the scholars went down on a hard word.  The next week our best spellers would visit other schools, and so it would continue through the winter months.
     Among the early teachers of that school were Caroline Buck, Olive Gill, Maria Buck, Rev. I. N. Laughead, Jane Porter, Polly Snodgrass, Emma Dodge, Eliza Gill, Sophia Dodge, Nan McCampbell, Lorinda Wilkins, Dr. D. W. Henderson, Elijah Brown, Charles Green, George Thompson, Milton Roney, and perhaps other whose names I do not now recall.
     On Fridays afternoons there were declamations by the boys and compositions by the girls.  Parents would come in and we had a great time doing examples on the blackboard, parsing grammar lessons and spelling.
     The teachers did not spare the rod, but used it on all occasions, if in his or her opinion it was necessary.  It did a boy a lot of good to have the teacher send him out to get a switch to whip a boy he did not like very well.  I have a very distinct recollection of a boy getting a good whipping for inducing a little fellow to eat a piece of Indian Turnip, with the result that it burned his mouth seriously.  But the greatest disgrace of all was to be "kept in" at recess or after school for some infraction of the rules.
     In writing lessons, we used the quill pens, and it was a part of the duty of the teacher to make and repair all pens.  In the old First Reader in use those days, there was a picture of a cow in a pond.  In one of our Friday afternoon exercises I remember of a boy getting up and reciting a verse about the cow which was as follows:
"The cow is in the pond
The cow gives us milk.
We must not hurt the cow."
     That was all he said, and sat down well satisfied with his effort.  The boys used to tease him about it until he was a young man.  He was a fine young man, and has passed to his reward.
     For a number of years the township elections were held in this old log schoolhouse.  At these elections many of the voters would spend the entire day at the voting place, and the discussions on political questions between the Whigs and Democrats were often very warm and loud.  A club of the "Know-Nothing Party," as it was called, was organized here, a political party opposed to foreigners voting as soon as they set foot on our shores, and was largely recruited from the Whig party.  It was only in existence a few years when members of that party and Whig party organized the Republican party.  The "Know-Nothing Party" was a secret organization and an amusing story is told about the organization in the old Log Schoolhouse.
     The meetings were held there as it was out in the woods, and thought to be a safe place.  One night some of the boys of the neighborhood were going home from the village by the path that passed the schoolhouse, and spied a man lurking in the shadows near the door, and heard some discussions inside the room.  Approaching the outer guard, which he proved to be, and a young voter, they were informed that the parties on the inside were making "Sugar Wax," and could not be disturbed, as it was a select aprty.  In a few days it leaked out that it was a meeting of the "Know-Nothing Party," and the people of the village were all agog with curiosity.  The young man on guard proved to be David O. Taylor, who was afterwards killed in battle during the Civil War.
     The merchant of the village of California at that time, was a man of the name of John Robinson, and he had quite a reputation for composing doggerel rhymes hitting on local events.  When he heard of this indicent, he composed a rhyme, one verse of which he recalled:
     "The boys went out the Know-Nothings to find,
     The old log schoolhouse they crawled up behind,
     As Stephen stood there looking in through the cracks,
     The Know-Nothings run with their syrup and wax."
     The Stephen referred to in that classic poem was Stephen Cone, who was one of the party of boys.

BARRING THE TEACHER OUT