A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

taught here alongside of their cousins.The first school within the boundaries of College Hill was built of brick and located in the vicinity of5875, 5907 Belmont Avenue. This property was originally owned by the Badgleys. The school is markedon the 1847 map. According to Douglas Trimmel, “The Oaks” has as its nucleus the small, four roombrick house constructed for the teacher of this school.The first school in Cumminsville was in 1832 in a log cabin built near Badgely Road (Kirby Road).Known as the Badgely Schoolhouse, the Rev. David Root of College Hill was its teacher. He was alsopastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. Later students were educated in the UnionGeneralschool. Farmers’ College graduate Merriam Sherman Turrill was principal and he taught there until 1885.Emma De Serisy and Carrie S. Hammitt were teachers. The first class (1854) had as students John F. andA. F. Thomson, Janet Thomson (later De Sirsy), Anna and Sophia Ludlow.Freeman Cary wrote; “Memory furnishes vivid pictures of our early School Masters as they werecalled, and the appellation was no misnomer. For Masters they were. The rod cut from an adjoining beechsome 6 ft. in length was the scepter wielded to enforce obedience and maintain order. And it was oftenapplied with force even upon the back of the young man of 20, and long did it find a place on the desk orin the corner of the schoolroom of those days. Our Masters were generally Irish, and their tempers werequick and impulsive, and the rod was often resorted to and applied in the heat of passion…”These early teachers were paid by subscription per pupil, receiving $8 to $12 per month and were‘boarded round’ by their parents.A girls’ high school was started in College Hill by Laura Hayes in 1843. This building stood onHamilton Avenue, across from Groesbeck Road. Little is known about it except that the next schoolmistress was Mrs. Sarah B. Brooks, and was later operated in 1849 by Dr. John Scott, who left the facultyof Farmers’ College to direct the Young Ladies School. He moved the school to Oxford, where heoriginally started his teaching career at Miami University. The Hamilton Avenue building became part ofthe Polytechnic Hall (1855-56) of Farmers’ College. Mrs. Brooks was a faculty member of the OhioFemale College and taught literature, language and science. Mrs. Brooks bought a lot for $677 and builtthe house at 1511 Groesbeck Road, whose back yard touched the Ohio Female College property. She laterran a successful girl’s school from this house, which at that time was a Linden Avenue address.The next school was a common or public one north of Hamilton and Groesbeck Roads. This framebuilding was outgrown and replaced with the 13th District or ‘pig eye’ school, nicknamed for the singleround louvered gable window. Miss Harriet N. Wilson was the first woman teacher and also the principalfrom 1860-1871. Mrs. Mary Jane Pyle, her sister, was made assistant teacher when the building wasexpanded to a second classroom. Mrs. Pyle later joined the faculty of Belmont College as teacher ofbotany, geology and geography. It was at the ‘pig eye’ that Walter Aiken, later Director of Music for theCincinnati Public Schools, began his career in 1867 as an organist. Teacher salaries at that time were $10- $12/month with board.Miss Wilson was much beloved. A newspaper clipping from Feb. 18, 1898 recounts a reunion herformer pupils held for her. They sat at the same desks, sang the same songs and carried dinner bucketsand baskets like they had 25 years previously as children. The hand bell used to ring in the day was againrung in her honor. A woman of small stature, she could easily discipline her students.The ‘pig eye’ school was purchased in 1877 by the College Hill Presbyterian Church. Later still, thisbuilding was moved next door behind Deininger’s blacksmith shop and was remodeled to serve as hishouse. It was torn down in 1889 and the materials salvaged were incorporated into the PresbyterianChurch chapel and Sunday school. The first parish house sat on the site of this school.As early as 1867, 1.4 acres of property extending from Cedar to Maple (Llanfair) Avenue wasdesignated for a new school. On the 1869 map, the College Hill Colored School is also indicated on eastCedar Avenue. Nothing is to be found about this school but it was merged with the College Hill PublicSchool between 1887 and 1893.A new brick school was opened in September 1878 on the familiar Cedar Avenue site and was againnicknamed the ‘pig eye’ school for another round window had been incorporated in the building. When68