Preachers as Teachers

      A large majority of the teachers during this period were preachers as well as preachers. The pioneers were not able financially to support a pastor and teacher too, so in many instances the preachers taught in private schools or tutored in the homes. The preachers were well qualified to teach as most of them had good educations. In reading the histories of the old academies in the county, we find that many of the principals as well as teachers were preachers and many of them Presbyterian. In two or three instances we find where the teacher even taught a profession such as surveying. The Rev. N. D. Dunlap taught ten years in the Hillsboro Academy while preaching in the county. 

      All of the very early schools were taught on the vocal plan, everyone studying as well as reciting aloud. It was in the year of 1846 that Isaac Moore, at a meeting considering reforms in the schools, advanced the new idea of silent school. After this silent schools were more or less the order of the day.

      From the Pocahontas County History by Dr. William T. Price, we get a pretty good idea of the nature of some of the schools before and about the time of the formation of the county. Although educational advantages were very limited at that time, there were some who persevered and as a result received a very good education for that day. A good example was William Young.

      William Young was born in Madison County, May 1798 and was about five years old when his father moved to this region. His youth was spent on the sides of Rich Mountain. His first teachers were William Auldridge, Squire John McNeill, and William McNeill. The school house was on Rush Run and a mile or two form its confluence with Swago Creek. In early manhood he entered John McNulty’s school, at the McNulty Place, near Marvin Chapel. From his teacher he learned surveying, which qualified him for the office he held for a number of years. The text book used by William Young in the study of surveying is yet in the possession of William Cochran’s family, who first wife was William Young’s sister Elizabeth. On its well filled title page appears the following:

      Geodaesia, or the art of surveying and measuring of land made easy; showing by plain and practical rules how to survey. Moreover, a more sure and facile way of surveying by the chain than has hitherto been taught. As also how to lay out New Lands in America or elsewhere, with several other things never yet published in our language.

By John Love

The Seventh Edition

London, 1760

      In the address to the reader the author says:

      What would be more ridiculous than for me to praise an art that all mankind knows he cannot live peaceably without? It is near hand s ancient (no doubt on’t) as the world. For how could men set down to plant without knowing some distinction and boundary of their land? But (necessity being the mother of invention) we find the Egyptians, by reason of the Nile’s overflowing – which either washed away all their bound marks, or covered them over with mud, brought this measuring of land first into an art, and honoured much the professors of it. The great usefulness as well as the pleasant and delightful study and wholesome exercise of which tempted many to apply themselves thereto, that at length in Egypt, as in the Bermudas, every rustic could measure his own land. 

      On the fly leaf in the handwriting of the young student now in the twentieth year of his age:

      William Young, his book. 

      Bought of Mr. John McNulty, price six shillings

      April 16, 1818, on Thursday

      Previously to him the following persons seemed to have owned the book:

      Israel Nollowell, May 9, 1775

      John Goodrich, Feb. 13, 1794

      Joseph Fisherton, Jan. 30, 1795

      George Harrison, February 13, 1805

      Joseph McNulty

      This copy was bound in very substantial calf skin, and when it became worn on the back edges by sixty years service in so many hands, it was repaired by a wide strip of dressed deer skin, sewed on by waxed threads such as shoemakers use.

      His tuition for two months was nine shillings ($1.50) seventy five cents per month. 

      Having learned surveying with Mr. McNulty, William Young taught school a few months, and then went to Lewisburg, West Virginia, where he studied grammar, taught by Dr. McElhenny as a specialty, according to old Greenleaf of bitter memory to grammar students of that period. One study at a time was the rule then. Upon his return from Lewisburg, Mr. Young opened a school on Stony Creek, in the school house near George Baxter’s. His first grammar scholar was Samuel Waugh, brother of the late Rev. John Waugh. The school was taught on the open or vocal plan, and Samuel Waugh did not object to the noise. William seemed to have the monopoly of grammar teaching on Stony Creek for many years.

      Having completed his education, so advanced for his day, and under so many difficulties, his thoughts turned to settling himself in life. He was happily married to Miss Ann Smith, and built up a home on Stony Creek, and reared a highly respectable family of sons and daughters. He was the second surveyor of Pocahontas – successor to Sampson Mathews.

      From – Historical Sketches of Po. Co. – by Dr. Wm. T. Price