Early Academies and School Institutes of Ashtabula County

We have watched as many high-school seniors have gone on to schools of higher learning. My children’s great-grandmother Mary Brake Kubicek, born in 1900, left home to got to Kent, Ohio, to attend college to get her teacher’s certificate. She boarded with other girls who had the same ambition. She returned to teach in several one-room Ashtabula County schools.
But there were many early academies and school institutes in our county in years past. You did not have to leave home unless you decided to further your education beyond the academy’s curriculum.
Andover had a Christy School for girls known as the Christie Institute. I have seen the school’s name spelled both ways. Years ago, I was given a picture of the class in August 1892 and the school’s name is spelled both ways on the picture. So often I receive pictures that have no identification, but this picture has the name of each girl and the township she was from.
James Christy was a Windsor bachelor who had experienced unrequited love and lived as a hermit in a hollow next to a stream that a Lampson boy had to pass each day on his way to school. He was of the Lampson family who own Gazette Newspapers.
Because he had not had the privilege of higher learning, when Christy died, he left all his money to establish a school for those wanting to further their education and specified that our county commissioners manage the fund. A physical building never took place, but the money was used to have roaming institutes in local facilities. The fund he established is still in place and used for school related items and needs.
In Austinburg, older students attended the Grand River Institute. The first building was moved three miles from the banks of the Grand River by a team of 100 oxen to Austinburg in 1835. Professor Lucius Austin was the first principal of the institute. The school was said to be the first educational institute in the Western Reserve. After the Civil War, Professor Jacob Tuckerman, grandfather of U. S. Circuit Court Judge Florence E. Allen, was head of the institute, then called an academy.
The Conneaut Academy offered room and board, as so many of the academies did. The large two-story building was erected in 1840 and razed in 1928. In the Academy paper of 1873-74, the school terms were listed as running from August 12 through November 7th. The Winter term lasted Nov. 25 from Feb. 20. The principal was H. A. Andrews with the preceptress position held by Miss M.A. Rea. Most academies had chaplains. At the Conneaut school, the Rev. I. Child taught Latin and German as well as holding the position of Chaplain. German was almost always offered as a choice of language study.
In Orwell, the wooden academy built in 1850 burned in 1887. Enrollment reached 200 students. The school was known for being the first of its kind in southern Ashtabula County. In 1881, it became a public school with R.P. Clark as superintendent. The fire started in the belfry and was noticed by a farmer going out that evening to milk his cows. But help did not come soon enough and the school burned to the ground.
The fire was reported as arson and two young boys who did not like school were reported to have started the flames. The Kingsville Academy was also reported to have been started by young boys. The only thing saved was the bell from the belfry. The new school was built of brick in 1889 and was used for many years. The accompanying picture was taken circa 1960s or ‘70s when the school was still in use.
You would not expect to find an academy in the township of Wayne, but I was able to find an old commencement paper of Nov. 7, 1849, showing a six-week session of a school of higher learning. Educators came from several schools and townships to provide the teaching. Principal Mr. T. Haskell came from Oberlin College. Miss S. C. Austin, a graduate of Willoughby Seminary was the Preceptress. The Willoughby Seminary, built in 1847, was the only female school of higher education at the time. It was the forerunner of Lake Erie College, still functioning today.
The Geneva Normal Business College was held in a very large three-story brick building with a large belfry holding the school bell. Have you ever wondered where all these massive bells have gone? Are they in someone’s barn, outbuilding or being used in a newer school? The only problem is, schools do not have bells today. It is all automated. Not many churches have them anymore either. Bells do not call kids to school and they certainly do not call folks to church but they might just wake them up and let them know there is a church nearby they would benefit from attending.
I was able to locate a circular from the Geneva Normal Business College of 1893-94. By that year, the school had been open for ten years. In 1892, the juniors of the school put on the normal Wednesday chapel service and program. My copy of the program shows that oratory pieces were recited, essays were read, piano and voice solos were given and even whistling solos, a dying art today and certainly not one found on your average school program!
Jefferson once had an Educational Institute built in 1841 for $1,000 and located on East Satin Street. A second-floor addition was built in 1848. The location was behind the former Trinity Episcopal church, now home of the Jefferson Historical Society.
In 1870, the first brick two-story high school, known as the Jefferson Educational Institute, was built on the east side of Market Street for $20,000. The large old two-story building on East Satin then became a boarding hall for students who came from a distance.
The Kingsville Academy began in 1836 when a new high school was built right next to the Kingsville Library. Two years later it was destroyed by fire, victim of arson. According to school reports and folks that were living at the time, the boys confessed to their parents, but they convinced the authorities to not press charges. The old story still goes around that many years later, one of the boys was in a California jail on a murder charge. Before he was hanged, he reportedly confessed to burning the Kingsville Academy and the story remains today.
Attendance at this school reached 300 and the education rated second only to Oberlin College. Rising costs and centralization of schools eventually led to the school being turned over to township trustees in 1872. Twelve years later it was torn down to build a new high school.
Whether you were attending school in the 1800s or in 2025, whether you have left home to attend college or remain at home and work and go to school, this little poem holds true 100 years later. I found it inside an Ashtabula County souvenir booklet of Maple Lawn School, District Number 2, Denmark Township, 1925-26.