Woodville community

BOGGESS, HERSBERGEN, ROSENBERGER, WOODS

Posted By: JCGS Volunteer
Date: 2/12/2018 at 14:14:10

Woodville – A busy community – never a village
(Part of the Jasper County Sesquicentennial 1896-1996 series)
(The following article was written by Gladys Woods, who is now deceased. It was submitted in her memory by her neighbor, Marilyn Schmidt.)
Woodville School
Woodville School, Washington Township District #4, Jasper County, derived its name from John Alexander Woods and his wife, Anzey Boggess Woods. They bought a half-section of land lying just to the north and to the west of the school site in 1855. In 1976 this farm was designated as one of Iowa’s Century Farms.
The original Woods home was a short distance west of where the school was to be established. When the Des Moines Valley Railroad was under construction the extreme southwestern portion of the Wood’s farm was cut off by the right-of-way and was no longer quite so desirable as a home location. Later a large brick house of southern style was built north of the Woodville School.
John Woods sold about four acres of his land to the railroad company. This was along the right-of-way and permitted the establishment of a station there. Wood’s Inn was located about 330 yards from the stage road. Often the coach had to be flagged down, and members of the Woods family would help transport passengers to Des Moines. Woodville was the station at the end of the line for quite some time. Although long since vanished, the location of the scales and depression in the land for the turntable (which enabled the cars to return to Keokuk) can still be pointed out. It was on September 4, 1866, that the first train arrived at the depot in Des Moines. It was an occasion of great celebration and several members of the Woods family made the first memorable ride to Des Moines. An 1868 timetable for the Des Moines Valley railroad indicates a stop at Woodville with the next stop being Des Moines. Later there was a station established at Nobleton just south of Mitchellville and William Hersbergen was a telegrapher there.
At one time the Woodville area was quite a community and there was some talk of a town being established there. The school was open to various community activities such as school programs, picnics, debates and spelling bees.
On Sundays religious services were held at the school with the Rev. H. C. Rosenberger serving as minister. Antoinette Hersbergen, who was organist for the Sunday school, later married Terry Woods in a home wedding in 1891 at which Rev. Rosenberger officiated.
Rural teachers often came from the Mitchellville and Colfax communities. The Colfax School had a course in normal training offered in the high school. The inter-urban line running between Des Moines and Colfax, with a stop at McDonald’s Crossing two miles north of Woodville School, often provided excellent transportation.
Three generations of Woods and two of the Hersbergens attended Woodville School and some of the family members were teachers there. Three different buildings were constructed during the time school was in existence, the last one being a standardized one with furnace and indoor toilets. As each one was built the bolder one was moved to become an addition to a dwelling or to be used as a storage facility. Playground equipment for the pupils was almost nonexistent. There were trees to climb, hedge apples to throw and the usual games such as marbles, mumblety-peg and blackman. In the winter students enjoyed sledding and skating. Most all the students carried their lunches in syrup buckets; some who lived close by went home for lunch during noon lunch hour. The school bell, which could be heard easily from the Wood’s home, rang for the last time in the spring of 1953, and a way of life in the rural community vanished forever.
Source: The Jasper County Tribune, Colfax, IA; Thursday, October 26, 1995, page 9