of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 350-351
SCHOOL NO. 1 IN OLDEN DAYS. (By Alice Walton Beatty.) Intense darkness had settled down upon the city, with that close, indescribable feeling, that seems to portend a coming evil. Heavy banks of black clouds lay around the horizon while the lightning played fitfully Upon them. We were little children then and our father was absent from the city. We retired but could not sleep. The clouds arose and the storm burst in all its fury. A short time after, an unusually heavy burst of thunder was heard in the north quarter of the city and an alarm of fire was given. It was soon discovered that a bolt of lightning had struck old No. 1 schoolhouse. There had been a broken lightning rod hanging over one corner of the roof for a long time previous and the building had been struck upon that corner. It was a queer old house, 4ox60 feet, two stories high, with eight, or perhaps only six, windows of many small panes upon the sides. The shape was of a rectangular block, with another smaller block which stood on end at the front for a cupola or bell tower. It was covered with a flat metal roof. It was severely plain in appearance, the only pretense at ornamentation being a row of small brick points around the top of the walls. We used to draw the picture of the schoolhouse upon our slates and I remember counting and recounting those brick points while the dear old building was burning. I wanted to fasten them in memory so that their number should never fade. But alas for human frailty! Today I can only guess that the number of brick points upon the top of each side wall was thirty-five, while on the top of the cupola it was probably nine or eleven on a side. Those points gave the building a sort of ancient fortress resemblance.
Many persons who were watching the storm that night claimed to have seen a bolt of lightning that divided into three balls of fire, one striking the schoolhouse, one the home of Anderson Chambers, I think, and the other the home of Jacob Schomberg on Seventh street between Walnut and Cedar streets.
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