West Liberty History 1838-1938

Source: One Hundred Years of History
* Commemorating a Century of Progress in the West Liberty Community * WEST LIBERTY, IOWA
LOG CABIN HISTORY

Chapter XXIX

THE PLUM GROVE SCHOOL

In the winter of 1856-7, there was a term of school held in the Plum Grove school house, in the southwest quarter of section 10-78-4, that is worthy of a passing notice as showing the earnestness of the boys and girls of that period in obtaining an education and the exertions they had to make to secure it. There were among those whose names were enrolled there that winter as pupils: Ed Swem, who lived on the southwest quarter of section 23-78-4, now known as the S. B. Osborn farm; Hannah, Norman and John Graham, who came from the northeast quarter of section 38-78-4, near the present home of E. E. Wolf; Clay and C. M. Nichols, from the southwest quarter of section 21-78-4, the Ira Nichols homestead, and Henry Mosher from the northeast quarter of section 3-78-4, the Stephen Mosher farm on the north line of the county. It was not less than six miles between these extreme points from which these boys and girls daily walked back and forth through the winter's snows and blizzards and the springtime mud and slush in their eager desire for knowledge as imparted by U. E. Traier, the pedagogue of the school.

But while they were thus strenuous in their efforts to obtain knowledge, they sometimes relaxed a little and indulged in diversions somewhat foreign to the matter directly in hand. One of these pupils tells of a wild race indulged in one night by some of the young bloods, after a spelling school there. They occupied two sleighs, or what passed as such, and were rather fine specimens of vehicles for those days, but might now be considered peculiar in their construction. The runners were of planks and the bodies of dry goods boxes properly cut down with small saplings for shafts. The harness of the horses were the ordinary plow harness adjusted to the rigs, and for bells they had raided the cow yards. In one of these vehicles were C. I. Luse and W. A. Nichols and in the other Ed. Swem and Henry Mosher. As they left the house after spelling school, one of the drivers attempted to pass the other, and there the fun began. Away they went, bumping over gopher hills and across ditches, the drivers urged on their steeds with gad and voice, and the passengers adding their shouts, while the bells, contributed their clangor to the pandemonium, as they raced down the long slope to Deer Creek and up the hill on the other side, and out on the open prairie where their ways parted, and the exciting race came to an end with no decisive advantages to either party.

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