CHAPTER IX.
BRIGHTON TOWNSHIP (CONT'D).
Brighton township is divided into nine school districts. The pioneer teacher was Harriet L. Howard, who opened a school in a frame house on the west side of the northeast quarter of section 29, in what is now District No. 8. At first there were two scholars, all the children of the locality being engaged in "dropping" corn. This was before the days of labor-saving agricultural machinery. When the services of the children in the field could be dispensed with, the school filled up, and had as high as twenty scholars. The district secured a permanent building in the fall of 1873.
In 1870 school houses were built for Districts 1 and 7. The first teacher in the former was Ambrose Pellett, and in the latter T. V. Knisely. The first sub-director in No. 1 was Joseph K. Herbert, son of J. R. Herbert, the pioneer whose coming to Brighton township, forty years ago, has been noted. Mr. Pellett became the first sub-director of District No. 5, when it was organized; as the school house was situated in the exact center of the township it was called Center School. The first director of District No. 2 was H. W. Crow, and the school, which when built was the largest in the township outside of Marne, was called the Crow School. It cost $700, and is described as having "a coupola by way of ornamentation, and supplied with patent seats, maps, globes, etc." The building was located on the northwest corner of section 9.
District No. 9 obtained its first school house in 1873, its location being on the southeast corner of section 30. William M. Trailor was its first sub-director. In 1876 a school house was erected for No. 6, near the northwest corner of section 24, and George W. Couch was the first director of the district.
"Compendium and History of Cass County, Iowa." Chicago: Henry and Taylor & Co., 1906, pp. 131.
Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass, October, 2017.
