| Allamakee county School Records Index |
Town Schools * Country Schools * Other Schools This page was
updated 06/19/2009 - look for the New! or Updated! items. |
The Winnebago Mission School
Eastern Iowa's Indian School
Ninety years ago In the days when white settlers were swarming into the newly-opened Black Hawk Purchase the United States government was conducting an' experiment in vocational education in what is now Allamakee county, Iowa. Along with reading and writing and arithmetic the Indian boys received practical instruction in farming and the girls' in sewing. The story of the government's attempt to equip the Winnebagoes with the tools of civilization is told by Bruce E. Mahan in a recent number of The Palimpsest published by the State Historical society of Iowa. The school, a substantial, two-story structure of stone, was located on Yellow river, about six miles up stream from the Mississippi, and approximately ten miles from Fort Crawford. Rev. David Lowey, a Presbyterian minister who had been appointed teacher for the Winnebagoes by President Andrew Jackson, opened the school in the spring of 1835 with his wife as his assistant. At first few pupils came, but later the attendance grew slowly but steadily, necessitating an increase In the teaching staff. A granddaughter of Rev. Lowry writes: “Zachary Taylor, then commandant at Fort Crawford at Prairie du Chien, and his wife and daughter used to come over and have dinner at the mission and once Mrs. Taylor brought my grandmother a setting of turkey eggs.” "My grandmother was quite successful in handling the little savages and when they got unruly with the other teachers they were sent to her. They all loved her and sometimes her room would be so crowded with Indian children sitting on the floor and everywhere there was scarcely room to walk." The removal of the "Winnebagoes from western Wisconsin and eastern Iowa to their new home in the Neutral Ground resulted in the abandonment of the school on Yellow river in 1840. It was reopened near the present site of Fort Atkinson, la., and there the government continued to instruct the Indian boys and girls until the Winnebagoes were removed from Iowa to Minnesota in 1848.
~Davenport Democrat and Leader, January 5, 1925
~Contributed by Cindy Bray Lovell
The First Allamakee co. Schools
The first school in the county, other than the one started by the U. S. government at the Old Mission, was opened in Postville. It was in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Joel Post, in the summer of 1848. But the first school house was built at Hardin in 1849. Early in the fifties Reuben Smith, builder of the Old Stone House in 1857, opened a school house on his farm, to which he admitted children of the neighborhood and for whom he hired a teacher.
~Undated newspaper clipping
~Contributed by Mary Durr
| Other Schools |
|
If you have Allamakee school records or photos
to contribute, please email your information to the Allamakee co. coordinator
Home