This report card from the arithmetic class of Miss L. A.
Barney for the term that met December 4,
1848 to March 17, 1849 was given to the Sandusky Library Archives Research
Center by the Dean family. Miss Barney was a teacher in the Grammar School department of
Sandusky City Schools.
Names of the boys
in the class were: Samuel Belford, John Dean, Benjamin Gregg, Robert Matthews, John
Monroe, Christopher Mores, Max Rhobacher, James Van Fleet, and Joshua Watson.
The young ladies in the class were: Mary Clarkson, Eliza Fisher, Margaret
Garvey, Sarah Jane Jenks, Sarah Stephens, Sarah Willston, and Sarah Withington. Beside
each student’s name were “exceptions to morals” in several catagories, and the number learned for preliminary defitions,
addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. At the bottom of the report
card were the signatures of Miss L.A. Barney, teacher, and M.F. Cowdery,
superintendent of schools.
M.F. Cowdery was the first superintendent of schools
in Sandusky, serving in that capacity until 1871. He wrote a
history of Sandusky City Schools, entitled Local
School history of the City of Sandusky, from 1838 to1871 Inclusive,
published by the Journal Steam Printing House in February 1876. A copy of this
brief history is found in the Schools Collection of the Sandusky Library
Archives Research Center. In the early history of Sandusky Schools, Mr. Cowdery
recalled that before school buildings were built, classrooms were rented in the
Methodist Chapel, Presbyterian Church, Grace Church, and a brick building in
the Western Liberties.
In February of 1844, a committee consisting of Moors
Farwell, Alexander Porter, and Zenas Barker, voted in favor of purchasing lots
near the East and West Markets, and one in the Western Liberties as the sites
of school buildings. A high school building was to be erected on the public
square. The Academy building, pictured below, was originally built on the east
public square as the high school, but was also used as an early Courthouse for
Erie County prior to the construction of the new high school in 1869 and the
Courthouse in 1874.