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On March 14, 1860, at 9 a.m., several students from the
First Grammar School of Sandusky City Schools had a program in connection with
the students’ Annual Examinations. In 1860 the First Grammar School was located
in Sandusky’s Public Square. Mr. John G. Chandler was the principal. Miss Eliza Moore was Mr. Chandler’s assistant
and she taught elementary school classes as well. Essays and declamations were presented
by students from geography, arithmetic and grammar classes. Musical selections were
presented throughout the exercises. At 1:30 in the afternoon another set of students
participated in the Order of Exercises for Annual Examinations.
Many of the students who attended the First Grammar School
in downtown Sandusky were the children of individuals who played key roles in
the city’s history. Ezra Gregg’s father, Philander Gregg, served as Sandusky’s
Mayor from 1869 to 1870. Master Ebenezer Lane and Master William Cheesebrough
were both the grandsons of Judge Ebenezer Lane. John G. Chandler married Miss Emeline Barber in 1864. By
1870 the Chandlers were living in St. Louis, Missouri, where John G. Chandler
was an attorney. Eliza Moore and her sister Sarah Moore were teachers with the
Sandusky City Schools for over fifty years. In 1891 Sandusky children collected
pennies to help pay for a monument to be erected at Oakland Cemetery in honor
of their teachers, the Moore sisters.
I recently read in History of Erie County that a 2nd great grand uncle, Gottfried Doerflinger, was the first German teacher in the public schools of Sandusky and that he taught for 30 years. Could you provide any additional information about him, what schools were like then (1850s to 1880s) or his contribution?
ReplyDeleteJohann Gotfried Doerflinger died at age 87 on August 24, 1909. His obituary said he began work as a minister after graduating from Heidelberg College, but turned to teaching, spending at least 22 years in the Sandusky schools.
ReplyDeleteTo learn a little more about schools of the time, you might want to look at a chapter in A Standard History of Erie County, available in Google Books: http://books.google.com/books/reader?id=Wf8vAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA248