First Schoolhouse

We are in western Colorado tonight and have seen some interesting places today while geocaching. I will post some of them in the future, but for now, I am going back to South Dakota and the First Schoolhouse.

This cache was not far from St. John the Baptist church in Bon Homme County. Hubby had read about this cache in the South Dakota Magazine and put it on our must see list. I am glad he did. It was an interesting piece of South Dakota history we added to our collection of trivia and useless information.

This monument and replica log school house are on a non-descript corner in the county. There is a brown sign along Highway 52 indicating the historical landmark. But quite honestly, if it weren't for geocaching we would not have bothered to drive the two or three miles off the highway on a gravel road to check it out.

Under the leadership of John H. Shober, in the spring of 1860, the first schoolhouse was erected of  logs, with a dirt roof. The ground served as the floor. School started in May and continued for two more months. The Indian Wars of 1862 closed all schools. The First School in Dakota gives more interesting info about the school and its early documented history.

Standing next to the outside wall of the log building, my shoulders reached the top log. Hubby had to really stoop to enter the building.

Dakota Territory consisted of what is today

NorthDakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho 

and Wyoming

The first school was built of cottonwood logs cut down and built into a school house in the northwest section of the village* in the spring of 1860. Miss Emma Bradford, the 16 year old daughter of D. P. Bradford, became the first school teacher in Dakota Territory and taught 10 pupils for three months in the spring of 1860 at Bon Homme. The pupils consisted of John and Anna Bradford, Melissa, John and Ira Brown; Ann, Mary and George McDaniels, and George and Delia Rounds.

In the fall Miss Bradford returned to Iowa to continue her schooling. There was no teacher, therefore there were no school sessions until 1864 when a new group of settlers arrived in Bon Homme.

*village: more about the village later

"In the early-settled southeastern region of South Dakota the first school in the Territory, the Territorial School, was established. It was located at Bon Homme and operated for three months in 1860. Settlement in Bon Homme was facilitated by the establishment of the Dakota Southern Railroad in 1873, originating in Sioux City and stretching to Yankton, then the Territorial Capitol." - Schools in South Dakota: An Educational Development prepared for the SD State Historic Preservation Office, 1998.

Bon Homme, the village, not to be confused with Bon Homme the county. Here is a brief and interesting history of the village of Bon Homme:

"In the spring of 1858 a party of 14 young men (including one Negro), one woman and one child from Mantorville, Dodge County, Minnesota was headed to Pike's Peak. The group was led by John H. Shober, a lawyer. Other members of this group included John Remme, Edward and Daniel Gifford, Fred Carmon, John Mantle, John Tallmann, Thomas J. Tate, W. W. Warford, George Falkingberg, Lewis Jones, the African American, Reuben Wallace, Herman Stager, Aaron Hammond along with his wife and child. The group crossed the Missouri at Sioux City and headed west on the Nebraska side. When the group saw the most inviting land on the north side of the river in the vicinity of Bon Homme Island they cut down a large cottonwood tree, hollowed it out, named the canoe "Gentle Annie" and crossed the river to the Dakota side.

After landing and exploring the land area they decided to stay and establish a town. They built a town site cabin and then another building for their quarters. In June or July of that year, Alexander Redfield, U.S. Agent for the Yankton Sioux, and a posse descended on the group and chased them off of the property and back across the river to Nebraska. The posse burned the buildings and hauled the non-burnable material to the river and tossed it into the river. As the terms of the1858 treaty stated, the Sioux Indians had one year to relocate and this time frame hand not yet been reached.

In the spring of 1859, after the one year term of the treaty had been satisfied, the same group returned to Bon Homme along with Mr. Shober. Zephyr Rencontre sold the town site of Bon Homme to this group. D. P. Bradford built a cabin on the summit of the bank on the right side of the ravine running through town and John Shober built a cabin on the left side of the ravine. John H. Shober, Reuben Wallace, and Moses Herrick surveyed the town site in 1860. Herrick built a hotel and house which was the first structure erected on the town site after it had been surveyed. He also opened the first post office in the county on October 3, 1861.

The second group of pioneers arrived on November 12, 1859, in 13 wagons and many loose livestock. Included in this group was C. G. Irish and family; John Butterfield; Jonathan Brown and family; Frances Rounds and her two children (Cordelia and Georg T.); Joseph and Charles Trager; Ruel Gifford and family of three sons and two daughters; and D. P. Bradford and son Henry. Then the third group consisting of Nathan McDaniels and family; C. E. Rowley; and Laban H. Litchfield arrived at Bon Homme on December 26, 1859.

The first school was built of cottonwood logs cut down and built into a school house in the northwest section of the village in the spring of 1860. Miss Emma Bradford, the 16 year old daughter of D. P. Bradford, became the first school teacher in Dakota Territory and taught 10 pupils for three months in the spring of 1860 at Bon Homme. The pupils consisted of John and Anna Bradford, Melissa, John and Ira Brown; Ann, Mary and George McDaniels, and George and Delia Rounds.

Bon Homme was the county seat from 1862 to 1885. When the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad came into Bon Homme County in 1879 and Bon Homme was not included on its route, this was the start of the decline of the bustling Bon Homme County town of Bon Homme. The final nail in the coffin which caused the demise of the town was in 1885 when the county seat was moved to Tyndall. Many people left and the town became deserted and all that was left was the school house and the silent city of the Bon Homme Cemetery on the hill overlooking the Missouri River.

Bon Homme Cemetery

A headstone from an early area settler

The first recorded burial in the Bon Homme cemetery was a four year old child, Sophia M. Brown, the daughter of J. S. Brown who died on October 27, 1859. The cemetery had not been plotted yet and it was in 1862 that the land was donated by Benton Fraley for cemetery purposes. Other burials had taken place years before because in the process of digging graves other graves with no markings have been discovered.

In 1862 during the Indian threat, all families were ordered to move to the stockade which was built at Yankton. A small garrison of soldiers stayed in Bon Homme to protect it. During that time, fights occurred between the soldiers and an Irish boy, J. Delaney was killed in a duel by a soldier named W. W. Warford, who had been drinking. W. W. Warford was the son of Mrs. Rounds by her first husband. J. Delaney had then been regarded as the first official burial in the cemetery. His death was the reason for the story that Bon Homme was such a healthy place that they had to kill a man to start a cemetery.

In the spring of 1873, George Custer's 7th Cavalry was camped on the west side of Snatch Creek. Seven of his soldiers died of typhoid fever that spring and were buried on the banks of the creek. In 1893 by order of the Cemetery Association the remains of the soldiers were moved to the Bon Homme Cemetery. In 1922 a large homemade cement block tombstone was built by William Thomas Harrison to mark the burials. Six of the soldiers were unknown and the seventh one was named A. Hirsch." -from the history of Bon Homme County

 I found several headstones of soldiers from the Civil War. 

Their grave sites were marked with this star indicating a Civil War veteran.