Port Clinton's Early Schools - Linda Higgins

The first school to serve Port Clinton and Portage Township was the result of a neighborhood building project. The one-room school, on a 25’ x 50’ lot, was then donated to the township by Garrett Thomas, one of the carpenters, in 1838. A relative newcomer to the area, arriving in 1828, he lived nearby and spent Sunday afternoons at this particular structure sermonizing about St. Paul.

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This first building was designated as the high school, and the first schoolmaster was a gentleman named Joseph W. Sylvester. He arrived in the township around 1830, and taught in homes until the school was built. On Sundays the school served as a place of worship until 1840. Then the first courthouse was established and the worship services were held there for several years.

In about 1857, a second school building was deemed necessary and more land was purchased for that purpose. This building was designed with two rooms, called primary and secondary, but was called the primary school. The students had the extra educational thrill of being able to watch the first trains go by from their perches on the board fence south of the school. The building served as the primary school even after being moved to Third Street sometime after 1873. The names of some of the children who attended the primary school will seem familiar to Port Clinton natives: Magruder, Hollinshead, Knight, Swartz, Silverwood, Pine and Greene.

That building became a residence shortly after the children were moved to a new brick schoolhouse that had been dedicated in 1873. Then, between 1897 and 1903, the schoolhouse-turned-residence was torn down to make room for a new residence built by a Mr. Clausen. It was then evidently sold to P.N. Turner by 1904. Much later, in 1951, the first one-room schoolhouse was razed.

Meanwhile, in 1871, Robert Hollinshead and David McRitchie, school-board members, promoted the purchase of 4½ acres of land owned by H. Schumacher on which to build a replacement for the high school. The total cost for land and building was $16,800. Again, some of the names of those who attended the high school will be familiar: Duff, Hitchcock, Knight, Cowell, Pelow, Poskett, Greene, Hollinshead, Orth, Magruder, Heim, Cole, True, Curtis and Wonnell.

The superintendent, Mrs. Mary Motley, who had been principal of the high school, introduced the graded system. She also wanted to introduce an organ to the high school to support interest in music and the arts. However, the school board decided that music would interfere with school work and declined to accept this new project. Mrs. Motley then resigned to open a private school in her own home at the northeast corner of Jefferson and Fourth Streets.

The high school was expanded to include new classrooms and offices in about 1884. And in 1885, the new addition was the site of the first high school graduation. The first and only graduate of 1885 was Lillian Turner, whose motto was “Not finished, but begun.”

The remainder of the early schools’ expansions included an 1891 brick primary building, a 1908 brick grade school, a 1922 three-story brick building on the site of the original high-school building, and a 1937 special addition. Since those early times, many changes have occurred with our Port Clinton school buildings, but quite a bit was accomplished both with the early buildings themselves and within the walls of those buildings to form the foundation for today’s solid small-town school system.