The Turnbo Manuscripts
by Silas Claiborne Turnbo
1844-1925
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By S. C. Turnbo
"Away back in the early days of Southern Mo. a few men took an interest in giving their children a very limited education and would employ a man to teach a subscription school ever now and then. In refering to schools taught in Texas County, Mo. in those early days Mr. Sam Griffin had this to say about it.
The first school I vent to was on Elk Creek when I was quite young. The
school was taught in a log cabin that was floored with lumber sawed with
a whip saw and slabs of plank were used for seats. A man by the name of
John Worthington was the teacher. My three brothers, Tom, John and Jim and
my sister Nancy Jane went to the school. Also Bob Miller, Mary Lynich, John
Lynich and Sis Johnson attended it, the last named was a daughter of Mr.
Wesley Johnson, one of our nearest neighbors on Elk Creek was a man of the
name of Ingram. This man had a daughter named "Puss" his eldest
boy was named Bud his second boy was named Alexander and the next was a
girl 10 years old named Moriah. These children were our playmates before
the school was taught and they also attended this school. The teacher was
a member of the methodist church and was strict in the school room but entirely
too harsh in the punishment of the students when they violated any of his
rules some of us were severely punished for very little matters. Before
dismissing the school of evenings he would have all the students to kneel
down then he would kneel and devote himself in a long drawn out prayer.
He would pray and watch the scholars too, to to see if they were behaving
themselves. One evening while he was in the midst of a prayer that seemed
to be five miles in length he looked over the room and noticed one of the
girls that was not in a kneeling posture but was seated with her head bowed
down. He quit praying now and after telling the scholars to be seated he
went out of the house and cut a long stout hazle bush that had a number
of limbs on it and stripping off the foliage he come to the door of the
school room and called the little girl to him and whipped the child until
her dress that was manufactured by her mother on the spinning wheel and
band loom was in tatters and the flesh on her back and shoulders was cut
until the blood dripped from the wounds. It was the most terrible punishment
that I ever saw inflicted on a child and came near causing a big disturbance
in the neighborhood but the trouble was finally reconciled and the teacher
was allowed to continue the school according to contract. The girl that
Worthington punished so brutally was Moriah Ingram." Mr. Griffin gave
me this at his home one mile and a half south east of Oneta Indian territory
on the 12 of August 1906.
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