The “Historic Marion County” brochure published by the Marion County Historical Commission states that the Shiloh school was established circa 1902 although notes from Maron County School Board meeting posted in The Ocala Banner lists Shiloh school as “Opened” with Mamie Younge as teacher in the September 21, 1894 edition. The Ocala Evening Star June 15th, 1897 issue reported, “Mr. Whittington appeared before the board in behalf of the Shiloh school. He said there was some opposition to the teacher elected, but asked the board that the same teacher be given them. The question was deferred to the July meeting.”  The School Board notes from the July meeting lists Sallie Yancey as the teacher for Shiloh.  Apparently, the school was unheated for the School Board on October 10th, 1898 allocated funds for a stove and pipe for the Shiloh school.

In June of 1899 Miss Carrie Sigmon from Lake Weir was in Ocala attending the examination for teachers for her certification to teach elementary school. Levels of examinations and certifications were required to teach different grade levels with new teachers often starting with certification for grades one through three.  Teachers in Marion County at the time had a high proportion of local young women as teachers as it was an acceptable profession for unmarried women, and likely a way for them to escape from the drudgery of farm life.   Born in 1881 in South Carolina, Carrie Jane Simon and her family were one of the many settlers that moved from South Carolina to Marion County Florida in the late 1800’s.

Surprisingly, for a farming community Marion County was very progressive towards education with a well-represented county school board and a widespread network of local elementary schools across the rural communities. Many such schools were a one or two room building and with single teacher that taught grades one through eight at the same time. I could imagine that the older students got tired of hearing the same lessons being taught to the younger students each year.  For grades nine through twelve students had to travel to the county seat in Ocala. With travel by horse and buggy, it took considerable time for students in the more remote communities to attend and thus it was common to stop schooling after the eighth grade.  Grandma Mixson (Rosalie Anderson) attend school at Shiloh and wrote in her memoirs, “We walked to school at Shiloh (3 miles) and I finished the 8th grade there. There wasn’t any teachers to teach beyond that.” (See “The Old Times” by Rosalie)

Becoming a teacher required one to complete high school though the twelfth grade and then have additional training at a Normal School before taking the examination to become certified. “Normal Schools,” as they were called, were specifically established throughout Florida to train elementary-level teachers for the public schools, focusing on teaching methods and curriculum standards.  Some Normal Schools were precursor to modern teacher's colleges and education schools like the Florida Normal College in White Springs was incorporated into the University of Florida in 1904. Miss Carrie Sigmon had completed her Normal School training and was in Ocala to take the teacher certification examination.

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