Shiloh School
1903

In June of 1903 the Star reported that Miss Carrie Sigmon spent the spring term at Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee where she passed the teaching examination.  Upon returning, Miss Sigmon taught at the Rufford School in live Oak for the summer term and then was appointed to teach at Hurricane Pond in the coming fall.  The Shiloh students would miss one of their favorite teachers with Miss Lulu Priest being assigned to Shiloh. Miss Viola Mixson was assigned to teach at Heidtville.  Come December of 1903 Miss Ema Pardee was assigned to teach at Shiloh, it wasn’t stated what happened to Miss Priest. For the 1903-1904 school year Miss Carrie Sigmon taught at the Charter Oak school in Levon which the school president described as, “a good and capable teacher.”  In October Carrie made a presentation to the W. D. Carn Literary Society meeting about the World’s Fair in St. Louis which she had traveled the past summer to see. It was noted that “Notes on the World’s Fair by Miss Sigmon rendered the meeting more interesting.”  For the 1904-1905 school year Miss Sigmon taught at Levon school and at the end of the school term they spoke highly of her, “Miss Sigmon is one of the most successful teachers of the county and wherever she teaches her services are called for again, as she was re-elected for another term by the patrons at the close of the present term.”  For the summer of 1905 Carrie Sigmon became a teacher of teachers, traveling to  Wellborn, Alabama where taught at the Normal School there.  She was so successful there that they changed the name of the school.

In June of 1906  in a special meeting of the school board about the budget for the upcoming 1907-1907 school year, teacher salaries for eighteen schools, including Shiloh, were decreased by $5 a month. Salaries for twenty schools increased by $5 to $35 a month.  Salaries ranged from $35 to $50 a month per teacher. The school year was fixed at five months although it could be extended to six months if the local school districts would pay half the salary for the additional month.

On July  4, 1906 Miss Carrie Sigmon and William Thomas Phillips were married in Lake Weir. Mr. and Mrs. William Phillips would reside in their home at 1712 Florida Avenue, Tampa, Florida. In June of 1907, Mrs. William Phillips, nee Miss Carrie Sigmon, now of Tampa, had a little boy which they named William Sigmon Phillips. Carrie Sigmon would never teach school again although she would not be the last Sigmon to teach at Shiloh.

At the Board of Public Instruction meeting in August of 1905 the Shiloh was granted money for a rear door for the schoolhouse. This was greatly appreciated by the students as it gave faster access to the outhouses behind the school. Before the rear door the students had to go out the front door and walk all the way around the schoolhouse to use the outhouses although the boys would often use the nearby tree.  The question of schoolbooks for the next five years was discussed and, although the current books were said to have some faults, “other books had equally as serious faults on other points,” and the board recommended the current books in use be re-adopted. Of course the cost of all new books for the county was also a factor. They did recommend the Barnes’ Primary History, Hunt’s Primary Speller, Clark & Dennis’ Chemistry and Hoadley’ Physics be adopted and was approved.  The following teacher appointments were made for the 1905-1906 school year: Miss Viola Mixson at Ebenezer, Miss Annie Mixson at Dunnellon, Miss Ellas Sharmon at Shiloh.

Where to send one’s children to school has always been controversial, right side of town vs wrong side, better school vs poorer school, and with segregation in full force, white vs. colored but sometimes the reasons were just…

In August of 1907 the school supervisor of Shiloh school circulated a petition to ask the Education Board to provide a wagon to convey one or two families’ children from Shiloh to the Micanopy school. This was a controversial subject for loosing a few students could affect the teacher’s salary and even keeping the school open.  I am surprised that the Micanopy school would even allow it as Micanopy was in Alachua County.  The correspondent made the point, “to think of having a child walk two miles to wait for a wagon to take he or she to school, when it is only half the distance to the [Shiloh] schoolhouse.”  When asked why “wagoning” students to Micanopy, one of the “stylish patrons” said the teacher was from a poor family and too big a cracker to which the supervisor replied, “George Washington was poor, and as to crackers, I like sweet crackers.”  The stylish patron then replied that the real reason was that the teacher at Shiloh didn’t teach music and they wanted their girl to have music lessons, but it was pointed out that school law did not require music to be taught.  It was said that if the school board granted them a wagon, the Shiloh school could be closed and the “whole neighborhood being thrown out of a school on account of two or three silly families.” And then concluded “Leave the wagon at home and have the school by so doing and give all [the children] a chance of going to school.”

The following week in response, a letter to the editor by W. R. Dreher was published stating that the idea to get the school board to furnish a wagon to carry their children and leave the others out was never thought of “unless it entered the empty cranium of the one who wrote the communication.” Dreher said the reason for sending the students to Micanopy was because the Shiloh school was run down for lack of children to maintain the required average number of students and being such a small school, the board had always assigned third rate and inexperienced teachers. Dreher suggested that instead of paying for a third-rate teacher, the money would be better spent on a wagon to carry the children to a first-rate school in Micanopy. Dreher made the point that those that signed the petition are taxpayers in Alachua County.  Dreher concluded,

There has been many crimes committed in the name of George Washington, but we fear that if the immortal George had cast his anchor sheet to such an educational institution as Shiloh school he never would have had his name embellished the Hall of Fame.”

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