[ .
l SCHOOLS
  EASURED by modern standards, the pioneers were .
  often unlettered, but they brought with them to
      Kentucky the old Saxon regard for the value of
    education. Wherever they felled the forests and
li-i’*‘;°`&*‘ erected their homesteads, a cabin was set apart
for a school, often within the stockades.
One of these, the first school in Kentucky, was within the fort
at Harrodsburg in 1775, before either a church or court of justice , 
had been opened. It was taught by a woman, Mrs. William
Coomes, whose only textbooks were paddle-shaped pine shingles
inscribed with the alphabet, and the Bible. Col. Robert Patterson
had scarcely completed the blockhouse at Lexington when a
teacher was engaged to conduct a school within the fort. At
McAfee’s Station, near Harrodsburg, John May opened a school .
in 1777. At Logan’s Station, at Boonesborough, and other settle- _
ments, pioneer educators taught while the war whoop of the ‘
Indian might still be heard.
, Log schoolhouses built by neighboring farmers sprang up in
1 widely scattered points throughout Kentucky. Teachers were
expected to instruct their pupils in "reading, writing, and cipher- /
ing to the Rule of Three." Sometimes they knew little more than
their pupils, those who were esteemed the highest being of the
"<>ld walloping kind," who could administer the birch rod with the
K greatest dexterity. They were paid in tobacco, buffalo steaks, or
i bear bacon. Schoolrooms were unsightly and cheerless, with
}· small windows, clapboard roofs and doors, puncheon floors and,
1 across one end, a great fireplace. It was the duty of the older
i boys to cut the logs for fuel and to carry water from the spring. '
l The earliest school in Union County of which there is record
5 was opened in Morganfield in 1812-13 and taught by Aquilla
Davis who was also postmaster (1814-20). The little log build-
ing stood in the northeastern part of the town "on the edge of
’ the old graveyard." Davis subsequently taught several terms in
this building.
l Following Davis, a man by the name of Boice taught school in
a log cabin in another part of the town.