Early Hernando County schools were privately run by individual families or churches. Schools in Spring Hill and Istachatta were established quite early on and functioned as a refuge that could be used during indian attack. An early school in Brooksville housed in the Union Baptist Church thrived before the Civil War. These early schools were quite numerous, but much of their history has been lost.
The school in the original Spring Hill (corner of Fort Dade and Citrus Way) was established by the Lykes family, a prominent cattle and shipping family. The school was built in the 1850’s to educate the seven Lykes brothers and neighboring children as far away as Hope Hill. According to Richard Stanaback, A History of Hernando County, children whose homes were further away were provided with housing closer to the school due to the threat of indian attack. Theodore S. Coogler of South Carolina was employed by the Lykes as the teacher for two terms. He returned there to study law. Coogler eventually came back to Hernando County and was appointed superintendent of schools. He was the first to successfully establish a school board. This however did not occur until after the Civil War, July 5, 1871. Public support of education, although established in Florida in 1849, did not really take hold until the 1870’s.
In the 1850’s, a school was established in Bayport. It was reportedly a prominent school that attracted families to move to the area.
On December 10th, 1859 an article in the Florida Peninsular reported that Brooksville had a school with nearly 100 students. The school was temporarily housed in a church and a new school was in the process of being built. That church was the Union Baptist Church, whose name was changed to First Baptist Church in 1889. One acre of land was donated by the Hale family to establish the church. According to Roger Landers, in an article in the St. Petersburg Times, the church was located where the Sun Trust Bank employee parking lot is now located on West Jefferson. He also states that the school’s new location was adjacent to the church and relocated there in 1858. It was a two room school house. The principal at the time was William E. McCaslan who left in 1860 after he passed the Florida Bar Exam.
Like many schools of the period, the Civil War caused the school to shut down since most young men joined the Confederate Army. The trustees eventually sold the land and the building. It sounds as though the school in Bayport remained open for a time during the Civil War since articles state that in 1863, Eliza Jenkins taught school in Bayport to support her family. Her husband C.T. Jenkins was captured by the North and imprisoned in Boston.
The community of Spring Lake had an early school which was first housed in the Methodist Church just northwest of the cemetery that overlooked the lake. In 1889, Frank Saxon donated an acre of land on which a 3 room school house was built.
Thanks to Melba Peters Ward’s Istachatta’s History of the First Hundred Years, there is much information available on schools in this community. In Istachatta, 10 miles northeast of Brooksville, New Hope United Methodist Church was established in the 1830’s. It was a log cabin with no windows and a dirt floor that served the community as a school and refuge from indian attack. The original log cabin burned down and was rebuilt around 1881. In a 1900 census, two teachers who taught at the New Hope School included Emeline Townsend and Fannie Puckett. Four other teachers made the census in 1900 who lived in the Istachatta area: Ida Bagwell, Lorena and Susie Alman, lastly Fannie’s sister Louise Puckett.
There are no records of the original building. Records begin around 1887. The location of the school can be described as the corner of 439 and Lazy Oaks Drive. In 1877, there were 32 schools in Hernando County, New Hope School being number 3. The Superintendent of Schools was responsible for organizing schools based on the petition of patrons that could produce at least 10 students. Teachers were paid $1.00 per month per capita for the students that attended. Emeline Townsend was paid $37.65 for 65 days of teaching.
In 1887, Hernando County boundaries changed and the New Hope School became part of Citrus County. Although it was now in Citrus, students from Hernando County still attended. The school was open until 1943.
Another school formed in Istachatta around 1892 when the building of a new school room 18’ x 28’ was approved to be built for $65. In 1949, this school was consolidated with the Lake Lindsey School. Ward states that the building was sold and moved to behind the Istachatta Baptist Church. However, the structure is no longer there.
William Cox, a resident of Istachatta around 1937 recalls the Istachatta school, “The school was typical of rural Florda at that time. One room with eight grades, presided over by one teacher. At the beginning of my school experience it was Louise Pluckett but after my first year, her sister Fannie took over.”
He described a particular game they would play during recess and lunch which involved throwing the ball over the school house. “If one of the receiving team caught the ball, everyone ran to the other side of the building. If the one with the ball tagged one of the opposing team, the victim became a member of the tagging group.” He also recollected that the teacher used a blackboard competition for teaching arithmetic. “The teacher would send two students up to the blackboard and give them a problem to solve. The student that solved the problem first stayed at the board, the loser sat down and another challenger stepped up. This continued until all of the class had a turn. The one that stayed up the longest was the champion of the day.”
In closing Mr. Cox writes, “We left Istachatta at the close of my fifth grade term, but I feel deep within my heart that the foundation established there in that little one room school carried me on through all of my educational years…”
Check back for additional coverage of the early schools in Hernando County.