History of Bigham’s Knoll - Jacksonville’s “School House Hill”
1895 - 1904 history listed below or read entire history in PDF format.
Jacksonville School District No. 1, organized July 19, 1854.
Assembled and typed by Larry Smith
(541) 899-7402
December 2005
(“Bigham’s” and “Bighams”, along with “Pool” and “Poole” are used interchangeably within the historic record.)
The Old School site includes six tax lots, currently tax-exempt, with a Real Market Value according to the Assessor of $1.2million.
The source for most of the pre-1950 material comes from the archives of the Southern Oregon Historical Society. The post-1950 information about the Old School is from files maintained by Larry Smith. Personal interviews and Dr. Francis Haines’ book, JACKSONVILLE – BIOGRAPHY OF A GOLD CAMP (1967) were also valuable sources for Bighams Knoll history.
George Kramer, historic consultant, supplied additional information and dates from his extensive database.
Note: Several of the burning dates for the Bighams Knoll schoolhouses conflict with other sources. I have tried to be as accurate as possible, but several conflicted dates remain.
It was January of 1852 when two young mule packers, James Poole and James Cluggage, hauling supplies from the Willamette Valley to the gold fields of California decided to camp for the night on the banks of Daisy Creek. They pitched their tents on that momentous night within the present-day corporate limits of Jacksonville. The following morning, so spins one story, as they broke camp with the intent of heading south the two men discovered one of the largest gold strikes in the history of Oregon. Since they had plenty of supplies with them, they spend the next several days skimming off the best of the placer gold.
Within several months nearly 1,000 mostly single men had moved into the area and founded the tent city of Table Rock City, which eventually was renamed Jacksonville.
By the summer of 1852, Cluggage and Poole, wanting to add to their several mining claims, and looking forward to a more permanent future, the two men filed on several donation land claims. Two of their land claims were located side by side in Township No. 37 S, Range 2 West and eventually became the commercial heart of Jacksonville.
Cluggage’s donation land claim totaled 160 acres.
Pool’s donation land claim totaled 306 acres.
It was a parcel carved from Cluggage and Pool’s DC lands that was sold to John Bigham in 1859 and then in turn sold or given to Jacksonville School District No. 1 in 1867.
Thus the name: Bigham’s Knoll.
“John Bigham – Early Jacksonville settler who gave land on which the first public school was built. One of his daughters, Elizabeth A., married Henry Klippel.” (accession records 68-140-2. SOHS has picture albums, Ambrose tintypes, daguerreotypes, and photographs from the Bigham family. Accession records 70-84
John Bigham, along with his family and several friends, totaling a party of 10, crossed the Great Plains by ox team. At Salt Lake, Utah, John and his wife decided to come to Oregon. With two ox teams they crossed the Cascade Mountains April 14, 1853. On the Snake River they were saved from massacre by the Indians by John winning the good favor of the chief. In crossing the plains they had many exciting experiences. The family wintered in the Foster settlement on the Clackamas River, and in 1854 the Bigham family moved to Jacksonville. (Information taken from son William Bigham’s obituary, Southern Oregon Pioneer Assn records vol. 3. SOHS. Written Oct. 16, 1924)
John Bigham died, age 67, at the Jacksonville home of his son-in-law, Henry Klippel.
1860 Jacksonville Census
John Bigham, 43 – Farmer – b. Kentucky
Alley A., 41 – b. N. Carolina
William H., 15 – b. Missouri
Nancy R, 10 – b. Missouri
Alley A, 7 – b. Missouri
Cordelia, 4 – b. Oregon
Mary F., 1 – b. Oregon
Jackson County Land records (book 1, page 202) show a land sale mortgage between John Bigham and Arthur Langell to James R. Pool. The mortgage of $15,900 was first recorded on December 14, 1859 and then fully recorded on December 22, 1859.
“The following des. tract being a part of the J.R. Pool Donation Land Claim and also a part of the James Cluggage Donation Land Claim.”
17 December 1859
James Poole deeds land on N.E. Corner of Donation Land Clam 37 to the following people:
John Bigham
N. Langell
J. McLaughlin
Henry Klippel
J.N.T. Miller
Love and Bilger
Donation Land Claim 37 is roughly bounded by 5th and “C” streets and Hueners Lane, that surrounds the Old Jacksonville School site that John Bigham either sold or gave to School District No. 1.
But then comes the lawsuit of James R. Pool, Plaintiff, vs. John Bigham and Arthur Langell, et.al. Defendants. June 20, 1864, a judgment is found in favor of James Pool and the defendants’ property is ordered by the judge to be sold.
The property is sold by W.A. Owen, Sheriff of Jackson Co, Oregon for the sum of $12,000 to James R. Pool the Plaintiff. The $12,000 was applied in payment of the above judgment to James R. Pool. “The judgment is not fully paid, but I find that no contributions have been issued on the judgment to keep it alive.” (Meaning of this statement is unclear.) Sale settled: Nov. 15, 1866.
It would be interesting to follow this judgment up and see if any of the Bigham’s Knoll property was involved in this judgment. John Bigham must have still had a significant amount of land in 1867 to be able to sell or give the Knoll to the School District.
The first public school district in Jackson County was organized in Jacksonville, August 11, 1854. School District Number One.
Many interruptions to the already short school year occurred during the nearly first two decades of the school’s existance because of Indian Wars, sickness, economic down turns and the lack of money and pupil interest.
The School District Trustees in 1866, encouraged by the success of St. Mary’s Parochial School, and faced with an influx of student overflowing the town’s original N. Oregon Street schoolhouse, resolved to build a new school on Bigham’s Knoll. They set aside $1600 to be paid to David Linn, the builder, who industriously had at it, and by 1868, only fourteen years after the initial steps were taken back in 1854, Jacksonville finally had its own brand new public school building. The Table Rock Sentinel April 1983 – page 16. SOHS
$600 was raised for a two-story frame building. An additional $500 was eventually needed to finish the building the following year. The bell for the new schoolhouse was paid for by a ball and minstrel show brought to town by Banker CC Beekman. The old school house on N. Oregon was given away to Sexton Sergeant Robert Dunlap in payment of a school district debt of $137. (summarized from notes found in the SOHS archive)
Saturday, September 29, 1866 – from the Oregon Sentinel – School Property – The Jacksonville School District has purchased the Bigham Knoll, at a cost of three thousand dollars, and we understand the house will be fitted for schoolrooms immediately. (Apparently there was a building already located at the top of the hill that was turned into a school house. Perhaps it was the Bigham house. This would explain the higher purchase price than what would have been paid for just open land. The building burned down four years later in 1870.)
School District No 1 – Jacksonville Phoenix Ins. Co. (1868 – 69) (1869 – 1870) (1870 – 1871) Renewal of policy No 6004 as follows: $1800 on two story frame School House, ceiled (sic) with wood and $200 on the School House furniture therein, situated on Bighams Knoll in the town of Jacksonville, Jackson Co. Ore., and occupied as a district School House. Ins. $2,000. (From a typed note found in the files in the SOHS. A handwritten note says: Jacksonville School – 1865. “Which later burned – Located on the Bigham Don. Land Claim”.) (Probably John B) Father Williams.
From typed notes found in the archives of the SOHS – Written sometime between 1903 – 1906) A single room cabin on the Old Stage Road known as the McBee place served as a schoolhouse until 1867 when increasing population made a larger building a necessity. The present schoolhouse hill, a wooded knoll east of town, was purchased, and it was voted to raise $600 for a 2-story frame building. An additional $550 was needed to finish it the following year. Unfortunately it burned down, and a larger 4-room building took its place. This too went up in flames in 1901, and the present 2-story brick structure, still in use, was erected.
The first school on Bigham’s Knoll was built in 1867. A two-room building. On the hill where the present school stands. The school burned in 1870. It was insured for the first time in 1868 for $2,000.Additon added 1878. Burned Jan. 25, 1903. (From handwritten notes found at the SOHS. No source given. No mention of the supposed 1870 fire.)
January 30th, 1868 – from the financial ledger for Jackson County – “The old District school house was sold to R. S. Dunlap for $137, which was the amount the District owed him for improvements – digging well, making fences, walks, etc – about the new school house.”
According to stories from the John Bigham family, Bigham’s Knoll was donated to School District #1. But the County’s 1868 financial ledger shows a $3,000 warrant issued to Pool and Klippel for the purchase of “school property”. This may have been for several additional lots surrounding Bigham’s Knoll. An additional $300 was spent on legal services, surveying, and lumber for a fence.
Between July 13th, 1866 and January 30, 1868 the District spent $2829. 40 building and furnishing the new building. “fence posts, cord wood, stove and pipe, seats, lumber, insurance, a tin pail, building the belfry and stairs, two brooms, a box of crayons, flagstaff, awnings, windows, 30 desks, chairs.” No mention of labor for building the building.
The same ledger reports that the District contained 242 “scholars” between the ages of 4 and 30. 195 scholars signed up to attend two quarters of school. Average attendance: 73 scholars divided between two teachers who were paid $500 each. Boys out numbered the girls two to one.
Tuition was $5.00 per quarter.
School Records – Vol. One Manuscript #423 folder 8
1867 Bills Paid:
June 11 Linn and Hall work on School House as per contract $1600
Nov. 19 Linn and Hall – extra work on School House $ 340
J.A. Carter and Sons – bill for painting school House dated Oct. 12, 1874 - $162.75; paid $84.18, with the $78.57 not paid for want of funds.
The collection of adequate school taxes was a perennial problem. Teachers who indulged in intoxicating drink and games of chance were immediately dismissed. Tenure for teachers in the 1880s and 90s was unheard of, and teachers moved on readily rarely staying more than a year or two. In 1896, the school’s principal was reprimanded by the school board for requesting chemicals for chemistry demonstrations. The board held that the teachers’ time was already taken up with hearing recitations and no time was available for such demonstrations.
School business in small towns, for some reason, became a microcosm for the political fights that were waged in Jacksonville. Principals rarely lasted two ou more years. Teachers were held to strict standards. Could not marry. Could not court, or drink. They were expected to attend church. Of course the School Board recessed to the local taverns after making these personally invasive rules.
Vestiges of these rules continued into the 1970s when the Medford School District ruled that teachers could not hold down a second job. “Teaching is a full-time job”, they reasoned.
George Wendt wrote in 1970 that the wooden school building had two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs. “I don’t remember just when that school burnt down. It was about 1899. I was in the third grade. Then the year 1903 the building burnt down. We were then stationed in temporary quarters in the so call Old Church on the upper corner of China Town. Then I finished up to the 8th grade in the present school on the hill.” (His dates do not quit fit the record.) “There was a big picket fence around the school grounds and from the gate up to the school building. The girls played on one side and the boys on the other. No one ever dared to cross the boarder lines. There was a well on the flat close to the gate with a pictur (sic) pump part full with his hand over the front of the pump and drank out of the pump, then let the rest of the water go on the platform and back down in the well. Recreation for the girls was jump rope, drop the handkerchief, tag, hop scotch and stuff like that, and the boys liked skating in the mud, marbles, spinning tips, swinging from the trees, kicking a blown up hog bladder for foot ball, base ball, bull frog and just standing around eating apples. The toilets were one on the girls’ side and one on the boys’ side. I don’t think they were ever cleaned out. Lots of flies. They were just holes in the ground with an old fashioned privy with three holes. They didn’t have toilet paper in those days yet so each boy when he went there had to be sure he tore a leaf out of his tablet. (Geo. Wendt died in 1971 – one year after writing his memories. His full recollections are on file with the SOHS)
October 1875, a sufficient school tax was passed to allow the school district to finally discard the despised tuition fee.
In the early morning of January 25, 1903, the wooden 1870s two-story frame schoolhouse burned to the ground. School was held in local churches, assembly halls and the local brewery. (The January 25 date is confirmed in the Molly Britt diary.)
Pinto Colvig (Bozo the Clown) once wrote in about 1960 “Ah! The old White (not red) little wooden schoolhouse on the knoll. Built in the early ‘60s. (Records say built in 1870.)). So full of woodpecker holes it was ready to collapse. Wasn’t it a beautiful sight the dark, snowy night when that old school house burned down? All the old women and little girls cried – and us boys were glad. Next day we scratched in the ruins and collected souvenirs for trading. I gathered several of the *skeleton’s bones that rated very high in value when trading for things with the other kids. “Din” Fielder traded me a swell magnifying glass for a piece of the skeleton’s jaw bone (with three teeth)…but later Buck Dunford (town bully) took it away from me; saying that Dink had swiped it from him. I wasn’t one who’d argue with Buck. Nobody was.” Pinto Colvig (aka: Bozo the Clown)
*The school principal had obtained the skeleton from the Sheriff following the death of a jailed prisoner. The teacher had boiled the body for several weeks in the woods above Britt so that he could reassemble a clean skeleton
School District Number 1 managed to scrape together $10,500 to build and furnish a new “fireproof” ornate brick building, which soon became, albeit for only two years, the pride of Jacksonville.
January 12 – February 6, 1903 “Two weeks vacation on account of the fire”, (Oregon School register and record book found tossed into the Old School attic about 1980, along with many other records.)
December – January, 1903 – 1904, “One week closed on account of Small Pox” (Oregon School register and record book found tossed into the Old School attic about 1980, along with many other records that have since been lost.)