Christmas in a One-Room Schoolhouse
~ by Julia Pearson
Christmas traditions in America were not always so universally practiced. In present-day December, winter can be expected to throw its first weather tantrum on interstate highways and airline schedules, when holiday migrations of family and friends cross the travelling landscape. A Visit From Saint Nicholas, known more commonly to many as The Night Before Christmas, and accredited to Clement C. Moore, was anonymously first published in 1823. It is one poem by an American writer that is widely known, and did much to elevate Christmas to a major civic holiday and to center its focus on children and the ideas of gift-giving.
Indiana became the 19 th state to join the Union on December 11, 1816. Brown County was established in 1836 from sections of surrounding counties— western Bartholomew, eastern Monroe, and northern Jackson. Putting these dates on a timeline with Moore’ s verses, it’ s easy to see that early Hoosiers had some differing yuletide traditions.
Many of Brown County’ s earliest settlers hailed from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas. It’ s understandable that some holiday traditions of English-origin came with these pioneers. Their communities were centered in villages with a gristmill, sawmill, general store, blacksmith, doctor, a church( Methodist, United Brethren, Baptist, Christian, and Presbyterian), and the one-room school house. The early schools were buildings of log, which gave way in time to oneroom frame buildings. Transportation between settlements was severely limited by the rocky roads with deep ruts. Local practices of celebration remained insulated from the traditions of other religions and ethnic groups.
In an article titled“ The Early Schools of Indiana,” published in the Indiana Magazine of History, December 1906, an interesting tidbit of Brown County Christmas observance is recorded. Christmas was not a day for closing down the commerce of the villages or heading to a place of worship. But“ barring out”— a practice passed along through the early English threads of many Appalachian traditions— was observed. It was a Christmas habit of many Hoosier schoolhouses. Students, especially the strapping older boys who could be as tall and strong as their teachers, arrived on Christmas mornings to their schools. They barred the front door, and any other entrance to the building, to bar the teacher from entering. The teacher in turn was supposed to agree to provide a treat for the students in order to gain admittance for the day’ s lessons.
The story handed down tells us that in Nashville one particular year, a teacher decided not to go along with the custom. He had arrived at school on the morning of December 25 th, only to find himself barred from entering. His students demanded treats, and when the teacher refused, several older boys were joined by several of the parents wanting to join the“ fun.” They picked up the teacher after tying him up and proceeded to carry their instructor down to the nearby stream. There he was given a final chance to change his mind before being pitched into the freezing water.
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40 Our Brown County Nov./ Dec. 2016