Above are scans of the cover and a record of students' attendance for the quarter beginning April 20th 1858 for the "Colored School" located in Erie County, Ohio. The ledger provides a record of students' attendance for the years from 1854 to 1858. Transcribed below are the names and ages of students listed on the above scan (April 20th 1858). Some names (not all) listed on this page appear as students for all all four years. Only a single teacher's name is given - E. Hastings. From the Sandusky Directory, the teacher of the "Colored School" was given as Eliza Hastings.
The ledger identifies the number of days attended by each student. Rather than quarters, classes seem to have begun each year in late April and continued through June. Classes then resumed once more in late August or September and continued through December.
According to A History of Sandusky and Erie County, written by the late Charles E. Frohman, "small schools for Negro children had been maintained at irregular intervals by Negro directors, but in 1853, at the request of the Negro people, these schools were transferred to the city Board of Education. In 1861 they were discontinued by the Superintendent of Schools, and the Negro students attended classes in the regular school system." Considering the dates of the attendance ledger, it appears this record was kept after the school was transferred to the Board of Education.
No information is given in the ledger as to the location of the school, but with much assistance from Dorene Paul, Reference Librarian at the Sandusky Library and her Sandusky History blog, it seems logical that the school was located near Neil Street in Sandusky, not far from the St. Stephen AME Church at 312 Neil Street. From 1873 to 1876. Reverend Thomas Holland Boston, born in Maryland in 1809, served as minister of the St. Stephen A.M.E. Church and lived on Hancock Street. Reverend Boston's three daughters by his second marriage appear on the attendance register.
April 20th, 1858
Teacher, Miss E. Hastings
Susan Boston, 14
Sarah Boston, 10
Georgianna Boston, 7
Adaline Veecher, 12
Hannah Veecher, 7
Margaret Veecher, 10
Arminda Moss, 9
Sarah J. Johnson, 9
Lucinda Smith, 9
Antonette Smith, 11
Josephine Holley, 10
Cynthia Payne, 9
Rhoda Payne, 7
Fidelia Anderson, 15
Elijah Brown, 13
Arthur Harris, 9
Elijah Moss, 7
Thomas Holley, 12
Mark Holley, 7
Van Vector Harris (?), 11
Edward Veecher, 5
Edward Smith, 6
William Holley, 5
George Payne, 10
George Harris, 5
James Williams, 12
Gus Wingfield (?), 7
Edward Gleason, 10
James Smith, 8
John Anderson, 7
Robert Smith, 6
1874 Erie County, Ohio Atlas
1874 Erie County, Ohio Atlas
According to an article by A. W. Hendry titled "History of a Vanished Settlement" appearing in the July 1878 issue of the Firelands Pioneer, African Americans had arrived in the area before 1838. Known locally as "Africa" because of the African American settlement, Hendry described its location as "then about two miles from the city, in a southeasterly direction, and across Pipe Creek." Hendry believed that by 1843, more than 100 individuals resided at the settlement. This settlement no longer existed by the 1850s.
