Tales of Knotts Island
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INTRODUCTION

KNOTTS ISLAND: ITS GEOGRAPHY

FIRST SETTLERS

BOYS AMUSEMENTS

BUMBLEBEES

JACOB DAWLEY

FIRST SCHOOLS

BURKES SCHOOL

BRIGGS SCHOOL

BRIGGS AGAIN

EARLY FAMILY NAMES

OLD GUNNERS

COOPER & BOWDEN

FISHING

TWO GREAT STORMS

POLITICS

SENIORS

MYTHOLOGY

HAUNTED PLACES

WITCHCRAFT

STATE OF SOCIETY

EARLY CHURCHES

CHURCH REVIVALS

TWO ROADS

CHURCH PROCEEDINGS

METHODISM

METHODIST CONFERENCE

WOODHOUSE

KNOTTS ISLAND LONG AGO

NEW TIMES

CHURCH WORSHIP

INTEMPERANCE

RADICAL CHANGE

KNOWLEDGE

THE CLOSE


Be aware that the information in these tales is dated and, as expected, may not be as socially, politically, or racially sensitive as current writings.
TALES OF KNOTTS ISLAND

by Henry Beasley Ansell

from 1907 to 1912

THE SCHOOLS OF THE ISLAND.

The First Day at School; John S. Briggs the Teacher

Before the writer was old enough to attend school, and for years thereafter, the heads of the Island employed well educated, foreign teachers who seldom "spared the rod to spoil the child." One of these teachers who taught there seventy-five or eighty years ago was named Devarough, but for short was called Devnish. Besides being a competent teacher, he was an artist of no little note. On the Island he made many fine pictures with paint and brush--the lord with umbrella over his lady-love dressed sumptuously in the fashions of that day. Next in turn came one named Burke, whom I well remember. He wore side-whiskers and had all the characteristics of the good, but cruety, old-time teacher.

These teachers, as usual in those days, were from Down-East, and I think their families were tinctured with Irish descent.

These Down-Easters, in those days as now, were well educated; and as teachers they flooded the other sections of this country, bringing with them the "blue-book rules."

When the writer was in his tenth year (1842) his father concluded to give his only boy something to do other than killing birds, robbing their nests and prowling around ready for any kind of mischief. So he "intered him forschool," as it was called.

About six miles of Knotts' Island being in North Carolina, the school house was situated near the half-way mark and about a mile north of our home.

This house was made up of two houses put together, or else there had been an addition made to the original north part; for I recollect a long endbrace of the original, then intact, that stretched nearly half across in the center of this long double house. The house was on the east side of the public road with side thereto. It was clap-boarded with rough hand-sawed lumber, was unpainted, and no inside finish. At the south end hung one creaking door and on the east side two others.

On the west and road side were two windows, the upper halves of which were partially paned with wooden slats. One of these windows was near the fire-place near which the teacher sat, surrounded with bundles of seasoned switches ready for use; the other was used to give light to the advanced pupils, who wrote and ciphered on a high long desk at their front.

The chimney on the north end afforded a fire-place six by four, which in winter flamed and roared like the Infernal Regions" painted to the children of that day.

Just opposite the school house on the western side of the road lived an eccentric old man named Southey Waterfield, who could tell some startling stories of events in his young days wherein he took an active part. Although these bordered on the improbable, in the main he was a nice old man. The bad school boys would steal his apples and other fruit, and even make songs about his queer ways. It was said he put toad frogs in his sweet potato hills in the Fall in order to trap insects and other intruders out and to keep potatoes from the rot. Whether toads are a preventive of rot or not, the truth is that this old man always had potatoes to se11 in Spring. To the south of this old man's premises was an open lot, wherein at noon could be found a crowd of noisy, nimble boys playing cat, razor, town-ball, somersaults, bull in-the-pen, racing, hammer-jumping, and leap frog; or storming, like the Allies at Sepastopol and the United States troops at Santiago, the nests of yellow jackets and bumblebees.

The first day the writer strode to school, with his dinner pail and Dog-Primer, he found the teacher already there. His name was John S. Briggs, a Down-East bachelor, clothed with the usual and ever memorable broad-cloth coat and pants sleek with steady wear. He assigned me a short seat in the opposite corner from his own, and gave me the alphabet for my lesson.

When setting copies, and making or mending quill pens, his back was toward me. The boys near me began to squint their eyes and make faces at those on the teacher's side; this conduct appeared to be the usual thing and I did likewise, all neglecting the lessons. I was in a hidden position from Briggs and thought surely this conduct was the order of the day. Being a new pupil there is no doubt but that Briggs intended to keep a sharp eye on me, to see what materials I was made of.

At this instant his head whirled around, his goggles were upon me. "Come here, Henry" said he.

I went with fear and trembling. He read me the rules; and then said that the next offence would bring those switches into play.

It did appear he knew precisely when those back of him were neglecting their lessons; and around his eyes would come. The big boys told me that Briggs had a masked eye behind and I began to think that this must be true. This teacher whipped and slashed from morning till night for just such offences as I had been guilty of my first day at school. I was afraid of him and needless to say, I behaved well thereafter.

It made little difference with parents in those days, when or for what purpose their children were whipped; they calmly submitted their children to the jurisdiction of the teacher from the moment the children left their own doors in the morning until their return at night.

I think old Briggs, as he was called, was an educated man, and I am quite sure he taught that the Earth is round, turns on its axis and revolves around the Sun. This was in conflict with many of the old-timers who pronounced would--woold, and should shoold, and used "a" in "was" as in "has."

Briggs had been teaching here some time before I entered his school, and it did seem that every one in and out of school hated him, excepting Dennis Simmons, and a few others who had first employed him. I knew the small children had cause to dislike him for whipping them, not so much for misconduct, but over their lessons. He would give the small ones a push from his knees and tell them to go back and have that lesson in ten minutes. Of course, the child knew less the next time, and received the inevitable flogging. I was a whole "quarter" getting through my Dog-Primer and a few pages in the old blue-back speller. If Briggs had been sympathetic I should have been where I left off in half the time; for other teachers thereafter, dubbed me apt.

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