NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Brown Township School Names Explained (1927)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, March 17, 1927 – page 2, column 3

SCHOOLS OF BROWN HAVE LOCAL NAMES
Incidents That Made Them Peculiarly Their Own

When the announcement was made that “Sixty Cents” in Brown township had won the rural music memory contest, many people wanted to know how “Sixty Cents” received its name.

James W. Beck is authority on the history of Brown township where all the schools have more or less poetical names. Mr. Beck says the present school house at Sixty Cents is the third erected on that spot. It is a brick structure. The first was log and the second, frame. The frame building was erected about the close of the Civil war and when the builders pronounced it finished, a close examination showed that there was no lock for the door. A man present said he was on his way to Brownsburg and would bring back a lock. When he did so, he was asked what the lock cost and he said: “Sixty Cents.” And thus the school was named.

Mr. Beck says that other schools in Brown township have the following history. School No. 1 is called Bunkum and he thinks perhaps the proper spelling is Buncombe. The name traces back to North Carolina through the Gossett family which came from Buncombe.

School No. 2 is known as Beaver College because just across the road from it was a beaver dam. The signs of this dam are yet to be seen.

School No. 3 is Sixty Cents and No. 4 is Squankum but Mr. Beck is unable to give its history.

No. 5 is Sambo. The legend is that in an early day there was a teacher there by the name of Samuel Bough. A small boy on his way to school was stopped by a man who asked his teacher’s name and the boy replied: “Sam Bough.” And from this comes the name, “Sambo.”

No. 6 is Brown school, so named because the first coat of paint it received was brown.

No. 7 was “Greenwood” because it was located in a beautiful grove.