Sixty Cents School in Brown Township Holds Reunion (1939)

From a newspaper clipping donated by Jerry Wiley. According to The Village of Brownsburg (1998), Sixty Cents School was built from land that was purchased in 1854 and was on the south side of County Road 1000 North in Brown Township, facing County Road 650 East. The Corinth Church was across the road from the school.

From the Brownsburg Record (Brownsburg, Indiana) – issue of 1939 [exact date unknown]:

"Old Scholars and Teacher of ‘60c School’

Left to right: Minnie (Herring) Marker, Viola (Turpin) Everett, Elsie (McCrory) Eaton, Nancy (George) McDaniel, Ona (Kennedy) Beaman, John F. Everett, W.H. Schenck, Herbert Johnson, 72, Albert Johnson, 88, William Johnson, 84, 3 brothers. John F. Everett was a former teacher.

About eighty former students and teachers of the old “Sixty Cent” school gathered at Corinth Church Sunday afternoon and talked over the old days, when they were much younger than at present. A fine basket dinner was laid upon tables in the church lawn and at the conclusion much visiting and reminiscing occupied the afternoon.

Above we show a picture of a group of some of the older students, including a former teacher, John F. Everett. No shiny school buses stopped at their doors for these boys and girls. Laboriously they plodded through mud, snow and summer suns, in fair and rainy weather to learn their three “R’s.”

A business session was held and Herschell F. Johnson was named President, with Mrs. Eva S. Waters as secretary of the association. They will meet again each year at the same place, the time to be announced at a later date. “Sixty Cent” school is standing just a short way west of Corinth Church at the cross road. Many and varied are the stores as to the origin of the name of this school. One version is that Samuel Schenck taught a subscription school there and charged sixty cents per pupil; another was to the effect that when the school was completed there was no lock for the door, this costing sixty cents; another story is that the carpenters who labored on the old frame structure receives sixty cents per day each. However, this known there is probably no other “sixty cent” school in the country."