Collected and posted by BILL
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McCauslin Brook School
County Highway F
Behind the Holt and Balcom Logging Museum
Town of Lakewood
Oconto County, Wisconsin
 |
 McCauslin Brook Log
School
The only known original log school standing in Oconto County Wisconsin. |
It has the same top quality
workmanship as the camp logging museum it stands near. The timbers
chosen were very straight, of equal size and skillfully squared off
with detailed dove-tailing at the corners for a tight, secure fit that
has lasted for more than 130 years, despite years of neglect. The split
shake roof extends in the front to form an "overhang" where the
children, some coming from considerable distances by wagon and sleigh,
could be dropped off or wait to be picked up at a semi protected porch.
Children without these conveniences walked through all weather. This
porch also served as protection from snow for the firewood needed to
heat the school, saving teacher and students time from shoveling. It
was a one room school house with all ages being taught.
The first places for students were often long split log benches with long wood planks for the table that sat on saw horses. Wooden pegs held coats. Eventually desks replaced the arrangements. The youngest children sat nearest the wood stove in the winter, where it was warmest. The wet outer clothing was hung on a rope line behind the pot belly stove to dry with wet shoes and boots near the stove. Often there was a kettle of water heating for tea, which the children drank to warm up after their arrival and with the lunch food they brought from home. The teacher had to get there early, carry in the wood, light the fire, sweep or shovel off the porch, pump and carry in the water, write the lessons and assignments on the chalk board, which started out as black painted boards hung on the wall at the front of the room (blackboard), ring the bell (if they had one since they were a luxury) and meet the children. Older children often helped the younger ones with removing wet clothes, trips to the outhouse and with their studies while the teacher taught lessons to other groups in the classroom.
In the early years, many of the children attended only until age 10 or 12 as was traditional in their European homeland. After that time, these children worked to bring in the money needed for the family. Their wages were paid directly to the parents. Often the young sons in a family went right from the classroom one year to the camp the next, helping the cook, shoveling snow, cutting the limbs from harvested trees into firewood for camp use and for company sale. They made about 50 cents a week for an 8 to 10 hour day. In the following years, children gradually attended school until they were older. The nature of the men's employment as day laborers and seasonal logging crew members, along with the dangers of work conditions, left the families facing economic instability as a continuous concern.
Depot Camp was a year round camp where logs were shipped to the mills by company owned small gage trains. Families lived there and children needed a school. Similar year round camps in Oconto County also had schools. These included Holt's Ranch (later named Grant School), The Oconto Company Farm and Holt's Spur. Only the foundations of two of these camp schools remain. These year round settlements offered employment as gardeners, farmers, blacksmiths, cattle and horse handlers, builders, cooks and repairmen as well as winter logging.
The McCauslin Brook school building, which stands on the original spot near the Holt and Balcom Logging Museum in what is now the McCauslin Brook Golf Course, is the only known original log school house still standing in Oconto County, but has no sign to designate it's history. After the logging camp became Brook Farm, the building continued to be used as a rural school. Nearby settlements of Lakewood and Townsend had not built schools until into the early 1900's, so these log schools were key to education in the rugged north woods. The schools were built before the area was designated as the Town of Wheeler and included the Waubee Lake area where the Tourtillott trading post had been established very early in Oconto County history.
Edna
Marie Isaacson (Elmer) Swanson wrote for the 1948 Oconto County
Centennial Magazine that Miss Mayme Brennen (later Mrs. William J.
Grady) was the second teacher at McCauslin Brook School. Another early
Lakewood area teacher, Mrs. Fran Jackson, remembered that Mayme
Brennen's father, Michael Brennen, would drive his daughter up to the
camp school for teaching from their home in Gillett, Oconto County, on
Labor Day and return to pick her up for the trip home again on
Thanksgiving. This was repeated for the Christmas school holiday until
the end of the school term in Spring. By 1900 teacher Miss Mayme
Isaacson was teaching in Oconto Falls. Mayme Isaacson Swanson lived
from
1877 to 1956 and is buried at Lakewood Forest Cemetery in Oconto County.
No specific records of the schools in the area were maintained until 1901 and the number of students varied depending on the employment of the fathers. McCauslin School closed in 1905, according to the oral local history of earlier residents. This was at the time that Lakewood built it's first school. Although there were stories that a school building was moved to Lakewood from the Brook Farm, what has developed is that the former students of the McCauslin Brook School on the Brook Farm were moved to the new school in Lakewood. The log McCauslin School House was eventually used on the Brook farm as a granary and chicken coop.
The first places for students were often long split log benches with long wood planks for the table that sat on saw horses. Wooden pegs held coats. Eventually desks replaced the arrangements. The youngest children sat nearest the wood stove in the winter, where it was warmest. The wet outer clothing was hung on a rope line behind the pot belly stove to dry with wet shoes and boots near the stove. Often there was a kettle of water heating for tea, which the children drank to warm up after their arrival and with the lunch food they brought from home. The teacher had to get there early, carry in the wood, light the fire, sweep or shovel off the porch, pump and carry in the water, write the lessons and assignments on the chalk board, which started out as black painted boards hung on the wall at the front of the room (blackboard), ring the bell (if they had one since they were a luxury) and meet the children. Older children often helped the younger ones with removing wet clothes, trips to the outhouse and with their studies while the teacher taught lessons to other groups in the classroom.
In the early years, many of the children attended only until age 10 or 12 as was traditional in their European homeland. After that time, these children worked to bring in the money needed for the family. Their wages were paid directly to the parents. Often the young sons in a family went right from the classroom one year to the camp the next, helping the cook, shoveling snow, cutting the limbs from harvested trees into firewood for camp use and for company sale. They made about 50 cents a week for an 8 to 10 hour day. In the following years, children gradually attended school until they were older. The nature of the men's employment as day laborers and seasonal logging crew members, along with the dangers of work conditions, left the families facing economic instability as a continuous concern.
Depot Camp was a year round camp where logs were shipped to the mills by company owned small gage trains. Families lived there and children needed a school. Similar year round camps in Oconto County also had schools. These included Holt's Ranch (later named Grant School), The Oconto Company Farm and Holt's Spur. Only the foundations of two of these camp schools remain. These year round settlements offered employment as gardeners, farmers, blacksmiths, cattle and horse handlers, builders, cooks and repairmen as well as winter logging.
The McCauslin Brook school building, which stands on the original spot near the Holt and Balcom Logging Museum in what is now the McCauslin Brook Golf Course, is the only known original log school house still standing in Oconto County, but has no sign to designate it's history. After the logging camp became Brook Farm, the building continued to be used as a rural school. Nearby settlements of Lakewood and Townsend had not built schools until into the early 1900's, so these log schools were key to education in the rugged north woods. The schools were built before the area was designated as the Town of Wheeler and included the Waubee Lake area where the Tourtillott trading post had been established very early in Oconto County history.
 Swanson Family McCauslin Brook |
No specific records of the schools in the area were maintained until 1901 and the number of students varied depending on the employment of the fathers. McCauslin School closed in 1905, according to the oral local history of earlier residents. This was at the time that Lakewood built it's first school. Although there were stories that a school building was moved to Lakewood from the Brook Farm, what has developed is that the former students of the McCauslin Brook School on the Brook Farm were moved to the new school in Lakewood. The log McCauslin School House was eventually used on the Brook farm as a granary and chicken coop.
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