The Town Schools: A School-House in 1840 and a High-School Building in 1868

1840 – c. 1880

The town built its first school-house in 1840 — two years after the township's log house south of it — and a high-school building in 1868, where a graded school then ran under a named principal. Chapman: "In 1840 a school-house was built in North Liberty." The National Register nomination corroborates at its strength: "The first school was constructed in 1840" — the nomination's "first" is the town's, Chapman's 1838 house being the township's, and the two carriers are consistent once town and township scope are kept separate, as this build keeps them throughout. Chapman again: "…and in 1868 a high-school building was erected. A graded school has since been kept. Mr. J. N. Reece is the principal and George Sands is the teacher in the lower department." Howard confirms the building: "A high-school was erected in the town of North Liberty in 1868," and the nomination confirms it a third time. Chapman counts "one school-house" among the town's establishments at his writing, about 1880. Where the 1868 building stood, and what became of it, is stated in no carrier reached; the building's site and fate bank as a named gap (G-SC-2), its settlers Saltzgaber's town history, the Sanborn fire-insurance maps the nomination's bibliography carries, the town newspaper's archive, and the corporation's merger-era minutes. The first teachers this record names for the town are Reece and Sands, in post about 1880 — the graded school's principal and its lower-department teacher, two names across the town school's first forty years, printed at exactly that size.