Vienna's First Schoolhouse

First Public School: Children More Precious Than Pigs

The first public school in Vienna Township was held in a log building originally intended to house pioneer Samuel Clinton's pigs. In the fall of 1805 this building was re-purposed for the education of the Township's children, who traveled to the Clinton farm south of Vienna Center.

From Harriet Taylor Upton, A Twentieth Century History of Trumbull County, Ohio: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People, and Its Principal Interests (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1909), Volume 1, p. 597:

Miss Lulie Mackey says: “In the spring of 1805, the worthy fathers and mothers of Vienna recognized the necessity of educational privileges for their rapidly increasing children, and glancing about them for an eligible site, they decided upon an unoccupied hog-pen about a mile south of the center. This was immediately swept, garnished, and supplied with greased paper windows, for the children were more precious than pigs, and when properly dedicated by the insertion of two pins for the support of whips into this temple of learning, came the youth of the neighborhood, and were presided over by Mrs. Ira Bartholomew.* The following winter the ‘schoolhouse’ was restored to its original use, and Mrs. Bartholomew taught in a cabin. The next summer a frame schoolhouse was built at the center. From that time forward, Vienna has made a fair school record, sustaining for many years an academy and graded school at the center.”