Chapter 35 cont. History of Davenport and Scott County, Iowa - Vol 1 - 1910 - The book can be read on the Scott County, Site. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SCHOOL DAYS Consul M. M. Price, son of Hiram Price, wrote not long ago a private letter to his friend of boyhood days, LeClaire Fulton, in which some lively reminiscence appears. Here is a paragraph: "Do you remember Harrison street when it was called Ditch street? It was simply a ditch, twenty feet wide and ten feet deep, and when it rained the water poured down from the hills and through Leonard's hollow, becoming a mighty torrent and entirely cutting off intercourse, social, commercial, or religious, between the inhabitants above and below Ditch street. And when the water subsided it was a lovely mudhole for the boys to push each other into. Thorington's academy of art and science, himself guiltless of any collusion with Lindley Murray, was located on the 'Taller banks" of Harrison street, and it was very convenient to get mud balls. It was there that many distinguished tramps, lawyers and judges graduated. Among the most prominent were Jack and Jim Fisher, Henry and 'Goak' Webb, John Dillon, Jim Buford, 'Bony' Morton, 'Bill' Carr, 'Frog' Thorington, 'Billy' McFadden, 'Pud' Price and 'Center's Daddy.' " These private schools served well the needs of the people of Davenport until public schools were established. There was an interim of unrecorded length in which schools were maintained in part by the public funds and in part by tuition. Mr. Barrows gives the date of the first district school as 1850, and James Thorington as teacher. Debbie Clough Gerischer Iowa Gen Web, Assistant CC, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ IAGENWEB: Special History Project: http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm Gerischer Family Web Site: http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/