Vee, I think your people must have come from this area originally, though none of the names are familiar, those are exactly the same concerns that our school board had. They bid off the wood supply and the teacher's board. They voted to have a female teacher a few times. I think this may have had to do with the make-up of the roster, if most of the pupils were to be young children or girls it may have been thought better to have the gentler touch of a female teacher. It was never voted to have a male teacher so it may have been that male teachers were the norm and it was only felt necessary to vote if they felt they NEEDED a female for a particular reason. As I read through the minute book I found I knew where most of the people lived. This is the result of living here all my life and knowing the area so well. If I didn't know where someone lived I asked Dad, he may not know what he did 2 minutes ago but the stuff from years ago is still in his memory. My great grandfather and great great grandfather were both on this board at times and before I give the book over I intend to photocopy a page that each of them signed as clerk because I think it will be neat to have copies of their signatures. As to weapons in school, there was a much different take on this here when I was in school in the mid 1950s. During hunting season the boys would hunt on the way to and from school and during school they just put their rifles in the back of the classroom. Nobody thought anything of it. Of course every boy and some of us girls had a pocket knife which was carried everywhere one went, OH HORRORS. In grammar school we girls could wear pants to school, it wasn't until I went to high school that we had to wear skirts. This went on until the fashion got to be the extreme mini skirt and then suddenly it was alright for girls to wear pants. (G) Ruth At 9:12 PM -0500 2/26/04, Vee L. Housman wrote: >There were other thought-provoking entries in the records regarding >teachers. They concerned whether to hire a woman or a man for the upcoming >session. For instance, in 1820 it was voted that summer school be taught >by a woman. In 1848 a male teacher was rejected. In 1857 they voted that a >female was to teach winter school and in 1858 they voted against a male >teacher for the winter term and voted instead that it should be taught by >a female. In my mind I tend to believe that they were not voting on what >sex the teacher should be but that they were actually voting on >individuals. Maybe they just didn't feel it proper to reveal their names >at the time they were voting. But it did seem rather unusual. -- Ruth Barton [email protected] Dummerston, VT