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Pre-Civil War teachers in Kiln
“Lived-in ” with family were paid $1 per month per child
BY NORTON HAAS
In the period before the Civil War and after, the children were taught by itinerant teachers. Teachers would live in a neighborhood home and teach for a fee of $1 per month per child.
About 1880 the Catholic Church, with Father Smith as Headmaster, operated the first Catholic School in the Kiln using the old Church building as school room. After that, a public school was built and operated in the Bayou Talla area of Kiln and continued in operation until the Kiln consolidated school opened in 1917.
It is of interest to note in the year 1903 the principal of the
Bayou Talla School was the well known Theodore G. Bilbo, later to become Governor of Mississippi twice and U.S. Senator three times. He died during his third term as U.S. Senator.
The following is from the school annual of 1918-19 :
“The Kiln Consolidated School was formed of the following-named schools: Nicaise, McLeod, Fenton, Silver Hill and Bayou Talla, comprising a district of fifty-two square miles, with a taxing unit of about five hundred thousand dollars. The special levy now in force is ten mills or one cent on the dollar, but by another year five mills will easily operate the school. The building,
together with the equipment, cost ten thousand dollars. The enrollment to date has reached three hundred and fifty pupils, one hundred and twent-five are transported in motor trucks. This means of transportation is rapid, gives results and is, therefore, cheapest in the long run.” The wooden structure was replaced in the middle thirties by a concrete block building complete with a modern gymnasium. The school continued from this location until 1959 when students from the Kiln were transferred to North Central. Today the same buildings are being used by the Annunciation Catholic Church as an Elementary School.
. Farve holds the reins of this cart drawn by an ox. Mary Jones, was assisted by Emma Schubert.
A visit
to the doctor bT