THE FOUNTAIN VALLEY SCHOOL HISTORY
There is no date or author noted on the original copy for the following but it was probably written by Myrtle (Cady) Cottrell and presented by her husband Carl.
|
|
THE FOUNTAIN VALLEY SCHOOL
(This paper was read at the Poy Sippi Community Club for a program featuring the Fountain Valley School.)
In 1850 Jacob Cady and his wife, Betsy Emeline Coolidge Cady, came from Lowell, Massachusetts, to Milwaukee, and after visiting relatives for a short time they came with an ox team to the Indian Land north of Berlin. Buying land from the government and the Indians, they settled by a creek, now known as Cady's Creek. The nearest neighbor was an Indian who lived a mile away in a wigwam.
The country was wild, covered with timber; the roads were trails. Mr. and Mrs. Cady had five children. The youngest, B. A. Cady, Mrs. Carl Cottrell's father, was ten years old. For five years there was no school so they were taught at home.
|
 Fountain Valley School house built in 1884
Ruth Cottrell is 3rd from the left
|
In 1855 more settlers having come, a log school and house was built on the southwest corner of the forty that the Henry Handrichs now occupy. School was continued there until 1866, when a little plot of land was purchased by the school district in the southwest corner of the Cady homestead, where a neat little frame building was put up just south of the present flagpole. For many years this was known as the Cady school.
Though the building was small, it served to house the ever increasing number of pupils of the two neighborhoods now known as Cedar Valley and Fountain Valley. The largest enrollment at one time that we have record of was in 1870, when Vesta Cady (a granddaughter of the old pioneer, Jacob Cady) single-handed and alone managed eighty-four students.
In 1884 one half acre more of land was added to the school lot, the old building was moved back and became a woodshed, and the present schoolhouse was erected. Two teachers were employed. In 1894 the district of Cedar Valley was established.
About 1893 a cooperative cheese company was organized, and a factory was built on the southeast corner of the Lewis Waterman farm which took the name of Fountain Valley Full Cream Cheese Company. Soon the neighborhood became Fountain Valley, and the school became known as the Fountain Valley school.
We think we have good reason to be proud of our school and its remarkable history. It is district No. 1, the first school to be established in the township. It has trained hundreds of pupils, many of whom have been laid to rest, and many are scattered over this great continent, bearing their responsibilities at their posts of duty.
We were once told by State Superintendent of Schools, Arthur Dietz, that we had the second best equipped rural school in the country. We were a little inclined to challenge him to show us a better one, but thought we had better be content to hold second place.
With tender memories of those whose voices have re-echoed from its walls and, as it were, with arms outstretched to welcome the little ones that are now coming upon the stage of action, unashamed of the past and fearless of the future, it now stands a representative of the richest endowment that this, the greatest nation on earth, could give its people: a Free Public School.
CARL COTTRELL
|
|