Macon County Historical Society
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Macon County Schools
 Macon County’s first known teacher  was John Thompson in 1834.  When the county was incorporated in 1837, the county
court established two districts, Bloomington and Liberty, both in close  proximity to the County Courthouse. The first school houses were log cabins,  usually having one door and maybe a window, puncheon floors and seats, and  heated by a fireplace or wood stove.  The teacher may have been just an older  student who had become the teacher without further education than he had  attained in the pioneer school he attended.

The Missouri Constitution 0f 1820  had mandated that at least one school be established in each township to provide
a free education for those who could not afford private schooling, and by 1840  there were seven primary schools in the county, with 180 pupils.   

Macon County adopted a “system of  public schools” in 1850.  Better schoolhouses were built and more competent  teachers employed.  The present school system went into effect in 1875 with  provisions for both whites and those of African descent.  By 1884, 9,413 school  children were taught by 172 teachers—77 male, and 95 female.  By 1910 there were  135 schools for whites, seven for colored, and ten high  schools.

By 1913 there were 139 school  districts in Macon County. In the 1966-67 school year there were only seven  rural schools left, most of them having annexed and consolidated with nearby  public schools.  By 1967 all rural schools in Macon County had closed.  
  
Prior to the Civil War, Macon  County had two academies and one college-- Bloomington Academy under the  patronage of Macon’s Methodist Episcopal Church, Macon Academy established by  Frances Wallen,  and McGee College (Cumberland Presbyterian) at College Mound, 1853. 
  
McGee  College was quite successful for several years before the Civil War began.   In 1861 it had  an attendance of some 250 students, and its graduating class for the year  numbered ten or more. It stopped operating during the War, but opened again in  1865.

 Dr. F.W.  Allen opened Macon College just before the War, but it closed in 1861 in the  wake of the Confederate flagpole being cut down in  Macon.

Other early private schools established in Macon  under the auspices of    religious groups were Johnson College (Methodist
Episcopal), 1866; St. James Academy and St. Agnes Hall (Episcopal), 1875 and  1884; and Western College (Baptist), 1892.   Johnson College was opened in  Macon as a coed institution, but closed in 1870 and incorporated with St. James
Academy in 1880.   

In 1884 St.  James Academy became a military institution, closing in 1886.  Colonel Fredrick  W. Blees from Germany reopened it in 1892.  It closed in 1895 when Blees  returned to his homeland.  Blees came back to Macon and opened the Blees  Military Academy in 1899.   


 



 



 



 



 









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