Over forty years ago--in the year 1850--I entered as a student of Walnut Grove Academy, which a college charter, a few years later, transformed into Eureka College. The school, opened not long before in a single room, had just been transferred to the new brick, with a chapel and two recitation rooms, a building which, in those days of beginnings, was regarded as a magnificent structure. The teachers in charge were Professor Asa Fisher, who has the honor of planting the germ which grew into Eureka College, and Elder John Lindsey, who has long since rested from his labors. A little later the place of the latter was taken by Professor John H. Neville, who continued long after the two or three years had ended that I passed in the academy. Among my fellow students in that period I recall Miss Elmira J. Dickinson, so well known in our missionary work; Miss Nannie Ledgerwood, now Mrs. Burgess, the beloved President of the Christian Woman's Board of Missions, and the founder of Burgess Hall, and Miss Caroline Neville, better known in these later times as Mrs. Pearre, to whom the conception of the Woman's [226] Board of Missions is to be credited. It is enough to enshrine Walnut Grove Academy as a sacred memory that it has equipped three women so nobly for their beneficent work.

      It would be hard for one who has only seen Eureka in these later times to picture the primeval condition that existed forty years ago. The brush had been trimmed out of a small space around the academy and in the vicinity of the old frame church where the forefathers worshiped. A heavy wood and dense thicket covered the whole area of the present college campus. A path ran diagonally through the tangled undergrowth to "Uncle" John T. Jones's, where I found a home. This dense wood often re-echoed to youthful oratory as the young Patrick Henrys practiced in preparation for the weekly literary society. Occasionally some flight of eloquence awoke a response from a mischievous fellow student who, attracted by the sound, crept up and astounded the orator by his sudden applause. I have a vivid recollection of an experience of that kind myself, which so paralyzed the wings of my Pegasus that he came down with a bounce.

      It is still a pleasure to recall those primitive days. Life was so real. All was so hearty and joyous. The student life, though far removed from that of the present, was robust and helpful. Algebra, with the mysterious results worked out by [227] the unknown quantities, opened to our visions a wonderland, and the conjugation of Amo or Tupto seemed to bring the ring of the matchless periods of Cicero and Demosthenes. Then the memory of the worship in the low frame church by the cemetery, and of the ancient worthies who bowed at the altar there--such men as Myers, and Dickinson, and Major, and Radford, the men who builded better than they knew--is one that can never cease to be an inspiration.

      One incident of those early times, a part of my school experiences, seems to me to be worthy of a place here. In the fall of 1853 Alexander Campbell made a visit to Illinois in the interest of the endowment of Bethany College. As there were no facilities for railroad travel, he was carried over the country in the carriages of the brethren. He aimed to make one address per day, at widely separated points, and came from Lacon, I think, the day he spoke in Walnut Grove. A vast audience, gathered, from many miles over the country, long before he arrived. W. W. Happy, of Jacksonville, addressed them for a while, in order to occupy the time, but the people were so impatient to hear the great reformer that the words of Elder Happy fell on dull ears. At last Mr. Campbell came and entered the pulpit. I had never seen him before, but none of that audience needed anyone to inform them that the [228] magnificent looking man was the famous President of Bethany College. He was then over sixty-five years old; his hair was iron gray, but his face was fresh and his eye like the eagle's. His superb physical frame showed no signs of decay; he was in the prime of his intellectual strength; his voice rang out like a bugle, and as he spoke that day upon the mystery of Godliness, one of his favorite themes, he thrilled his audience as I had never heard mortal man do before. It is a tribute, not only to the impression which he made, but to the large-hearted liberality of the churches at Walnut Grove and in the vicinity, that $2,500, if my memory is not at fault, was subscribed on that day to the endowment fund of Bethany College. When we consider that the wealth of the region was not one twentieth of what it is now, that the citizens were nearly all small farmers, and that they were burdening themselves to found a literary institution in their own midst, their response was remarkable.

      What I have written thus far all pertains to the pre-college period, in which the forces were at work which a little later crystallized into Eureka College. I write of this because it was my period of student life, and the memories of it are rosier than when, some years later, I was burdened with the duties and anxieties of a teacher in the college. I will, however, mention one experience of [229] the latter period which can be recalled by many who will read this sketch. In the spring of 1861, in the month of April, I went down to Peoria to remain over Sunday. On Saturday evening the boom of the cannon firing upon Fort Sumter rolled over the land, and came with mighty reverberations upon our West. On Sunday, thoughts of battle mingled with the hymns to the Prince of Peace, and an eagerness for tidings from Sumter made men forget the glad tidings of the Gospel. On Monday morning I hurried back to my duties at the college, over which I was presiding, and as I came in sight I saw the Stars and Stripes proudly floating from its pinnacle. On the campus I met the students, engaged in drilling for the tented field, and the formation of a company had already begun. That company, Company G, of the Seventeenth Illinois Infantry, carried some of the noblest young men to the front that ever offered their lives for their country. Of these James Skelton and Charles Dickinson were shot down at Shiloh, though the latter lingered, an invalid, for many years; J. H. Rowell, after the war, went to the law and to Congress; H. D. Clark, J. W. Allen and B. J. Radford are known, and loved, and praised in all our churches for their work's sake. T. R. Bryan, of Kansas City, was another of the band. He is not a preacher, but is well known as the Treasurer of the Church Extension Fund. [230]

      Memories come so thickly that I am tempted to write a history instead of a brief sketch, and it requires some self-denial to restrain my eager pen.

B. W. JOHNSON. [231]      

[HEC 226-231.]

      The electronic version of Barton Warren Johnson's "Old Academy Days in Walnut Grove" has been produced from held by the Disciples of Christ Historical Society.

      Pagination in the electronic version has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. Inconsistencies in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and typography have been retained; however, corrections have been offered for misspellings and other accidental corruptions. Emendations are as follows:

            Printed Text [ Electronic Text
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 p. 228:    Alexander der Campbell [ Alexander Campbell
 

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
373 Wilson Street
Derry, PA 15627-9770
stefanik@westol.com

Created 28 May 1999.