in school or during intermission." "Teachers are required as soon after commencement of school as possible to make an estimate of the number of days required to board for each scholar and give notice to patrons of the school in writing." "All scholars attending school shall be required by their teacher to come with clean face and hands under pain of being expelled from the school." "Breaking or damaging school property or the fencing around the burial ground, or anything pertaining thereto, must be paid for by parents or guardians." The gold fever was at its height in 1850, and we find this curious bit of testimony to that fact. "On motion it is ordered that the treasurer require W. B. Huntoon to renew his note of Eight dollars with new security as one of the old security has gone to California." This calls to mind that a party of fifty men started April 8, 1850, from Ridgeville township for California. Their route was to Chicago and westward via Council Bluffs, Iowa; thence to Fort Laramie, Salt Lake City and Sacramento. It is to be remembered that the population of the township was only 443 in that year. Consider, therefore, what it meant. to take away fifty of the young vigorous men from this region. They were gone about one year and seem to have done well at the gold fields, though a few of the little party never came back to their families. Some of the old settlers living in Evanston have letters received from the prospectors, and the postage collected on their delivery from Sacramento was forty cents.* Since "the roots of the present lie buried deep in the past and nothing is dead to him who would learn how the present came to be what it is," we cannot count useless the time and effort spent to understand this stirring year of 1850 for Chicago and the North Shore. The record gives much cause for rejoicing that we stand at the threshold of the twentieth century instead of at the middle of the nineteenth. What will be the record when Northwestern celebrates its centennial? *Apropos of this subject, here is an advertisement from a Chicago paper for the same year. "A person going to pick up gold dust offers for sale 30 acres heavy timber-land on the North Branch 16 miles from Chicago, at $4 per acre cash. Title perfect. Also corner lot in the original town near railroad depot (present Northwestern) for $120 cash down." The land is worth a large fortune today and we may well doubt whether the person offering it so recklessly for $240 cash down realized its present value in gold dust in the mines. But the fever of the gold hunter was in his veins and go he must. |