Jericho/Compromise

The first schoolhouse in the area of Wayne Township’s District 7 was conducted by Jericho Friends Meetinghouse and known as the Jericho Friends School (Hinshaw, 2008). In fact, this was likely the first schoolhouse in all of Wayne Township- twenty or twenty-five students were taught by Mariam Hill at the meetinghouse in 1822 or 1823 (Tucker, 1882), though its possible that a school existed here as early as 1813 (Wayne, 1939).

During 1842 and 1843, the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends broke into two factions during a major disagreement regarding the opposition of slavery (Edgerton, 1856). Near this time, a second school was erected to the west of the meetinghouse (Hinshaw). 

Whether due to the split or not, several more competing buildings followed. By 1865, Wayne Township had constructed a township school -District 7- just south of the meetinghouse at the southeast corner of what’s now East County Road 100-South and South County Road 400-East (Warner, 1865). Another structure was moved to a site a fourth of a mile west of the District 7 school in 1881, though it seems to have only lasted for six years (Hinshaw). 

Wayne Township decided to replace the Civil War-era District 7 school in 1889 with a new structure to be erected a mile east of the meetinghouse at the corner of what’s now East County Road 100-South and South County Road 500-East, a decision met with outspoken opposition by the Friends congregation. To appease both parties, the new District 7 schoolhouse was built halfway between both points, gaining the common name “Compromise” in the process. 

The District 7 schoolhouse closed in 1912 in order to consolidate into the Wayne Township School two miles east. Today, the Compromise school is a home, and despite having no concrete affiliation with the schoolhouse after its relocation in 1889, the Jericho Friends Meeting was home to several reunions of the school’s patrons and teachers over the years (Family, 1931).

References

Tucker, E. (1882). History of Randolph County, Indiana. book. Chicago, IL; A.L. Kingman.

Hinshaw, G. (2008). A History of Education in Randolph County, Indiana. Retrieved February 13, 2022.

Wayne Twp. School Ass’n. Holds First Reunion at Grimes Grove (1939, August 28). The Union City Times-Gazette. p. 6

Edgerton, W. (1856). A history of the separation in Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends: which took place in the winter of 1842 and 1843, on the anti-slavery question … and some account of the action of other yearly meetings of Friends …. Cincinnati: Achilles Pugh, printer.

Warner, C.S (1865). 1865 Wall-Map of Randolph County. C.A.O. McClellan & C.S. Warner. Waterloo, Indiana. map.

Family Reunions (1931, August 14). The Richmond Item. p. 6.