MOUNT VERNON — Last week, we looked at a souvenir from the 1899-1900 term of Sunny Side School in Monroe Township. The photo of that souvenir caught the eye of reader Aaron James of Pike Township, who has a similar souvenir.
It is very similar, but this one is identified as being specfically for the winter term of Four Corners School, 1899-1900. James grabbed the bookmark at an auction a few years back because he recognized the Four Corners name from maps, and knew that it was not far from where he lives.
Four Corners is still listed as a location in Google Maps today. The four corners involved are shaped by the intersection of Butler Road and Earnest Road in the central eastern part of the township.
Even as far back as the 1871 map, there is nothing particularly there to distinguish the intersection, except for a school. Perhaps the name was given just to distinguish the school itself, which was there for quite a long time, but is no longer there today.
The only thing on the ground still claiming the name is the Four Corners Cemetery, which used to be the graveyard for a church. That church and graveyard were put in after Frasher Road was created.
Originally, as late as 1871 at least, Carson Road, Frasher Road, and College Hill Road were all one long country road stretching from Wooster Road (today Ohio Route 3) south of Amity, all the way up to the northeastern corner of Knox County, coming out again on Wooster Road, north of Jelloway.
Some time before the 1896 map was printed, it was broken up into separate roads. The Four Corners Cemetery sits on a part of Frasher Road that was bent over to interect with Butler Road, and Carson Road was rerouted to end on Earnest Road. Otherwise, Four Corners would have needed to be known as 12 Corners, from all the intersecting roads.
The picture is featured at the top of the cardboard bookmark, and the same teacher, F. P. Kaiser, is listed. It seems safe to infer that the picture, then, is of Mr. Kaiser himself. As we explored in last week’s column, Kaiser later married Clio Phillips from Pike Township, the daughter of J. W. Phillips.
An examination of an 1896 property map of the township shows that the Phillips farm was less than five miles west on Earnest Road, near another school. Since Mr. Kaiser was covering schools in two townships during these years, it seems likely that he may have taught at others along the way.
If so, he may have met the Phillips family through that school. Kaiser and Clio later married, moved down to Delaware County, then relocated to Chicago.
The director of the Four Corners School — somewhere between a local principal and a district superintendent — was Noah Earnest, a nearby property owner. In fact, one wonders if Earnest Road was named after his family. Another landowner was Squire Fletcher, also listed on the souvenir.
His property was closer to the school. More elusive was Leon Barker. I found a man by that name living in Centerburg in 1915, but no census reports turned him up elsewhere in the county throughout this period.
