Paint Off; Row Settled

Detroit Free Press, February 10, 1901

I'm tired so I'm going to keep this one brief or else it will never
get written. The trouble at the Hicks School in Nankin began when Miss
Millie Sawslayer decided that the little red schoolhouse should paint
over the lower panes of glass to keep the students from staring out the
window during class. Director Hicks and moderator Martin Harrison agreed.

Unfortunately, Treasurer Samuel Bills did not and neither did his children.
They grew tired of going to the place they considered a prison and
their father stopped taking them to school. Word got around and soon
there were only 2 children attending class. One being the adopted
daughter of Director Hicks and "that Flarriety boy". The three Hammond
boys were supposed to be there but they were busy skipping class and
hanging out in a makeshift shanty that they constructed on their
father's farm. Their punishment was going to school!

The feud between the board members went on for a month and a special
meeting was finally called in the middle of January when attendance
ebbed to its aforementioned low point. In between then the glass was
broken several times in defiance of the board and each time replaced and
painted over at the bottom pane.

Finally an agreement was
brokered and the students returned to the school for one week under the
painted glass before a group of workers removed it to the delight of the
children and the quarrel-weary town.

Detroit Free Press, January 26, 1901

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The Nankin Township Historical Society

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