54.271B.1-2

Sarah Jane Emery at age 21 at the time she taught at the Hoggatt School, a Washington Township sub-district school. Born in about 1841, Sarah moved to area from Sedalia, Ohio, where her family's home had provided a stop on the underground railway for runaway slaves on their way to freedom in Canada. Sarah took her first teaching job at age 17 in a school two miles south of Nevada. In 1861, a one-acre site just east of Squaw Creek in Washington Township (later part of the new town of Ames) was deeded by Lucian and Abigail Hoggatt to construct a school. Completed in June, 1862, the school had Sarah Emery as its first teacher. (See article in Fall, 1989, issue of "Ames Intelligencer"[the newsletter of the Ames Heritage Assn.] and the booklet, "Faces of Our Founders.")