Nancy Greer Johnson, an elderly woman, taught the first school held in Laketown in 1869 located on the Thomson lot south of the public square. It was held for three months of the year in a dirt floored log cabin.
In 1874 Joseph Thompson Cheney built a two room frame house on his lot east toward the canyon. Then he put a stock of groceries, staples, dry good, and some hardware into the log how. These he sold for cash, grain, butter, or eggs which he freighted to Evanston, Wyoming.
While in Evanston on one of these trips he met a young man by the name of Robert Spence, well educated with a brilliant mind, but jest then greatly in need of a change of climate and kind friend. Mr. Cheney brought him back with him and from then on he taught a school in Laketown with the exception of the years 1875 and 1876, when he taught in Woodruff.
The school term after Mr. Spence came was extended to six months a year. He taught advanced classes in mathematics, English, history, civil government, rhetoric, orthography and public speaking. Word of the fame of this man's work spread throughout the valley and pupils came to attend his school from Paris, Bloomington, St. Charles and other places. Many adults were enrolled including: Joseph Irwin, George N. Weston, Eliza Kearl Johnson and others.
During the time of his classical work, so rarely to be known in such primitive surroundings, a standard was set towards education that brought unlimited good and and advancement to the people of Laketown and to all those who were able to take advantage of his tutoring.
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