Information Sheet

 

 

R         Union Independent Academy (Lake Spring, Mo.).

127                  Records, 1856-1859.

                                    One volume, with typescript.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

Included here are minutes of meetings of the directors, a list of stockholders, and the consti­tu­tion of the Union Independent Academy at Laketon (now Lake Spring) in Dent County, Mis­souri.

 

The Union Independent Academy was a short-lived attempt to establish a permanent educa­tional institution in an area that, with the exception of the Maramec Iron Works, had only small, private subscription schools.  The Academy was incorporated at Laketon, now Lake Spring, in the northwest corner of Dent County, Missouri.  Residents of Dent and neighboring Phelps County had associated in 1856 to begin planning a non-sectarian school, which was to be built on a ten-acre site donated by Dr. John Hyer, a prominent physician and politician who lived at Lake Spring.  David Lenox was elected president of the association, which was granted a char­ter by the state on 25 February 1857.

 

Construction of the two-story frame building began the same year.  Although the di­rectors were troubled with unreliable contractors, construction proceeded until halted by a lack of funds in 1859.  However, the lower floor had been completed and the directors author­ized its use for a pri­mary school in the summer of 1858.

 

The final meeting of the directors contained in these minutes ended with a call for a meet­ing of all the stockholders of the Academy to raise funds for finishing the building.  Evi­dently the ef­forts were successful, for Goodspeed’s history indicates that as many as eighty stu­dents at­tended the school until its bankruptcy in 1860 or 1861.  Dr. Hyer purchased the build­ing on the Acad­emy's insolvency, but the school never re-opened.

 

The records of the Union Independent Academy include minutes of meetings from 2 May 1856 through 1 September 1859, a list of members and stockholders, and the constitution of the school.  The records were interspersed in a volume that also included the records of the Lake Spring Cemetery Association and the Lecoma Mill Company at Lecoma, Missouri.  Only those pages pertaining to the Academy have been microfilmed in this collection; the mill and cemetery rec­ords have been cataloged by their own titles.  Light blue paper and faded ink have left some of the Academy’s records very difficult to read, and a typescript has been prepared and micro­filmed with the original volume.

 

 

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