HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN PASCO COUNTY

Fort Dade Schools

In a 1922 article in the Dade City Banner, C. B. Taylor wrote, “The first school in this neighborhood was established in the loft of Tyner’s gin near Fort Dade. The furniture consisted of a long desk made from a plank and of benches made from boards, the legs being stuck in holes at the four corners, nails were scarce and too expensive to use. A Mr. Plumbley was the first teacher.”

The famous author and soldier Francis Calvin Morgan Boggess (1833-1902) taught at the Fort Dade Academy in the early 1850s. In his autobiography, Boggess wrote:

When the author landed in Fort Brooke the country had but few settlers and it was impossible to get employment. He had no money but found a gentleman and lady from Alabama and lived with them as one of the family. Mr. Gideon Tyner, who lived at Fort Dade came down to Tampa to catch a supply of mullet. He had no school in his vicinity and he prevailed on Mr. Boggess to go and teach school for them.

School teaching was repugnant to him but as there was nothing else to do he accepted and went home with him.

The school house had only one door in the end, had no benches to sit on or to write. With the aid of the young man, as there were several older than the teacher, benches were made and he taught a successful school for three months making thirty-five dollars a month.

After school was out he returned to his old Alabama friends, Mr. and Mrs. Oats and James Stanfield, on whose boat he had come from Key West to Tampa, had accepted to get out two sets of maple tenpins for John Grillon, of Key West. Mr. Boggess went with him in the woods, got out the timber and turned them and with Captain Dick Turner went over carrying some chickens, potatoes and the tenpins which were sold for forty dollars.

The life of a sailor suited Mr. Boggess and they went back again and by exposure he contracted a severe case of inflammatory rheumatism, which lasted until winter, when all of his money was gone. Mr. Tyner came for him again and he went up to Fort Dade and taught there three months more. There seeming to be nothing better than teaching, he took a school on the Alafia River and taught almost continuously for three years in the same neighborhood, and taught the first free school, for forty days, that was ever taught in South Florida.

The following is taken from Teachers and Schools on the Tampa Bay Frontier (1997) by Canter Brown Jr.:

In one case, the teacher became the benefactor. The event occurred in 1875, in the Fort Dade neighborhood of today’s Pasco County. A Mr. P. Wilkins arrived from North Carolina and, in a resident’s words, “opened a small school with a view to instruct the little ones, but his kindness, generosity, and earnest efforts in their behalf, soon increased the school to such an extent, that his small house could illy afford room for his pupils.” The account continued, “With a heart abounding with love for his charge, he intimated to the citizens of the neighborhood that he would gladly furnish the means to purchase a tract of land and build thereon a large, neat and comfortable house, and donate the same in perpetuity to the neighborhood.” A community meeting proclaimed that Wilkins’s "noble act will never be forgotten by the good people of Fort Dade, and long after his earthly race is run and his soul has crossed the deep waters the young beneficiaries of his munificence will rise up and bless the name and deed of P. Wilkins.”

A footnote gives the source of this information as the Savannah Morning News, Nov. 22, 1875.

The Fort Dade Seminary in Hernando County is mentioned in the Sunland Tribune of Jan. 6, 1877.

An 1877-78 list of Hernando County schools shows the Fort Dade Seminary operated that year from Oct. 1, 1877, to Dec. 22, 1877, with W. C. Dodd the teacher. The trustees were A. C. Sumner, N. A. Carter, and W. L. Mobley.

An 1883-84 list of Hernando County schools shows a Cartersville Academy with teacher J. A. Cunningham and trustees N. A. Carter and A. C. Sumner.

The Fort Dade Messenger of July 11, 1884, has an advertisement: “Fort Dade High School! Tuition in this school embraces the various branches taught pupils in all high schools. Terms Liberal. Pupils from abroad can obtain board in the town of Fort Dade in convenient distance. S. L. Hancock, Charles Croft, Henry Jordan, Trustees.”

The 1886-87 Florida State Gazetteer shows M. A. Murphy as the teacher at Fort Dade.

School board minutes of Sept. 5, 1887, show N. A. Carter, Jss. N. Sumner, Isam D. Howell as the trustees of Fort Dade Academy, No. 8.

A deed dated Nov. 9, 1889, transferred property in S30 T24 R21 from Levi Eiland and his wife to the school board.

On Sept. 5, 1898, school board minutes have: “A petition was filed by the citizens living in the neighborhood of the old Fort Dade School house asking that a school be established at the old school building; on motion it was refused, as it comes within the three mile limit.”

School board minutes of Oct. 3, 1898, have: “On motion a special school was granted at Fort Dade.”

School board minutes of Oct. 6, 1902, have: “Mr. J. M. Mitchell informed the Board that the Fort Dade school house had fallen down, was badly decayed and in almost a worthless condition, and offered one dollar for the same; on motion his offer was accepted.”

School board minutes of July 1, 1912, show that a school was granted for Fort Dade.