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Weiser Academy

Founded in 1891, Weiser Academy merged with the Idaho Industrial Institute in 1902.

From Weiser Museum’s Facebook – September 23, 2022

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Reverend Edward A. Paddock started the Weiser Academy, which was located on the site of the present golf course. However, in 1899 he broke with the Academy to form the Institute because the Academy’s faculty and trustees refused to start a program for vocational training. Reverend Paddock believed schools should educate “the hand and heart as well as the head,” and the Institute’s students not only followed the usual college preparatory curriculum, but also were required to take either manual training or domestic science courses. Other student obligations included a mandatory non-denominational Bible class and an hour of exercise each day either in the gymnasium, on the tennis courts, or by hiking.

From SlocumHall.org

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Weiser Academy Graduates

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1901 (4)

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Weiser Academy

The story of Weiser Academy has been scanned from the book “From Grubbing Hoe To Model T” by Fern Coble Trull – one of several books she wrote in the mid-1980s about early Weiser History.

I have converted the scans into text for easier reading.

Michael Gribbin

Many of those rugged pioneers who came west and labored to get a better way of life were educated men and wanted an education for their children. They felt the grammar schools were efficient, but they didn’t educate for college, so in the west a number of academies were set up to bridge the gap between grammar schools and colleges and universities.

F.M.Jeffreys started a school on September 2 to run for a term of a 30-week course and he was the principal in 1888, it was a private school with pupils paying tuition, the taxpayers had nothing to do with the educational institution. this meant that not all the children of a community could attend. If a poor farmer, scratching for a living on a sagebrush claim, had six children, he could not pay tuition for all of them, he could barely feed his family. For that reason the Jeffrey School did not prosper long although the training was excellent. There were always closing exercises of the academy to show what the pupils had learned.

“Patrons of the Weiser Academy (high school) will be admitted free to the program, others will pay 25 cents for a ticket, to attend the program for their closing exercises. Miss Olive Jeffreys will play the Grand March. There will be recitations by Fannie Mitchell, Lulu Reynold, Mary Jensen, Maud Smith, Woody Jeffreys and Harry Wulff. A poem by Olive Jeffreys and Nora Morehead, a dialogue, a drama and a farce with characters too numerous to mention.“

The one event that brought opportunity for a higher education to several of the young people of our rural community was the coming to Weiser of the Rev. E.A. Paddock. He was a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio; a course in law at Ann Arbor, Michigan; the theological studies at New York University. Combining this formal training with years of practical teaching, it made the pioneer educator a most qualified man, his service in the Union Army in the civil war broadened him, also.

An editorial in the Weiser Signal, April 18, 1894, says: “Matters are on foot which, if they culminate in success, will enable us to make the announcement that Weiser is to have a Sectarian College which will be the equal of any in the state. Educational advantages…

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…can never be overdone and we will hail with pleasure the consummation of efforts in that line. This paragraph, sandwiched between “locals” in the signal 75 years ago, marks the first mention in the signal of the establishment of the school which was to become “Weiser Academy,” founded in 1894 by Rev. E.A. Paddock.

Later rumors said that a first-class school above the grammar school level will be opened the first of October. It would be a forerunner of a college, second to none. There’d be an industrial department also so that pupils of limited means could pay their expenses with work at the school. There would also be instruction in languages, higher mathematics, and classical courses. Many heads of families are very interested in the news, for the Weiser schools were unrated. There had been no attempt at a high school since 1888 when Mr. Jeffreys tried it and failed.

“Saturday evening, March 14, 1895, a small company of ladies and gentlemen met at Cowin’s Hall in answer to a call for a college meeting. J. W. Ayers was chosen chairman and J. T. Wolfe, secretary.

“Rev. E.A. Paddock arose and in quite extended remarks stated the object of the meeting: In brief, this was to consult together and devise ways and means to establish an institution of learning here in Weiser–an academy (high school) first, trusting that time would prosper the effort that it might develop into the higher dignity of a college or university. To some who doubt, the idea may seem visionary and success doubtful, but a brief glance backward over the educational history of our country will clearly show that the chances of success here have elements that were impossible for some of our great national schools.” (According to the news report, Dr. Paddock at this point told how, in 1794, a small group of men met in New England to devise means of establishing a new institution of learning, which was later built, not in the center of culture but in the forests of Maine where James Bondoin donated 6,000 acres.)

“And so it is with this,” continued the Signal report. “Already a feeble start has been made, sufficient to prove future possibilities. There seems to be a providential combination of circumstances now that favor success. Why not accept the auspicious moment and do all that is possible to plant the seed that will in time develop into the giant tree whose kindly branches will shelter the coming thousands that will foster it still and turn back with grateful hearts to the days of 1895 and the founders of Weiser College,” the report concluded.

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Mr. Paddock decided to start a school where subjects of a more advanced nature than the country schools afforded could be studied, and its first year was held in the new Congregational Church building in 1894. Most of the pupils came from Weiser and many from the upper valleys, up as far north as Council and Meadows, and some from up the Snake River, from Payette, New Plymouth, and even a few from as far away as Boise.

Marguerite Watson (Mrs. Waldo Taylor) writes: “With the help of some of the boy students desks were made–desks which had to be moved out for the church services on Sunday, and then moved back in again for school Monday morning. Miss Miriam Lee, whose father, H. A. Lee, homesteaded where the Rolling Hills addition is today, was the lady principal, and taught piano–she was an accomplished musician–and several other subjects. Her brother, Herbert Lee, also had classes that year. Of course, Mr. Paddock taught, and Professor Shaik, who taught German and mathematics–and nearly drove us crazy with his eccentric movements, continually twisting his hands and feet as he sat there in front of us in class.

Among the students from the country that first year were Marguerite Watson, Anna Ross, Joe Stover, Jon Jenne, Lulu Hitt and Mae Lump. Lula, Mae, and I boarded with Mrs. M. L. Hoyt on East Main Street. Later others from the Flat, Tim Hemenway, Effie and Jamie Campbell, and my sister Stella, attended at different periods.

“The Weiser Academy would start its second year with Mr. A. G. Upton, an Oberlin classmate of Mr. Paddock, and his family came out from the East, and he was made principal of the boys. Mr. Paddock being too busy raising funds for the school to handle that office. Miss Miriam Lee was lady principal.”

After the fire in 1890, when the business of the Old Town (East Weiser) was moved a mile west to “New Town” in 1895, the academy was transferred to Townley Hotel on East Tenth Street. Miss Lee as lady principal, had her office just off the old hotel parlour. Upstairs, there were many rooms for all the girls who wanted to come and board, the boys boarded in different homes in town,

Downstairs were the classrooms, kitchen and dining rooms and a room for the janitor. One of the early janitors was Albert Reavis of Middle Valley.

Girl students took care of the boarding house, doing the cleaning as well as cooking and serving the meals. There were also some girls whose mothers had trained them to cook at home who did the cooking and other girls the serving.

Continued on Page 2 (of 6)

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From Fern Coble Trull’s book “From Grubbing Hoe To Model T”

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