The History of Genesee, MI, Ch. 4, First Schools

FIRST SCHOOLS.

According to Edward A. Todd, the first school teacher in Flint was a man by the name of Billings, whom he describes as a "tall raw-boned, red-headed fellow," whose school was across the road from Todd's tavern. But col. E. H. Thomson gives the generally received opinion that the first school was kept by Daniel O'Sullivan. This was in 1834, in a shanty on the river's bank, near Hamilton's cabin, or upon the site of the present Genesee mills. His terms were ten cents per week for each pupil. There were about a dozen pupils, sons and daughters of John Todd, James McCormick, R. W. Stevens, James W. Cronk, Lyman Stowe, and his own. He thus netted for his labors less than one dollar and twenty cents per week.

In 1835 a man by the name of Aaron Hoyes taught a school in the same place and during his illness a young woman by the name of Lucy Riggs temporarily filled his place. At that time the pupils were the three Stevens children, Leander, Albert, and Zobedia; the Cronk children, Corydon, Walter and Abagail; Edward Todd; Adeline and Emeline Stowe, and the McCormick children, William, Ann and Sarah. In 1836 a small school house was put up on the corner now occupied by the Fenton block, in which the first school was kept by a Miss Overton. She received a dollar a week.