Transcriber: Robert Lipprandt
bob@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
----Surnames: Austin, Burton, Cook, Cook, Eastman, Freemont, Jacobitz, McCurdy, Moore, Ransom, Salter, Vaughan
----Source: Public Record; *Unity H.S. Class of 1910 (64 Yr. Reunion – 1974); **Unity High School - Possible Closing (1954); ***Unity High School - Last Graduation (1954); 1945 Unity Quill Yearbook;
History of Unity Public Grade and High School
1874: The first log schoolhouse, consisting of a one room plan, was erected. At the time, it was sufficient for the few pupils, and Mr. H. L. Jacobitz was the first teacher. He was succeeded by Mary Eastman and she by I. J. Austin, respectively.
It was I. J. Austin, who started the two room system, with four lower elementary grades in one room.
1883: Later in the year of 1883, John R. Salter, graduate of the University of Wisconsin, started our first High School. His first graduating class consisted of the following: Fred Vaughan, John Freemont, Arthur Ransom, Jennie Cook, Worden Cook, Calvin Burton, and Grant McCurdy.
1890: A fire caused by several pupils playing with matches in the woodshed destroyed the schoolhouse. After a short time a new one was constructed, being much better equipped, but soon it was too small.
1910: *The class of 1910 was the last to graduate from the frame building, before a new school was constructed.
1911: Present school was built.
1954: **Petition to Keep Unity High
A direct appeal to the Marathon county board of supervisors to intervene to prevent the threatened closing of the Unity High School at the end of the present school year, was made by fourteen taxpayers of Unity who signed a petition and presented it to the board.
The petition cited that the Unity High School is said to have been the first established between Stevens Point and Ashland and which has been in existence since the 1880’s, is endangered "at least in part by the action of lack of action by the county school committee and the county school superintendent. (The Marathon and Clark county school committees recently approved an order detaching part of the Unity district and its attachment to the Spencer district.)
The petition calls for the county board "to cause an immediate and impartial survey of the situation and to recommend or instigate whatever action is needed to continue the Unity High School." The petition was referred to the board’s committee on education.
All school district reorganizations in Marathon county during the past year have been upon petition of the electors of the districts of the town boards or local school committees and no single order has been issued by such groups on their own initiative, W. E. Moore, Marathon county superintendent of schools, told the Marathon county board of supervisors at its session at the courthouse in Wausau.
1954: ***Last graduating class of Unity High School. Grade school classes are expected to be continued in the present brick building - the third for Unity since the first frame building was erected in 1874 - while the high school pupils will attend school in Colby, Wis.
