Mini Field Trips

Speaker: Chapin Rose
Date: April 10, 2007

Representative Rose came to the elementary school to speak to us about Lincoln and his job as a lawyer. Rose, like Lincoln, is also an attorney. He told us a lot of interesting stories about Lincoln when he was a state representative. After hearing a few stories, we got to ask Representative Rose questions we had about politics and Lincoln.

Speaker: Dr. Malehorn
Date: April 13, 2007 at 9:30

Dr. Malehorn came to Eastern dressed as Alfred Balch, a school master in Illinois. Alfred Balch was a real person. He was born in Kentucky and had 8 children, but only a few of them survived to adulthood. He proceeded to explain to us things that happened in the “olden days.”
• School was taught from November to March
• Ages in the classroom ranged from 6 to 17 years old
• It cost 50 cents per child per month to go to his school
• Alfred Balch knew Abraham Lincoln. He met him in 1831 when Lincoln was 22 years old.
-- Lincoln went to school for less than a year altogether in his life
-- Everything he knew, he learned from reading.
• In the old days, people ate mostly pork and corn. Most families had a small garden and would go hunting. Potatoes were also a major food source.
• Illinois was a free state, but people were allowed to bring slaves in for one year to work. They couldn’t stay longer than that.
• There were also free blacks in Illinois. They’re life was hard though. Slave hunters could capture them and bring them back into slavery in the slave states.

Dr. Malehorn also brought in items from the schoolroom. Some of the items he brought were:
• A clock
• Books from the 1800s
• A map from the 1800s of the United States
• A Newspaper from the 1800s
• A wallet full of money from that time period