Early History of the Seattle Public Schools

In March, 1867, the [Seattle] School Board was organized. By January, 1869, it was ready to go. An eight mill tax was voted. On April 20, 1869, the four most beautiful school lots in America were purchased for $500.00. They were on "Third," between Spring and Madison, towering over Puget Sound, and facing the Olympics, the Cascades, and Mount Rainier, with nothing to impede the views.

First Central School, ca. 1870s. (#094-1)

The contract was let early in 1870. It was for a two story school building, 30 feet by 48 feet, with a
 single classroom on each floor, 30 feet by 35 feet. Marvel of marvels, there were a crowning belfry
 and a huge bell. That bell was a clarion for all the children of Seattle for thirteen years.

It was August 15 [1870] when the new, and first, Seattle public school opened. Miss Lizzie Ordway,
their one and only teacher, was there to receive them, all the pupils from a community that now held
1200 people. Almost half of the "census children" dropped in on Miss Lizzie that morning. Never short
in manner or purpose with boys and girls, she received 125 of them with a welcoming understanding. 
But, naturally, she couldn't keep all of them. There wasn't room in one room--and she couldn't be in 
both of them. So, with a voice of regret, and a parting pat of good-bye, she sent the younger ones 
home to wait a while and to ripen a little.

But she filled the air with adult chidings. So effective were her admonitions, which dwelt upon the shortcomings of adults in person and in general, that Mrs. C. M. Sanderson was suddenly employed to help Miss Lizzie. By the end of the first week they had divided 100 pupils between them, filling both rooms. Lizzie Ordway, more truly than anyone else in the days of early statehood, typifies the devoted woman who gave her whole life to the education and development of the boys and girls of other parents in the public schools. She was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on a day that was noisy with patriotic celebration by many boys and girls of Lowell, July 4, 1828. She was educated in Ipswich Academy, with "proficiency" in the ancient and modern languages...."

Lizzie M. Ordway, the first teacher for the Seattle Public Schools, ca. 1880s. (#001-4)

Miss Lizzie, with six companion teachers of Lowell, paid her fare of $225.00 to Seattle. The eleven 
original Mercer Girls shipped to the Isthmus of Panama with "thin, dark, affable, persuasive" Asa 
Mercer, then President of the University of Washington, 1864. At Panama they crossed, shipped to 
San Francisco, avoided temptations there to shorten the long journey, and boarded the Torrent and 
Tanner for Port Gamble, the Kidder across Puget Sound to Seattle. They were waylaid at the very 
wharf by dozens of ardent bachelors, but reserving judgment, they fled to varied jobs of teaching. 
Their temptations met them in the "dead o' night," eleven o'clock, May 16, 1864.

Text for this page quoted: Hazard, Joseph T. Pioneer Teachers of Washington.
Seattle Retired Teachers Association: Seattle, 1955, 72-73.