Refuting the Ichabod Crane Persona:
Brave Educators of the Pioneer Days

Paul D. Bland, Edwin Church, and Patrick Terry
EmporiaStateUniversity

     A familiar short story from American Literature is the “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, published in 1819. The setting for the saga is Tarry Town, New York, circa 1780, and the nearby glen called Sleepy Hollow. The story’s main character is school teacher Ichabod Crane.
     Irving portrays the vain and cowardly Ichabod Crane as a brow beating, switch wielding, tyrannical schoolmaster who exhibits a significant lack of fortitude when confronted by situations in his life. One example of this lack of fortitude is in his pursuit of story character Katrina Van Tassel, the eighteen year old spinster who resides in Tarry Town. He is a competitor for her hand in marriage with another character, Brom Bones, but Ichabod avoids Brom because he “had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would ‘double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse;’ and [Ichabod] was too wary to give him an opportunity”(Irving, 1992, p.32).
     Another example of Ichabod Crane’s lack of fortitude is the way he allowed his imagination to work on himself. According to the story, Ichabod would often “pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins…”(Irving, 1992, p. 19). Then as Ichabod would make his way home, he would have this reaction:

[Ichabod would imagine that] fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him . . . (Irving, 1992, p.21)

These are just two of many examples from the story illustrating that Ichabod Crane was wholly lacking in fortitude.
     Schools are a reflection of the societies they serve. And, school teachers are a reflection of the citizens of the society that is served by the school system. As such, the validity of the persona of Ichabod Crane is at the very least questionable. Even though the citizens of New York in the late 1700’s were nothing like the way Crane was portrayed, this Irving literary description has followed educators for over two hundred years.
     In the years since “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was published, the implication has persisted that the character traits of Ichabod Crane, including lack of fortitude, are common to schoolteachers. Ichabod Crane is called “a clownish buffoon with questionable intelligence” and a model for most comic portrayals of the country schoolmaster (Safier, n.d., Introduction, ¶ 1). Whereas it is true that little formal education was required to be a teacher in nineteenth century country schools, it is easy to refute the stereotype that educators lacked fortitude both then, as well as now. Many heroes of word and deed are and have been schoolteachers and administrators. Some of these educators were heroes before they became teachers and administrators; some became heroes after they began their career in education. Some of these heroes helped settle the American frontier; others were veterans of various military campaigns; still others are modern-day heroes.
     One such educator-hero who helped to settle the American frontier was a little-known man by the name of John Lyden. Lyden came to the Saline River valley in what was to be Lincoln County, Kansas to homestead shortly after the Civil War was over. Lincoln County is in north central Kansas and land in the area was being given to veterans of the Civil War for their service. Lyden was Irish by descent and a well-educated native of New York. He had been a Union soldier in the Civil War (Lincoln County News, Aug. 28, 1941).
     North Central Kansas at that time was a wilderness of prairie landscape; it was also land that the indigenous Native Americans were unwilling to relinquish. One such group of indigenous Native Americans was the Cheyenne, with whom a number of violent conflicts had taken place as more and more settlers arrived. General Philip Sheridan, who was in command of the army in the area, came to Lincoln County in August 1868 to recruit civilian scouts; his intent was to engage the Cheyenne and put a stop to the violence. Sheridan met a Lincoln County settler named J. J. Peate at Schemerhorn's Store on Elkhorn Creek. Schemerhorn’s Store also served as a military outpost. Peate had been a scout for Sheridan previously and was a veteran of conflicts with various Native American groups. Sheridan recruited him to select and organize a company of volunteers from among the settlers. Twenty-three scouts were selected from the area which is now Lincoln County, among them John Lyden (Barr, 1908).
     The scouts gathered at Fort Hays and traveled to Fort Wallace. Fort Wallace, in western Kansas, was very near the most recent attack. There they met up with General George Forsyth, who led the force in pursuit of the Cheyenne. Forsyth and 51 men left Fort Wallace September 5, following the Cheyenne trail until the afternoon of September 16. They set up camp, expecting to find the Cheyenne the next day. They were in the valley of the Arickaree River in northeastern Colorado (Zion, 2006).
     The Cheyenne attacked the scouts the next morning, September 17, before full daylight. The scouts retreated to the only cover in the valley: a sandbar island in the Arickaree River. They made a fort out of the little island, which had for cover only one cottonwood tree and a growth of willows. The battle waged several hours. About noon the Cheyenne gathered on the hill and among them was a recognizable chief. He was Roman Nose, over six feet tall, one of the tallest Native Americans on the plains. With Roman Nose at the head, several hundred charged straight toward the island. After several attempts to overrun the island, Roman Nose himself fell dead from his horse and the Indian line broke and scattered. The battle now changed to a siege and Forsyth, over the next few days, dispatched three separate two-man messenger parties to walk to Fort Wallace to get help. Some of the scouts sent were unable to get through Cheyenne pickets; others made it after crawling several miles on their hands and knees. Relief forces were immediately dispatched from Fort Wallace to the battlefield, and arrived September 25, at which the Cheyenne dispersed (Sheldon, 1913).
     The bravery of John Lyden and the other civilian scouts and soldiers saved the lives of many Kansas and Nebraska homesteaders. It was later learned that the Cheyenne and other tribes were concentrating for a grand raid, and at the full moon of that very September they intended to be in the settlements of southern Nebraska and northern Kansas. They expected to have two thousand warriors, and their plan was to spread out on both sides of the Republican River and go east as far as possible, attacking all the settlements in their path until troops stopped them. This would have resulted in an eventual attack on the settlers of Lincoln County, had they succeeded (Barr, 1908).
     After this conflict, Lyden returned to Lincoln County. He had a claim of 100 acres, which he farmed and raised cattle with a great deal of success. He was a bachelor and lived in a semi-dugout. Lyden was soon elected the first superintendent of schools for Lincoln County (Lincoln County News, Aug. 28, 1941). According to Samuelson (2000), duties of the county superintendent at that time were varied, so Lyden had the following tasks:      
              Organize the district
              Identify and record the boundary
              Assist with revenue production
              Serve as repository of funds
              Serve as arbiter of disputes between districts
              Hire and evaluate teachers
              Inspect school buildings
              Supervise 8th grade examinations
              Administer and grade teacher exams (pp. 30-31)
Lyden organized the first two school districts in Lincoln County: District #1, Beverly, and District #2, Monroe, both in 1870. It is possible he also organized District #3, Rocky Hill, in1871, but records are not complete (Barr, 1908). At that time, most school districts consisted of a single school.
     John Lyden also served as an officer of the law. In 1871, he was assigned with three others to guard two men named Ezra Hubbard and John Cook, who had been arrested in the killing of a man named John Haley in a dispute over Hubbard’s property claim. By all accounts, Haley had been harassing Hubbard in an effort to get Hubbard to abandon his claim. Haley was on Hubbard’s property when an argument broke out and Hubbard killed Haley. Cook, Hubbard’s son-in-law, had been working with him at the time of the killing. While Lyden was guarding the men, approximately forty friends of Haley mobbed the boarding house where the two were kept, killing Hubbard; Cook escaped in the melee.
     A number of people, including Lyden and the other guards, were arrested and held in the same boarding house while the mob killing of Hubbard was being investigated (Barr,1908). J.J. Peate (1932), the Forsyth scout that had recruited Lyden for the campaign against the Cheyenne, was undersheriff and had been away. He later had this to say about the character of John Lyden and the Hubbard incident:

When I returned, I went directly upstairs at the hotel. The stairs were on the south side of the west room of the log house, the upper landing was at the southwest corner. When near the head of the stairs I saw John Lyden, one of the prisoners. He stepped rapidly to a small table that stood close to the west wall, very near the head of the stairs. He got to the table before I got to the top of the stairs. I then saw that there was a belt and holsters containing a brace of revolvers on the table. John placed his hands on the revolvers, although I was armed. I saw he had the drop if he wished to use it. I did not make a move toward my gun. If John had said, “Hands up,” mine would have gone up, away up. All he said was, “Jack, they do not guard us as close when you are not here.” We walked down the hall to the farther end where the guards and prisoners were. John Lyden was in the army under Gen. P.H. Sheridan and was with Forsyth in 1868. I was with him often in 1869-70. He was a splendid revolver shot with either hand. If he ever used liquor or tobacco, I did not note it. I found him to be a true comrade and a pleasant companion. Although he was accused of assisting in the murder of Ezra Hubbard I do not believe he was an accessory before or after the fact. (p.3)

After the investigation, Lyden was released. Only one person was brought to trial for the mob killing of Hubbard and he was acquitted (Barr, 1908).
     John Lyden died a violent death in 1875. By accounts written at the time, it was believed he was shot as he sat at breakfast in February by someone hiding under the table. His body was thrown into the well at a nearby abandoned farmstead, the house was burned down, and some of the charred timbers were then thrown into the well also. The body remained in the well about a month before it was discovered. Meanwhile, Lyden’s hired hand, one Millard Eaton, started selling Lyden’s cattle, using forged authorization. Eaton was then seen in Salina, Kansas, about forty miles southeast, with a “notoriously bad character”, spending a lot of money. An investigation ensued, but no one was ever brought to trial (Barr, 1908).
     This look into the life of John Lyden shows that the stereotype of pioneer educators created by Ichabod Crane is a myth. Ichabod was “a clownish buffoon of questionable intelligence,” overly superstitious and nervous, and someone who avoided potential trouble rather than confront it (Safier, n.d., Introduction, ¶ 1). Lyden was the exact opposite.
     Another such educator-hero who helped to settle Lincoln County and the American frontier was Alexander Thaddeus Biggs. Biggs was a school teacher and cobbler in Ohio when the Civil War started. In 1861, he enlisted in the 18th Ohio Infantry (Rice, p. 23). Companies from the 18th Ohio Infantry were sent to different points on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and guarded railroads and trains between Parkersburg and Clarksburg, West Virginia, until August of that year. The 18th Ohio Infantry was terminated at that time and Biggs mustered out at Columbus, Ohio, August 28, 1861, at the expiration of term (Stevens, 1995b).
     The 18th Ohio Infantry was reorganized, but Biggs then enlisted in the 2nd West Virginia Volunteer Cavalry. The regiment operated in and around western Virginia until July 1864, when it moved to the Shenandoah Valley. Biggs and other members of the regiment participated in many engagements: Kearnstown, Chambersburg, Opequan, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, Five Forks, Sailor's Creek, and Appomattox Station and was at Appomattox during the surrender of the Confederate Army. The regiment led the Army of the Potomac in the Grand Review at Washington, DC. Biggs was mustered out with the rest of the regiment on the 4th of July, 1865 (Stevens, 1995a).
     After the Civil War, cobblers were no longer needed because shoes became a manufactured commodity. Biggs became the postmaster of Chester, Ohio, and then moved to Lincoln County in March, 1873 because of the land that was available to Civil War veterans (Rice, 1980). He located an available claim on West Twin Creek in Section 34, Township 12, Range 10 in southwestern part of the county and began to build a cabin (Heaton, 1914). The family lived in a tent while Biggs worked to improve the claim. The tent was destroyed in a hailstorm later that spring and the family lived with neighbors until a house was built. That summer Biggs purchased thirty-five hens to help to feed his family; the selling of eggs would also be a source of income. In order to buy the hens, Biggs sold cattle skins and buffalo bones that he had gathered and hauled to the rail station (Rice, 1980). At that time, buffalo bones were processed and used for producing bone black, or bone charcoal, which was used to remove color and impurities in sugar refining. Bones were also made into bone meal fertilizer, buttons, and knife handles (McHugh, 1972).
     Biggs faced the same difficulties and dangers as did other pioneers. In one example of difficulty and danger, in order to obtain supplies, he walked twelve miles to Wilson Station (now Wilson, Kansas) carrying seventeen dozen eggs and a Spencer Carbine for protection. He sold the eggs for fifty cents a dozen and bought provisions for his family. He stayed over night in Wilson Station because numerous big gray wolves were present at the time (Rice, 1980). Another example of the danger and difficulty faced by the pioneers involved a hunting accident Biggs suffered. Buffalo, elk, deer, and wild turkeys were all in abundance and Biggs and a man named Heaton were hunting buffalo on Wolf Creek. Biggs was run down and severely injured by a large bull buffalo and was unable to walk for a time following (Heaton, 1914).
     Biggs returned to his involvement in education in 1876 when he was elected the fourth Lincoln County superintendent of schools. He alternated between being County Superintendent and teacher for the next 30 years and organized most of the school districts in the county (Rice, 1980). By 1881, he was supervising seventy-six school districts in Lincoln County. In addition, he organized a Normal School for the purpose of training teachers in 1877 that began with twenty-three pupils. By 1892, 155 people were attending the Normal School (Columbian History of Education in Kansas, 1893).
     Biggs was widely acknowledged as the driving force in the development and improvement of education in the early days of Lincoln County. Arthur Stanley, one of the original pioneer settlers of Lincoln County, said this about Biggs in his 1915 Old Settlers Reunion Address: “Lincoln County…has had good strong men at the head of its school system, but she has never had but one A.T. Biggs and many a decade will come and go before we shall behold his like again (Stanley, 1915, p. 1).”       
     These two examples of pioneer-educators, John Lyden and Alexander Thaddeus Biggs, refute the stereotype of educators that developed based upon the character of Ichabod Crane. Biggs and Lyndon were reflections of their societies. They were courageous Civil War veterans who became tough and ingenious pioneers who overcame the adversities of the plains of central Kansas. It is clear that the pioneers who established a system of public education on the rugged plains of the post-civil war west were brave, foresightful individuals. They served their country and fellow citizens by contributing to the common good – and the growth and progress of a developing nation.

References

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