Allamakee co. IAGenWeb Project - School Records
updated 03/28/2016


Sand Bank or Morgan
Country School No. 4
Section 29, Iowa Township


Morgan school, photographer A. Bruce Owens, 2003
Morgan school, photographed by A. Bruce Owens, 2003

The old building is down the road from the Morgan farm house on land donated by my great grandfather. My grandmother Anna Bakewell Morgan lived in the Morgan house while teaching and before she married my grandfather. My mother Kay Morgan Owens taught her siblings Marietta, Marguerite and John.

The historical marker reads:
Morgan or Sand Bank School (Iowa Twp. No. 4) was built ca1890 and closed in 1953. Rose Zoll was the last teacher.

~contributed by A. Bruce Owens

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Sandbank Country School - photographed by Errin Wilker
Sandbank or Morgan Country School, 2006
~photographer Errin Wilker

This old schoolhouse in located outside of New Albin, in Iowa township, on county road A26 .  As of 2006, the school is still standing, but in very poor condition.  Someone has replaced the roof, the the foundation is crumbling as you can see in the photos.

Sandbank Country School, 2006 - photographed by E. Wilker
Sandbank or Morgan Country School, 2006

~Photos & text by Errin Wilker

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New Albin, Ia. - Oct 23- What might appropriately be called the Hammell college or institution is the rural school of 20 pupils a few miles west of New Albin, taught by Miss Katherine Morgan, for 19 of her 20 pupils have the surname Hammell. The one pupil who is not a Hammell is Helen Weymiller.

Louis M. Alcott wrote a book about "Eight Cousins," but Miss Morgan could write a book about 19 cousins. The 19 Hammells in this Hammell institution of learning come from four different Hammell families. The George Hammell, Con Hammell, and Charles Hammell families each are represented by five children in the Hammell college, while the Fred Hammell family has only four.

The 19 Hammell pupils who comprise the Hammell school are as follows: Alberta, Catherine, Earl, Georgie and Pauline; Agnes, John, Mary, Raymond and Walter; Mary, Richard, Rita Mae, Robert and Vernon; and Clemence, Cletus, Dorothy and Vincent.

Thus it may be noted that there are two Mary Hammell's, and the first Mary Hammell is the second Mary Hammell's cousin. Otherwise Miss Morgan has very little trouble with her alphabetical arrangement of last names in her register. And every time she calls the roll she says Hammell 19 times.

~Telegraph-Herald and Times-Journal, Dubuque, Iowa, Wednesday evening edition, October 22, 1930
~transcribed by S. Ferrall

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