(Incomplete newspaper clipping, publication source and date unknown, forwarded from Martha Foulks Binsley)

St. Clair Township's Early History Vividly Recalled

...The remaining son [of William Foulks], Charles Morgan Foulks spent his entire lifetime in St. Clair Township. For many years he was the only school teacher in the township. He was a great student, and frequently at night was to be found head bended over books, while the dim light of the tallow candle flickered hard by.

Charles Foulks not only taught school in the day session; but after the dismissal of the regular sessions, which in the olden days continued only three months during a year, established a private school, where higher instruction was taught to those who found it convenient to pay their teacher a small compensation.

In addition to teaching school, Mr. Foulks also became a Justice of the Peace in St. Clair township, and in the early days was looked upon as the "legal advisor" for folks of that district lying north of the Ohio river.

Charles Foulks also had a "mercantile" leaning, and after a term of school had ended, he built a little one kiln pottery on the banks of Long's run near Calcutta, and there manufactured a line of yellow ware. The finished product was hauled overland to the banks of Beaver creek near Fredericktown, and then floated in boats down the creek to the Ohio river, thence to the different markets. The old foundation of this plant is still to be found on the Foulks farm, but nothing has been left of the building.

Charles Foulks later became County commissioner, and it was then that St. Clair township first began its activity for improved roads, and which effort has continued.

Charles Foulks retained the original homestead in later years, and he was the father of Charles, James, Daniel, Albert and two daughters, Margaret and Jane. Charles, James and Albert served through the civil war, Daniel Foulks became a practicing physician, elected a Justice of the Peace in St. Clair township and many of the older attorneys practicing law in the southern part of Columbiana county tried many of their earlier cases before his court.

Following the civil war Albert Foulks returned to St. Clair township and took up the practice of law...

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COMMENTARY
Thom Foulks, Colorado Springs, 1997

The schoolhouse in which Charles M. taught had a famous predecessor, and the site is now honored in Calcutta. The original schoolhouse, which was built in the 1880's, was named for William Holmes McGuffey, the renown educator and author of the famous McGuffey Readers. McGuffey Hall once stood on the property where the current Calcutta Elementary School now stands. McGuffey had his first teaching position in Calcutta (then called Foulkstown). He taught from about 1816 to 1820. Between 1836 and 1857, he wrote six eclectic readers, which dealt with moral principals. McGuffey received only $1,000 for his books in accordance with his publishers. If he had been paid a penny for each copy sold, he would have received around $1,200,000.

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