Acme School

It you drive out of North Manchester toward the west today on Highway 114 it is not far to the West Manchester Church of the Brethren on the south(left) side of the road. At the edge of the churchyard in the northeast corner very near the road is a small brick building. This is school number 6 or Acme school and much of the story-or should I say stories- of Acme school have been wonderfully preserved for us in pages written in 1926 and 1927 by E. E. Frantz who was a student at Acme and then a teacher there for many years. Ida Miller Winger, Alice King Eby, Bertha Miller Neher, and the Ebbinghouse Brothers were other well-known teachers or students there.

When Frantz was writing the story of Acme white settlement in the vicinity of North Manchester was not yet 100 years old. The first cabin within the present limits of North Manchester, erected in 1836 by Peter Ogan had just recently been torn down. An amazing percentage of the persons who came to Wabash county in those early days came here from Montgomery County, Ohio and many were of German heritage. The area in 1830 was heavily forested with walnut, poplar, oak and elm most common. Some Indians were in the area but many had moved to settlements south of the Wabash river.

Both the Wabash and Erie Canal and the National Road were important means of transportation. The National Road advanced across Indiana in the 1830s and the Canal reached Huntington in 1835. From those regular means of transportation some came further by foot or horseback and later by wagon through the mud to choose a place for their cabin.

E. E. Frantz tells the story of his grandfather, Christian E. Frantz coming to Indiana like this: "In 1839, he in company with one of his cousins, carrying axe, gun and knapsack, walked via the National road from near Springfield Ohio to Richmond Indiana; thence by Indian trails northward across Wayne, Randolph and into Jay County, where they found the head-waters of the Salamonie river, which they followed to the Wabash, at Lagro. They then came to Manchester (it was not North Manchester until later) and to a place three miles north of Acme where he purchased the land that became his home for sixty years. At this time he "deadened" a few acres of timber and returned to Ohio by the same route, married and in 1841 came with his bride and a little furniture via canal to Lagro, thence to the spot chosen for his homestead."

Alice King Eby wrote "Life among the Acme people was marked by moderation and conservatism in all the details of life. The people were neither very rich nor very poor. Nearly every one owned his own home, paid his debts, worked hard six days in the week, and spent one day in rest, worship and in good fellowship with his friends." Many were German Baptist Brethren, some were Lutheran. They tended to marry with their church fraternity. It was a united community strong in faith, morals, industrious and characterized by simple living.