HISTORY Anthropologist searches for McGuffey's roots

Learning more about the famed educator's beginnings is the effort's goal.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
COITSVILLE -- The land where the boyhood home of William Holmes McGuffey once stood is full of memories that have soaked into the soil like spring rain.
That tangible treasures also are embedded at this landmark location is the hope of Dr. John White, a Youngstown State University professor who is trying to unearth artifacts associated with the creator of those icons of American education commonly known as "McGuffey readers."
White, noted for his archaeological digs in the area, is probing the 78-acre rural property, now a preserve, for the remains of the McGuffey home. Built by pioneers, the structure was likely a log cabin erected on the frontier nearly 200 years ago. The house has long since vanished.
"It disappoints people when they go out there and don't see anything," said White, a professor and chair of YSU's sociology and anthropology department.
White's efforts please Richard Scarsella, president of the William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society.
"If you can find the foundation stones, you might find other valuable artifacts," Scarsella said.
Projects such as White's are important because they keep local history fresh, said Scarsella, a Youngstown schoolteacher whose enthusiasm for the past is evident as he drives about the area and frequently points out historical spots to his passenger.
Even without the exact location of the McGuffey house known, the site is vital enough to have been named a national historic landmark in 1966.
The McGuffey readers were used by scores of Americans who absorbed both practical and moral lessons from them. McGuffey, a stern Victorian, believed in teaching the three traditional "Rs" plus a fourth, religion, Scarsella said.
The scene
The farm where McGuffey learned many of the lessons and values he would pass on to generations of schoolchildren is owned by Mill Creek MetroParks and is designated a wildlife preserve.
Hiking trails have been mown into the small hills. Bluebird houses are affixed to posts just above the waist-high meadow grasses. Thistledown floats in the humid air, and deer linger near two towering maple trees whose rustling leaves give voice to summer breezes.
There is a pond so small a youngster could pitch a stone across it, and a glacial knoll, called a drumlin, that is believed to have been used by Native Americans as a lookout.
About the only evidence of human habitation on the site itself is a stone replica of the McGuffey water well, which was built where the original hand-dug well stood.
The well is near McGuffey Road, named for the pathway the educator's father, Alexander, scratched into the Ohio wilderness so his children could attend the Rev. William Wick's school on what is now Wick Avenue, a Youngstown thoroughfare.
Clues
To White, pioneer staples such as the well and the road are valuable clues in the hunt for the house's whereabouts. It likely would have been close by, he said.
He and his volunteer archaeologists visited the site recently and made three preliminary digs in that vicinity. Their efforts produced little more than the discovery of early 20th-century trash from those who lived on the land after the McGuffeys.
A farmhouse was built on the site in the late 1800s, after the McGuffeys had gone, and stood until the late 1990s.
When it was razed, workers discovered its foundation contained hewn cellar stones similar to those used in earlier types of construction.
The existence of the stones raises a question in White's mind: Could the farmhouse have been built on the exact location as the McGuffey homestead, using the earlier house's foundation?
It's a mystery that teaches a lesson useful in archaeology -- the value of persistence.
"We haven't given up on it," White said.
He plans to return in the winter, when the land is stripped of its summer vegetation and may more readily surrender its secrets.