Rebecca Harrington Smith Pollard

In her private schools in Farmington, Keokuk and Ft. Madison, Mrs. Pollard developed a unique style of teaching, presenting first-hand activity illustrations whenever possible. She would take her botany class on a picnic in the woods and they would return with plant specimens to study. The battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in the school yard with brooms for guns, blackboard erasers for pistols, and the roll of a beating drum to revive the Spirit of ’76. Apples were divided and eaten in class to teach fractions, and a pot of boiling mush illustrated volcanic action to her students. She also became known as an authority on English grammar, enunciation and pronunciation. From her resourceful experience, she wrote a series of spellers, readers, and a teacher’s manual. The “Pollard Series” of learning was adopted in many parts of the country.

Her private school was a forerunner of the modern school. Rebecca Harrington Smith had come to Farmington from Louisville, Kentucky and married Oliver I. Taylor, editor and writer, in 1858. They soon went to Keosauqua, and then to Burlington, where Mr. Taylor purchased a newspaper, The Argus. When he died, Mts. Taylor returned to Farmington to open her school. She later married James Pollard.  During the years she lived in Farmington, Keosauqua, Burlington, Ft. Madison and Keokuk she wrote a series of poems that were published in 1869 in book form entitled “Maymie,” as a tribute to her ten-year-old daughter who died that year.

The “American lady” was known by editors outside of Iowa (such as the editor of the Louisville Journal” as Kate Harrington. But neither the book nor contemporary newspapers identified the author by her real name. The copyright notice merely afforded a clue to the authorship, “entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by R. H. Smith.” Investigation was necessary to reveal that in reality the “American lady” was Miss Rebecca Harrington Smith who lived at Farmington and signed her newspaper articles and poems as “Kate Harrington.”

Source: In part from Country Facts & Folklore by Andy Reddick - View complete article .