Near the southern tip of the Allen-Woodson border, is an immense native stone rise that’s known by many as Zeig’s Hill, and before that, Quackenbos Hill.
The name comes from Professor George Quackenbos, a nineteenth century schoolmaster from Connecticut who had the idea of pioneering a place of higher learning, one he would christen the Humboldt Academy for Boys.
Indeed, the distance between Zeig’s Hill and Humboldt is only a few miles, though this turned out to be more of a detriment to the school than a benefit.
Quackenbos successfully convinced wealthy parents from eastern states to send their sons out west to escape the typical depravities found in cities, but it seems Humboldt provided plenty of temptations of its own.
Though the inchoate German settlement had been in business only a little over a decade by the time the Academy got started, the students found no shortage of drinking and other appealing forms of entertainment there.
Saloons and beer gardens abounded, brimming with Civil War vets looking to drown their memories of war in alcohol.
AT THE base of the hill, near Scatter Creek, I dreamed the academy boys there, walking their pinto ponies slowly and quietly away from the hillside.
The moonlight illuminated the tall two-story Academy with its long white porches, allowing the fellows to escape its confines to make their way to town.
Full of liquor, their return journeys, however, surely lacked the initial stealth.
Fed up with the debauchery, Quackenbos gave up the Academy to try teaching elsewhere, though this was only the beginning of the lore surrounding the place that once bore his name.
For instance, it seems some combination of nuns and female students moved into the academy building shortly after, and supposedly exhibited behavior more restrained (or at least more sneaky) than their male predecessors.
WHAT occupied the house on Zeig’s Hill next was a flurry of classic Wild West imagery, and where the line between historical fact and folklore often becomes delightfully blurred.
In the 1870s, the impressive structure was converted into a stagecoach stop, with huge double-doors on the east side (facing Humboldt) that allowed one to drive an entire team straight up the hillside and indoors.
Herein was supposedly where the metal “Humboldt Academy” sign was hung that now resides in the Allen County historical museum.
The Academy building became a stage stop since it was positioned along the wagon trail from Iola to Buffalo, and was also not far from another famous coach stop called the 7-Mile House.
(Today, limestone fragments from the 7-Mile House are scattered across a nearby corn field, and hence the farmers thereof, Garrett and Shilo Eggers, joked that I should collect as many pieces as possible for my historical research.)
