INFLUENCE OF A SINGLE FARM COMMUNITY. 7 
forth the ordinary farm community situation, and especially migra- 
tory tendencies in the United States, can scarcely be doubted. There 
seems to be one factor only in which this community differs materially 
from most other American communities, namely, in the possession of 
an educational institution of high-school grade for nearly a hundred 
years, under farmer control. The farmers' centralized high school of 
the present day is so widespread that it is by no means uncommon for 
a farm community to have a high-school history of several years, but 
a century of such annals is certainly exceptional. 
METHOD OF STUDY. 
An outline of the method of study will throw some light upon the 
results. An investigator visited the community and remained there 
for five months, making a collection of records, maps, histories, and 
newspaper accounts, covering the period studied. Every accessible 
source of information on the history of the farms and on the history 
of the families which had lived on the farms was used by the 
investigator. 
A list of the names of all students who had attended, the commu- 
nity academy was compiled. Each person on this list was traced to 
his home farm, and note was made of his family connections, his final 
residence, occupation, and achievements. It was found that these 
students had scattered to all parts of the country. (See fig. 1.) 
This method of inquiry was in effect an historical analysis of the 
community, family by family, farm by farm, institution by insti- 
tution. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE COMMUNITY. 
GEOGRAPHY OF THE COMMUNITY. 
Belleville is a small agricultural village of not more than 500 peo- 
ple, situated in the township of Ellisburgh, 6 miles from a railroad, in 
Jefferson County, New York. (See fig. 2.) The country surround- 
ing the village is a section of fine farming land, rolling in character, 
sandy in the west, clay loam in the center, and a slate loam in the 
east, all underlain close to the surface by limestone. It has long been 
a good dairy section. 
SETTLEMENT AND EARLY HISTORY. 
Settlements were made near the present site of the village about 
1802. The spot afterwards named Belleville was favorably situated 
for milling purposes, and finally grew into a village. The first school 
was taught in a blacksmith shop in 1805. In 1807 a log schoolhouse 
was built, without floors, and with an elm-bark roof. Almost all of 
the settlers came from eastern New York State and New England. 
Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island furnished 
the greatest number. Few foreign-born persons have settled in the 
community, those coming being mainly of English or Irish extraction. 
