John McMillan’s Log School, a frontier latin school established in the 1780s, once stood about a mile south of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.  In 1895 it was moved to its current location near the corner of Central Ave. and College St., in front of the former Canon McMillan Middle School, which is now being used in another creative, community manner. The Middle School used to be the Canon-McMillan Junior High School, when I was a student in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and when I did my student teaching at the 9th-grade level in Spanish in 1978. Before the Junior High School it was Canonsburg High School, before that it was Jefferson College, and before that, Canonsburg Academy.  In 1865 Jefferson College merged with Washington College in Washington, PA to form Washington & Jefferson College, and because of the ties to Canonsburg Academy and Jefferson College, W&J can rightfully claim to have been established in 1781.

See a related post featuring digital paintings of Old Main on W&J’s campus and downtown Washington, PA, as seen from campus.  Click here.

I indicated that I had done my student teaching at Canon-McMillan Junior High School, but what I didn’t mention was that, when I was in the 9th grade taking my first Spanish class, my teacher was Mr. James Podboy, a native of Canonsburg and a W&J graduate. I eventually attended W&J, studied Spanish language and literature, and my one and only Spanish professor was Dr. Antonio Moreno, who had been Jim Podboy’s Spanish professor as well.  So, right there in the shadow of John McMillan’s log cabin on College St. in Canonsburg, PA, where Jefferson College once stood, Professor Moreno and Mr. James Podboy ushered me into the teaching profession as a W&J graduate in a pretty darn hometown sort of way.

Technical: I used a reference photo but sketched this freehand in Procreate followed by some photo-editing tweaks in iPhoto.