![\"Cordelia](\"https:\/\/44parkave.com\/holdernewt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Cordelia-Jackson.jpg\")
<\/a>On the porch at Rose Hill, the Fraleigh farm house in Red Hook.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
1860 Red Hook Journal article mentions a \u201cprivate school\u201d kept by \u201cMiss Jackson\u201d and in 1877 her \u201cvirtues as teacher of the Primary School are above comments.\u201d In 1879 she taught at the public school and in the early 1880\u2019s she taught \u201cSabbath\u201d school at the Red Hook Methodist church. While she was a teacher, she resided with the John and Jane Curtis family in Red Hook in 1860 and 1870. In 1880 she boarded with Misses Mary, Gertrude, and Charlotte Benedict in Red Hook.<\/p>\n
On 7 Oct, 1884, she left Red Hook for Indian Territory \u201chaving accepted a position as teacher in Spencer Academy, and Indian Mission School of Choctaw Tribe.\u201d She spent two years out there and returned in the fall of 1886. The Spencer Academy was in what would be Choctaw Co, OK. It had reopened in 1882 but shut again in 1886, which, presumably is why Cordelia came home.<\/p>\n
The Choctaw, one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the southeastern United States, wanted to have their children educated. In fact, they placed a high priority on education before and after their removal to the Indian Territory (present Oklahoma) from 1831 to 1834. They saw education as necessary to survive in the white world that was encroaching upon them. Choctaw principal chief Isaac Garvin (1878-80) declared, “I say educate! Educate! Or we perish!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n