Another duty of the new council was the establishment of schools. An election for the board was held and the following officers were elected. The first Huntington Independent School Board consisted of:

James K. Oney Secretary of the Board.	Sam Gideon	H. C. Simms	B. H. Thackston
Not Pictured: H. M. Adams, R. Enslow & W. O. Watts

The first school opened on a lot fronting Fourth Avenue between Seventh and Eighth streets in 1872. The principal was paid seventy dollars a month and the teacher was paid thirty-five dollars a month. Another school was intended for the eastern end of the city, but due to difficulties in obtaining a site it was decided that classes for younger students would be opened at what is now Marshall University. This is the beginning of the long relationship of the city of Huntington and Marshall.

Marshall University was once called Mt. Hebron. In was a log house built on a high point of land about two miles below the mouth of the Guyandotte River and about two blocks south of the Ohio River sometime in the 1830's.

A little about Marshall- The founding of Marshall University came in 1838, when John Laidley established a new school at Mt. Hebron. He named it after his friend and mentor, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. The Virginia Assembly took over the school after finances drove the school to the verge of bankruptcy and renamed the school Marshall College in 1858. During the Civil War Laidley's niece, Salina C. Mason, purchased the school in 1863 for $1,500. The state agreed to take over the school in 1867, using it to train teachers. The state paid Miss Mason $3,600 for the school.