The First Teacher at the settlement area of Hamilton that became known as Okemos. Miss Worden had 5 students and was paid $1 per week (and probably her keep). Class was held in Daniel Youngs cooper shop (barrel making), located east of Okemos along Hamilton Road. Among her known students were Mary Turner and Charlotte Bray. Class was held in the cooper shop for about 2 years before a new one-room school house was built in 1849. A minimum of five children needed to be enrolled for the school to have legal status; two of the five children were enrolled at or under age three (Charlotte Bray not yet age 3) to meet the requirement. The new school house was recorded and defined as School District No. 2 or Meridian No. 2.

Miss Worden, a native of New York state, would leave her teaching career to marry Bela Lathrop in October 1846, Ingham County and move to Shiawassee County, Michigan. Bela, born 1818, died in 1867, leaving Samantha to raise 5 children. While Bela was interred Fremont Cemetery, Bancroft, Shiawassee County, Samantha by the 1880's relocated to Cloud County, Kansas. She would die there about 1883.