Schools

Pleasant Grove school bus, 1930s

One of 13 schoolhouses in Washington Township around 1900, the Schooley’s Mountain Schoolhouse sat on Flocktown Road. It was built on the Burrell property. The background of this photo shows how open the mountain was after many trees were forested for the charcoal furnaces for the iron mines. This building is no longer extant.

The school in Middle Valley called the Academy, which was built in the 1840s. This school burned down on March 22, 1926.

The new school which opened in the fall of 1927. The bell that called the children to school sat in the cupola and now hangs in the current board of education building on West Mill Road.

The class of 1939. Grace Cregar was the teacher of this group of 27 children. It appears it was a one room school with mixed grade levels which was common throughout the United States before World War II.

The Flocktown School shown is the third of its kind built for the residents of Flocktown. It was erected in 1860 at a cost of $200. The last teacher was May Skonsberg who taught all the grades – kindergarten through eight grade – in the same room. This school closed in 1929. The modern Flocktown grade school was constructed in 1965. (Photo is courtesy of Sheila Abrams – it was taken by her son Daniel. Thank you, Sheila, for sharing!)

The site of what is now the Municipal Building on Schooley’s Mountain Road, this school was built to house the growing number of students in German Valley. The property was purchased from Mrs. A.D. Hagar, Mr. Howell was the mason and Mr. Apgar was the carpenter. The school opened in 1886. Charles Hendershot was the principal and teacher and Miss Dufford was his assistant teacher.

The Drakestown School was located on the Mt. Olive side of Drakestown Road near the Drakestown General Store. Since Mt. Olive did not separate from Roxbury until 1871, it would have been a shared school. The building is still extant however, the tower and windows have been changed.

This school building on Fairview Avenue was constructed in 1830, replacing an earlier frame structure. It had an average attendance of 35 students. The black and white photograph shows a public venue (auction) being held around 1900. The building has served as a school, a private home, and the town’s public library. It is now the home of the Washington Township Historical Society Museum.

The bell seen in the color photograph of the museum today was discarded in the 1950s. A junk collector found the bell and informed WTHS member Stan Andrews, who purchased the bell. In the 1960s Stan Andrews and Keith Cronshey, another long- time member of the society, built a yoke of wood from the Saw Mill in town to hold the bell. The plaque placed on the new stone mount for the bell reads, “Between 1830 and 1886 this bell rang from a belfry on top of this building when it served as a school. In Memory of Kathleen Darter.” The bell dedication took place in 2006.