School
SCHOOLS
SCHOOL HISTORY
From the Town of Alexandria Historian's office, courtesy of Town Historian Hazel McMane
According to history the first school house was located where the Reformed Church now stands. It was built in 1821. Evidently school meeting records were not kept until 1827. At this time the school was being held in a room rented from Abel Root at 75 cents a month. The first school meeting was held in a room in the back of a store owned by A. Chapman on the first Tuesday of November, 1827. John Fuller presided at the meeting. The trustees evidently intended to have one meeting a year because the minutes show it was adjourned until next November.
The rooms were heated by wood. Each parent was taxed half a cord of wood for each child attending school. The first movement to build a school failed because of lack of interest. This building was to have been 20 by 24 feet and not to cost more than $120.00.
The first teacher was Lemuel Goodell. The teachers boarded around at the homes of the parents. When the parent boarded the teacher, he was exempted from the wood tax. The average salary for a teacher was $50. a year.
In 1828 the school house was built, costing $120.
In 1855, they built a stone building costing $400. to accomodate the growing population. Charles Crossmon donated land for this building. The school semesters were divided into winter and summer terms.
FIRST SCHOOLS
after Growth of a Century by John A. Haddock, 1895
Haddock reported that in 1880 Alexandria had a population of 3,135. The town was located in the third school district of Jefferson county, and in 1880 had 22 school districts, one of which was joint, in which 28 teachers were employed the same number of weeks or more. The whole number of scholars attending school was 931, while the aggregate days attendance during the year was 78,606. The total value of school buildings and sites was $17,400, and the assessed valuation of all the districts was $1, 275,061. The whole amount raised during the year for school purposes was $8,602,02; $5,299.11 of which was received by local tax.
By 1912 the Thistle Factory District had been added as District 23. In a series of articles appearing in The Thousand Islands Sun, Mina Herrick King in 1980 detailed them from memory. Unless otherwise specified, these were all one room schools, scattered among the farms of the Town of Alexandria, and located so that the children could walk to school. One teacher taught all grades, usually one through six, occasionally one through eight. For those few who could afford the time for education beyond grades six or eight, high school was available in Redwood and Alexandria Bay. The villages had graded schools, as opposed to district or country schools. Graded schools might have two to four teachers, the children being separated into grades. Before the highschools were established, many villages and hamlets had private institutes, seminaries or other facilities for higher education. These charged tuition, and were a sort of combination high school, preparatory school, or junior college.
The one room school, with its dedicated teacher, and often low teacher-pupil ratio, provided an excellent elementary education. This coordinator, her husband, and our parents were all products of these one room schools of Jefferson County. In many respects, our school experience was far richer than that of our children, who attended large, impersonal, and sterile modern suburban schools. With a maximum of two or three professional careers open to the nineteenth century woman, it is no wonder that the country school commanded the very best of instructors.
The first school-house in Alexandria Bay was a primitive log structure erected in 1821. It stood on the lot now occupied by the Reformed Church. A fine graded school building was erected in 1884, and in 1885 opened for classes. It had five departments under the instruction of competent teachers.
THE COMMON SCHOOLS OR RURAL SCHOOLS OF ALEXANDRIA
from a paper found at the Town of Alexandria Historian's Office, courtesy of Town Historian Greta Slate.
Situated throughout the township were 23 schools, of which 21 were classed as ungraded or district schools. These were small one-room buildings, usually of simple wooden structure, although in one instance, a sturdy stone building was constructed. Generally the school was located at the points of converging roads in order to be most easily accessible to the rural population.
In the early days of the town attendance was optional. School was usually held in two terms, a summer and a winter term to coincide with the season when the children could be most advantageously spared from the farm work. In later years the school year was set at a regular schedule between September and June. It was held at 36 weeks for many years until about 1930 when it was lengthened to 38 weeks.
Conditions in the early schools were of the most primitive, seating, lighting, teaching materials being of the simplest form. The building was usually heated by a wood burning stove, often of the box type, having no grate, in which a fire was kindled each day, leaving the building a frigid temperature overnight during the winter months. Sanitary conditions consisted of outhouses. The water supply, a bucket filled at the nearest spring or well and shared often with a common drinking cup. Later these conditions were remedied, partly through enforced regulation and the general rise in standards of living.
By 1920 many schools had improved the lighting conditions by placing nearly all or all of the windows on one side of the building, thus eliminating cross shadows and giving a stronger light. Electricity and improved plumbing facilities made their appearance where such was possible. The isolated loacation of so many of these buildings necessarily prevented much modernization. The number of pupils attending these schools fluctuated, since often the farms were operated by tenant farmers, who made November 1 or March 1 a moving day.
During the years of the rural schools' existence, in the 20th century, they served as preparatory schools for further education in the academic schools of the villages. It became the accepted procedure for the pupils to continue their studies at the high schools after having qualified by passing the required Regents examinations at the completion of the eighth grade.
Gradually, with improved transportation (the better roads and the automobile) the children of the upper grades attended the village school, leaving six graded classes in the district school. While the number of pupils diminished because of the forgoing reasons, it was still possible in the 1920s to find a school operating on the eight grade basis with more than 20 pupils.
Throughout the years teachers' wages differed according to the living conditions and later according to law. In earlier days a very small sum was allowed the teacher who lived or boarded around among the residents as a part of his salary. This condition passed out of use many years ago and wages gradually were raised until a $20 weekly wage as a minimum was set by New York State law and $30 was considered an excellent wage.
These district schools were administered by a trustee elected at the annual meeting held the first Tuesday in May. The position was unremunerative but for reasons of pretige and influence on school policy or selection of the teacher, it was often sought. A collector, also elected, collected the tax of the district, based on assessed valuation of the district property. He was required to file an annual report of his transactions at the town cleerk's office. Public money, received from the state, supplemented the local funds and was used usually for the teacher's salary, although in cases of contracting with another district for education of the children, that public money could be used for transportation or tuition.
In spite of the extremely limited means at hand, meager supplies for teaching, lack of all equipment as is now available for teaching, much good work was done in the common or district school. As a chain is only as good as its weakest link, so these schools were as effective as their teachers. Many were dedicated individuals, entering the teaching field with little preparation, a certificate often being granted to promising high school students, who assumed a position of real leadership in the community, teaching and guiding those who later went on to complete high school and college.
After careful consideration of the issue, centralization of the schools of the town was effected in 1945. This was in keeping with the statewide trend. Nearly all of the districts that had not previously contracted with the village schools at Alexandria Bay or Redwood, were at this time included in the Alexandria Bay Central School with transportation furnished by school operated busses. The last district to function independently was No. 4, situated at Schnaubers Corners. Closed in 1952, it was soon purchased and converted inot a dwelling.
The school buildings throughout the town have, as of 1960, gradually disappeared from the scene, in some cases becoming residences or having fallen into such a state of disrepair that they have been dismantled. The building at Swan Hollow, No. 13, destroyed by fire in 1944 while still in use, was not rebuilt.
Thus passed a way of life. The district school not only served as the seat of learning in the rural community but also, in earlier days, was used as a place of worship and a center of social life.
If you have additional information, comments, or suggestions, please contact:
Nan Dixon
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