nichepoetryandprose

Last weekend we went on another excursion to try and find some remaining one room schools. We drove from Geary south to Gagetown by way of Westfield, in a loop, going down many side roads.  We found six buildings that may have been one room schools. We were in a hurry so we did not stop to ask anyone about their knowledge of the area. That will happen on a future trip when I have a little more information. (Added note: on July 7, 2016, I visited the New Brunswick Museum Archives and was able to verify the information below from the photo collection by Marion Johnston Dunphy who photographed 150 schools from 1974 to 1984 – The One Room Schools of New Brunswick and What Became of Them. Verifications are indicated below in brackets.)

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Map showing our drive to find one room school houses … the yellow dots and names in blue show the buildings we considered.

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The one room school in Patterson is part of an historical settlement created by the community. It is typical of a one room school house in every way. It also has an outhouse. The historical settlement has the school, a church, a store, a house and a barn.

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Patterson School at Patterson, Queens and partly Sunbury Counties, New Brunswick

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This old building in Lower Greenwich is in poor shape, deteriorated since I took the photo below in October of 2014. In spite of the embellishments it has all the characteristics of a one room school. (This building has been verified as Greenwich School from photos at Archives)

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Meeting hall in Lower Greenwich, Kings County, New Brunswick

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The Central Greenwich Women’s Institute (GEMS Senior Citizens) has an addition with a basement. Although it looks like a school, the middle side window is twice as wide as the other windows.(This building has been verified as Central Greenwich School from photos at Archives)

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Women’s Institute building in Central Greenwich, Kings County, New Brunswick

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A little house near Oak Point caught our eye. It was the same size as a one room school, but the windows and doors were all in the wrong places. The locations of these could have been changed to improve access and conform to an internal plan, but it may be just a small house. (This building has been verified as Oak Point School from photos at Archives)

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roadside building near Oak Point, Kings County, New Brunswick

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There were two school-like buildings at Queenstown. The first was a small building used by the Hampstead Local Service District ( a governance unit in un-incorporated areas). This building had only two windows on each side and an added garage. (This building has been verified as Queenstown School, also called Hampstead #2 from photos at Archives)

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Hampstead Local Service District building, Queenstown, Queens County, New Brunswick

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The second was just down the road, within sight of the Hampstead LSD building. It was larger than the LSD building, had an addition to the back, a stone basement and a tin roof, and was built on a slope beside a small stream. This building also had the larger middle window seen at the Women’s Institute building in Central Greenwich. I have verified this hall is the relocated Orange Hall from the community of Dunns’ Corner, lost when Base Gagetown was created.

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Meeting hall in Queenstown, Queens County, New Brunswick

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I have three ways of discovering the history of these buildings. One is to talk to local people, to hear their stories. Another is to consult the Walling Map (1862) for the Kings County schools. The other is to have a look at a scrapbook of one room schools, kept at the New Brunswick Museum Archives in Saint John. The scrapbook was made by Marion Johnston Dunphy who photographed 150 schools from 1974 to 1984 (The One Room Schools of New Brunswick and What Became of Them). Her photos may help me identify which of the buildings above were once one room schools. (I looked at this photo collection on July 7, 2016 and verified several of these buildings, as indicated above.)

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Regarding the Base Gagetown communities, the Base Gagetown Community History Association has an excellent website with photos of schools once located in the communities there  http://www.bgcha.ca/communities.html .

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June 5 2016 detail of ‘way to school’ Jane Tims

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Copyright Jane Tims 2016