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Stanhope Schoolhouse A Project of the Pinegrove Historical Society Pine Grove, Pennsylvania PGHS-StanhopeSchool.org [email protected] Submitted by Linda Mills – Chair, Stanhope Schoolhouse  Early History The brick one-room Stanhope Schoolhouse opened in 1876 for grades 1-8. The original brick schoolhouse burned down on October 22,1923. Students who went outside to get coal for the stove heater discovered the building's roof was on fire. Reporting this to their female teacher the only help to extinguish the fire came from families living nearby since there were no phones in the area at that time. The gutted structure was unusable. For the remainder of the 1923-1924 school year, students were transferred to the Marstown School, 2 miles away. In March 1924, the contract for a frame school went to Charles Werner & Co. The cost to erect the 26 by 36 feet frame schoolhouse was $3,440. It was constructed according to specifications submitted by the State Department of Public Instruction. Its design and materials were the first of their kind in this section of the country. Electric was installed at the schoolhouse in 1947. In preparation for the consolidation of schools by the Pine Grove School District, the 1951-1952 school year sent Stanhope students in grades 1-4 to the Marstown school, grades 5-6 were transferred to Brookside school (2 miles away), and grades 7 and 8 remained at Stanhope along with grades 7 and 8 students from Marstown and Brookside. The schoolhouse closed in 1952.  Post-School Use November 13, 1954 a non-profit organization purchased the property from the Pine Grove School District at an auction for $1,000. By 2013 the non-profit organization had determined the building had outlived its useful life and would be demolished. Linda Mills was made aware of this demolition plan in December 2013 and contacted the Pinegrove Historical Society in an attempt to save the schoolhouse. The mission of the society is the discovery, collection, display, preservation, and publication of archives and artifacts of the Pine Grove area, and to provide educational opportunities to the community. Finally on August 6, 2014 the Society took ownership of the schoolhouse for $1 plus closing costs totaling $2,618 and saved this piece of history.  Restoration From a lack of upkeep, there was a large hole (big enough for several large adults to fit through!), and lath and plaster was falling off the walls and ceiling. The abandoned building was a community eyesore marked by a shredded blue tarp flapping on the roof and pieces drifting around the property. Restoration efforts started on October 23, 2014 with an already organized community volunteer group providing 420 hours to repair the roof and clean out debris in the interior at a cost of $3,381 after every rafter on the west side of the building needed to be replaced! Without their efforts the roof would have most likely caved in with the snow that winter. Over the next seven years, some of the restoration work completed by volunteers included:
   Grand Re-Opening The Grand Re-Opening was held August 13, 1922 – eight years and one week (2,929 days) after the society took ownership! Progress was slowed with COVID and at times available volunteers since the project must be self-supporting and needed to rely on private donations, fundraising, and grants to pay for supplies. As much as possible, volunteer labor has worked on restoration, maintenance, and publicity efforts. Over 145 volunteers provided more than 3,500 labor hours . Since then, slate blackboards from another school have been installed, the outhouse foundation has been uncovered, an Eagle Scout project make a milled surface parking lot and removed brush, an historical-type sign has been installed, the exterior has been painted, and design work has been donated multiple years by local university students.    We are very fortunate to have seven Stanhope School alumni providing valuable first-hand information. In 2019 a story about some of them was written by a local AP reporter and was published in over 108 newspapers across the country. Four alumni presented the inaugural educational program “Stories from the Stanhope Schoolhouse” on September, 17, 2022.  Stanhope artifacts acquired from the community includes the 1883-1893 and 1911-1921 Teacher’s Monthly Report books; numerous class pictures, including a couple from the brick schoolhouse; and two sets of report cards.   150th Anniversary The 150th anniversary of the schoolhouse is in 2026. To celebrate this event, the book Inspiring Generations was published to preserve stories, photos, and memories that capture what education and community life was like in the area generations ago. Stanhope Schoolhouse librarian/genealogist, Terry Winters; and chair, Linda Mills compiled and edited the book. Today Stanhope is the only one-room schoolhouse open to the public in Schuylkill County and provides three free public educational programs and an opportunity to view the museum six times a year or by appointment. As with any project, there is still further restoration and maintenance needed for the property, additional classroom items desired, and more visitors to explore this piece of history.  *CSAA thanks our new members from the Stanhope School and congratulate them for realizing their restoration dream through dedicated hard work and determination.
Our readers can obtain PDF copy of this article by Linda Mills, Chair of the Stanhope Schoolhouse. Just click here on STANHOPE SCHOOL PDF.
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 A Peace Process in Action
If you've ever agreed to foster a cat from a rescue group that promised, "just until we can find a permanent home," and after a bit you decide to KEEP that cat forever...it's called a FOSTER FAIL! First, you debate with yourself convinced you don't need a fourth cat: more food, extra kitty litter, more vacuuming, vet bills, will my three knuckleheads get along with the new member? You set up the safe room. The others hover at the door for days, their routines change, they exhibit personality glitches. The initial meeting is rocky, some posturing from both sides, maybe hissing, then days of toleration ...eventually peace. And soon enough they're sleeping in the same space, if apart. You make the call of permanency. That failure becomes one of your successes when the cats settle happily enough in their crowder.* * a group of cats (just learned this!) I couldn't help but see a similar pattern when I was reading a 19th century essay by a county supervisor of rural schools in Pennsylvania. Actually, it was light reading despite its provenance, The Contributors Club section of The Atlantic Monthly, June 1899, Vol.83, Issue 500. That's a mouthful, but it serves as one of his/her first-hand accounts entitled, My Babes in the Woods, p. 857, writer unnamed unfortunately. 1. The Bright Idea* During my experience of seventeen years as supervisor of rural schools in one of the most favored counties in the South, it has been my habit, several times a year to travel twenty or thirty miles a day, often for five days a week, visiting schools....Sometime ago we proposed to consolidate the schools in one of our rural districts. We ordered seven small schools to be closed, hired three wagons to move along the highways and take the children to school, enlarged one of the buildings to accommodate a hundred children and had a fine program laid out. 2. Growing Pains for a Community* It should have been successful but it came to grief because every man wanted to do the "hauling." After the contract was given out, one man said he was not going to trust his children behind "them old runaway mules;" another complained of the driver, who was accused of taking a nip on a cold day; and a third objected to the wagon. The result was that everybody refused to be hauled and the wagons went back and forth almost empty for a month.The men who had the contract for a dollar a day to drive the wagons hauled nobody but their own children. They were content, but they were alone. 3. Compromise and Peace* A petition with many signatures came up before the Board of Education and the committee which was appointed to go over the whole matter declared that consolidation was good thing, but that it did not work for this community. So the wagons were dismissed, the little schools were reopened, and the district is now drifting along sleepily, with its seven separate groups of twenty to twenty-five children, scattered about five miles apart. The schools prevailed and the parents were content. The plan may have been badly managed, but I feel sure it was in advance of its times. Our people just needed time to grow up to it. * (my connections)  Ring Taw and Keepsies How lucky we are to have an interest in searching antique shops for artifacts that enhance our country schools. When we visit schoolhouse museums we often zone in on objects that we'd like to add to our own school collections. We make a mental wish list..."Uh...roll down maps, an American flag made of cotton, another bakelite inkwell, a metronome, a hanging globe, a piece of Holbrook's Apparatus....ahh, what a treasure!" I began a search a few years ago when I spied in a country school, a cluster of clay marbles among the rough hewn toys of another era....shades of tan, handmade, perfectly round, and age appropriate. I had to find some. It didn't take long and our school was rewarded with a whole glass jar of them for a mere $14. They generate a lot of questions each time we discuss clay marbles, the first being, "How did they make them so perfectly round?" The answer: Hand-Rolled Clay Marbles How were the earliest clay marbles made by hand? Steps:
Clay marbles offer the perfect opportunity to talk to children about simpler days that required resourcefulness and the value of using your skills and your imagination to create your own playthings....and your own games. "Ring Taw" and "Keepsies" were the most common games played int he schoolyard. Both girls and boys played with marbles. Notes: *Today you can use Crayola Air-Dried Clay found online and in craft stores to make your handmade marbles. *Children today are familiar with beautiful glass marbles of every color and size, but they know they're manufactured. They are easily found online today. Amazon, Hobby Lobby, The House of Marbles, or the Moon Marble Company offer oodles of them. *See the attachments below for rules Ring Taw and Keepsies, and a complimentary folder called The Game of Marbles from the Tyngsboro-Dunstable Historical Society in Massachusetts.  Click on this picture to access a printable PDF about MARBLES! |
