BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Poolesville -- Seneca Schoolhouse

MD -- Poolesville -- Seneca Schoolhouse:

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[1] SSCHOO_150829_01.JPG	[2] SSCHOO_150829_04.JPG	[3] SSCHOO_150829_10.JPG
[4] SSCHOO_150829_14.JPG	[5] SSCHOO_150829_17.JPG	[6] SSCHOO_150829_22.JPG
[7] SSCHOO_150829_24.JPG	[8] SSCHOO_150829_28.JPG	[9] SSCHOO_150829_36.JPG
[10] SSCHOO_150829_40.JPG	[11] SSCHOO_150829_45.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SSCHOO_150829_04.JPG: Seneca Schoolhouse: In 1865, local farmer and miller Upton Darby canvassed neighbors for subscriptions to construct a one-room schoolhouse of red sandstone from the Seneca quarries. Darby donated the land and building materials: families contributed labor as well as cash. The school was run by the community until 1876. Then operated as a Montgomery County Public School until it closed in 1910. Restored in 1981 by Historic Medley District, Inc.
2. SSCHOO_150829_10.JPG: The Historic Seneca Schoolhouse: The 1866 Seneca Schoolhouse -- the oldest surviving one-room school building in Montgomery County -- today offers a unique "living history" experience for Washington area children. Leaving their cell phones and computer tablets at home, visiting students put on 1880s country clothes and spend a day learning in the old-fashioned way -- with spelling bees, recitations, and personal slate tablets for writing and doing arithmetic. At recess, children play popular 19th century games like tag, hot potato, baseball (using green walnuts for the ball), and they roll wooden hoops with a short stick. The State of Maryland had authorized, in 1860, the founding of tax-funded public schools, but many of the new rural schools, like this one at Seneca Mills, were founded entirely with private local donations. It was organized right at the end of the Civil War by local citizens who donated funds to build it, hire the teacher (for an estimated $200 a year), and maintain the building. The effort was led by Upton Darby, who owned the nearby grist mill on River Road, just west of Seneca Creek. Darby's mill, later called Tschiffely Mill, is long gone, but his handsome 1855 white frame house still stands near the creek, behind Allnutt's General Store (later Poole's Store) on Old River Road. Neighbors donated cash, materials and/or labor. The school was built of red sandstone from the nearby Seneca quarry, in the cliffs above the Potomac River. The tiny Seneca Mills School continued to rely on local donations and student fees, supplemented by county funds, until it was taken over by the county around 1876. It was abandoned as an active school when a new elementary school was built closer to Darnestown in 1910. By the mid-20th century, after 25 years of use as a simple residence, it fell into disrepair. In the late 1970s, a new historic preservation organization, Historic Medley District (HMD), founded by Mary Ann Kephart and Winsome Browne, raised the money (including state grants) to restore the old stone structure to be the Seneca Schoolhouse Museum, which opened in 1981. HMD undertook a second restoration in 2010-2014, repairing stonework and roofing, and replacing the decayed early 20th century windows with correct reproductions. For information about booking a student visit or party at the museum, see www.historicmedley.org
3. SSCHOO_150829_14.JPG: Sold to the adjoining landowner in 1944, the schoolhouse was turned into simple rental housing, subdivided into four rooms with a second story added under the roof. Around 1970 the dilapidated structure was conveyed to the State of Maryland, along with all the surrounding farmland, to be part of Seneca Creek State Park. Historic Medley District manages the site under an agreement with the state.
4. SSCHOO_150829_17.JPG: Attentive to a teacher portraying schoolmarm Miss Alice Darby, the boys and the girls (who in the 1880s would sit on opposite sides of the center aisle) are warmed in winter by a pot-bellied wood stove. No one misbehaves, of course, not wanting to risk the 1880s punishment of putting on the dunce cap and sitting on a stool in the corner.
5. SSCHOO_150829_22.JPG: These 1908 students -- only white children in that segregated time -- were of various elementary and middle-school ages, drawn from farm and trade families. They carried local surnames prominent in that era and today -- such as Allnutt, Darby, Hersperger, Dawson, Offutt and Willard. In the winter, when the nearby C&O Canal froze solid and the barges couldn't move, children who lived on their family's boats attended too.
6. SSCHOO_150829_24.JPG: First published in 1836, McGuffey Readers, in six graded levels, were the dominant textbook in 19th and early 20th century America. Still published today, they are used by students at the Seneca Schoolhouse.
7. SSCHOO_150829_36.JPG: Dr. Thomas Kelley Dr. Upton Darby Nourse Teachers -- young men and women barely out of their teens -- included Dr. Thomas Kelley and Dr. Upton Darby Nourse (who both became medical doctors later), Joe Dyson, Annie Criswell, and Hattie Violette, daughter of the keeper of nearby Violette's Lock on the canal.
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