Existing comment:
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 |