Modern School Building, Excellent Teachers and Many Bright Scholars - Bovina's New School

Thanks to Tom Hoy, a former Bovina resident, here's an article about the new Bovina School building - the building that is now the Bovina Public Library.  This was an exciting find, helping me to pinpoint more precisely when the school was built - namely, the summer of 1893.  The article comes from the December 16, 1893 issue of the Stamford Recorder and includes a photo of the new school.

THE BOVINA CENTRE SCHOOL.

MODERN SCHOOL BUILDING EXCELLENT TEACHERS AND MANY BRIGHT SCHOLARS.

Recently a representative of the Recorder visited the above mentioned school and found it worthy of mention.  The new school building is a model and modern one, erected last summer.  For many years a suitable school building has been very much needed, and now that it has come all are pleased, we doubt not. 

Bovina has always given attention to education and has been for many years a large and constant patron of the schools at Andes, Delhi, Franklin and Walton.  Many of her young people have passed through college and a considerable number have entered the ministery (sic) and the professions.  Distinction and prominence because of inherent ability have come to Bovina’s sons and daughters, on the battlefield of life.  Now that better educational advantages have been provided a new impetus will be given to educational matters.  The Recorder has before suggested the apparently feasible plan of make the Centre school an advanced one and the others in town feeders or primary schools, and would call attention to the idea again.  The town is small and so located that it might be made practically one district.

The people of that town will be pleased to see herewith a good picture of the novel building.  Its size is 27x52 feet and the porch and coat rooms in front are 8x27 feet.  The rooms are 12 feet in height and neatly finished.  The building is covered with slate and nicely painted. It was constructed by Jas L. Coulter on contract, and the work well done at a very low price.  The entire cost of building and furnishings was about $2,800.  The interior is divided into two school rooms which are connecting.  The one to the north or right of the picture is used for the higher department and the other for the primary grade.  The entrance is thro’ the vestibule on either side, and the arrangement is very satisfactory.

The school is undoubtedly prospering at present and the work being done comports with the good style of the building.  There are thirty six enrolled in the higher department over which Miss Lula E. Burns presides.  She has just cause for being proud of her scholars, one of whom is a academy graduate and seven are former academy students.  Miss Burns is a graduate of the Albany Normal School, class of ’87.  After graduating she taught five consecutive years in a school on Long Island and last year at Portchester, N.Y.  A brief visit led to the conclusion that she is an interested, painstaking and accomplished instructor.  She wisely devotes attention to singing and the scholars are advancing in this direction.  Miss Burns is a native of Delhi. 

Miss Emma Campbell, who is in charge of the younger portion of the school, is a daughter of Duncan Campbell of that town.  She, too, possesses the qualities of a successful teacher, and although she has taught only four terms she has a correct appreciate of the important work in hand, and her teaching is giving much satisfaction. 

We have devoted attention to this school because it is an advance movement and so far as we have learned is the first “model” rural school house in the county. 

Teachers and scholars are now making an effort to purchase a piano for use in the school, which will doubtless meet with hearty encouragement.  An oyster supper and fair is being held this Friday night, and the Recorder will do something to assist in the enterprise.  It expects that extra copies will be delivered at the hall within two hours after leaving the press and be sold for the benefit of the fund.  That’s our style of enterprise. 

Bovina Schools Exhibit

I set up a display at the Bovina Public Library on Saturday on the Bovina Common School Districts.  It will be up for several months - I hope you visit the library to take a look at it (go to the Bovina Public Library's website at http://www.bovinalibrary.org/bovina/hours.asp for the library's hours).  With the display is a small binder with pictures of school children - including several for which I do not have all the names.  Feel free to look at this and add any names of children that you think you can identify.

The opening on Saturday saw a few visitors, including Amy Burns, whose mother attended the Bovina Center School, Joan Archibald Townsend, who was a student at the school in the 50s and Marion Jardine, who not only attended the school but whose mother, Mary Jardine, was the last teacher at the school.  Joan and Marion shared some stories of the school, as did some people who couldn't attend, such as Marcia McPherson Lichtman and my sister, Susan LaFever Hughes.  Susan and my sister Diane were in the last class to attend public school in Bovina.  

As I've noted before, I just missed my opportunity to attend a one-room school by a year.  I do recall making a couple of visits to the school.  Once, my mom dropped me off and I recall getting upset until my cousin Alan started drawing some funny cartoons that made me laugh.  I also remember going for what probably was the last Christmas in the school - and being torn about with which sister I should sit.

Speaking of sisters, Susan vividly remembered her first day of school.  She kept getting her Mickey Mouse lunchbox thinking it was time to go home when it wasn't.  Mrs. Jardine finally had to put the lunch box on a high shelf to stop Susan from taking it.  She explained that it would be time to go home when she saw her mother coming to pick her up.

I'll close with this picture that you've probably seen before, but not on my blog.  It was taken in December 1959:
Row 1: Nancy Hilson, Richard Mercadante, Diane LaFever, John Hilson, Gary Robson
Row 2: Tim McIntosh, Marcia McPherson, Tom Hilson, Kenneth Mercadante, Marcia Lay
Row 3: Barbara Hammond, Mike Hall, Marlene Lay, Lois Quackenbush, Leonard Gould, Susan LaFever

Some Pictures from the Last Public School in Bovina

Thanks to Joan Archibald Townsend, I have some new pictures to share of the Bovina District 4 school in its last years (see the June 15 blog entry about the closing of this school 50 years ago).  Joan graciously shared with me a number of family pictures (which I will be sharing on the Bovina NY History Flickr page in the next couple of weeks) and some pictures from when she attended the Bovina school.  The set below were taken probably in the spring of 1957 and all on the same day.  The pictures were mounted on some card board, probably by Joan's mother, Eleanor Burns Archibald.  There are names on some of the pictures but not all of them.  You are welcome to add names that you recognize. Click on the image to get a larger version.

Bovina District 4, 1957

Note:  Joan has noted that the photographer might have been Carolyn Keefer, wife of the Bovina UP Church minister. 

Two School Pictures I Need Help Identifying

Here are two pictures that I'm pretty sure are from the same school - but I'm not sure which one - nor am I sure it's a Bovina school.

The first shot was found in my late grandmother's pictures.  I recognize one of the children - James Calhoun (1889-1918), grandma's first husband.  The Calhouns lived in Bovina, but not far from Andes.  I thought it might be Biggar Hollow, but the building doesn't match images I have of that particular school. 

Jeanne Flye sent this picture discovered in an album of her grandmother's, Mary Ann Raitt.  It certainly looks to me to be the same building.  But where?  And who are the kids? (Click on the image for a larger version)

So any help with either of these would be greatly appreciated.

Bovina's Last Public School

Bovina's "little school" held its last class 50 years ago this month.  The trustees of district number four, the last common school district in Bovina to operate a school, had made a decision at their May 2, 1961 meeting, to start sending all of their students to central school districts in Delhi, Andes or South Kortright after the 1960/61 school year.  That district, and a few others in Bovina, continued to contract to send their students to other schools.  In June 1967, all of the remaining Bovina school districts were dissolved by order of the State Education Department (as were all common school districts in the state that no longer operated schools).  Trustees of district number four sold their building to the town of Bovina in June 1967, just before the district was dissolved.  The town, in turn, and sold it to the Bovina Library Association in 1969.  It continues to serve as the town library.

On Saturday, July 9, at 11 am, I will unveil an exhibit about Bovina schools at the Bovina library, where the town's last school room was located.  I'm hoping some of the children from that last class will come and share their memories of the 'little school' and Mrs. Jardine.  [NOTE:  This is a change of date - we had scheduled for June 25, but it's graduation day in area schools and didn't want to conflict with that.]

Here are pictures from the June 2, 1961 issue of the Walton Reporter.  My thanks to Terry Rogers at the Walton Historical Society for making this copy for me.  It is much appreciated.

Another Schoolhouse Fire

In my blog entry for October 30, I reported on a 1923 fire that destroyed the Yankeetown Schoolhouse on Cape Horn Road. This isn't the only time that Bovina lost a school to fire. In fact, over 100 years earlier, a schoolhouse on what is now Pink Street burned.

This school district was established before 1814 and started out life as Stamford District Number 8. The taxable inhabitants for district 8 in 1815 were Samuel Adee, Joshua Carmon, Alexander Dean, John Dean, Robert Dean, George Foster, George Hume, Robert Hume, William Kedzie, David McCune, John McCune, William McCune, Gilbert McNaught, James Seacord, James Storie, Widow Mary Storie, and Zephaniah Wardon.

In 1816 the district resolved that "any damage happening to the School House by Means of any individual ... or those accountable for them shall forthwith make it good." In 1819, the district attempted to make someone "make it good" when the school burned, but it was several months after the fire before they identified a culprit. In fact, when the school burned, probably in January 1819, it first was seen as an accident. This certainly made sense, given that all the heating was done with wood fire.

At a special meeting on February 5, 1819, held at the home of William Seacord, the district decided that there would be no school kept for the remainder of the school quarter. They also decided to build a new school house, to be a frame building 18 by 22. In order to pay for the new building, a tax of $120 was to be levied on district inhabitants. The district held another special meeting less than two weeks later, after some complaints were received that the minutes did not appear to match with what was agreed. Each resolution was reviewed and approved. They also resolved to form a committee to work with John McCune on the site of the new school and the purchase of that site.

The district's regular annual meeting on October 5, 1819 included a resolution to have the trustees call on William Jones to answer to the charge that his son was responsible for burning down the school. Ultimately, there must not have been enough evidence to hold the Jones family accountable for the fire, for when the structure was finally built, the taxpayers paid for it. Did the son of William Jones burn down the school? The answer has been lost to history.

The building of the structure took some time. In late 1819 or sometime in 1820, the district held a special meeting to request an itemized list of every expense for the construction of the new school house. They also requested itemization of the remaining expenses, including $2 for the laying of the hearth and completion of the chimney, 50 cents for a lock for the door and 75 cents for a chair. At the annual meeting in October 1820 (the year the district became Bovina District Number 2), it was noted that work still needed to be done to complete the house. Apparently, this or other issues at this meeting got rather contentious, for it was "Resolved that if any person shall at any future meeting held in this house behave Disorderly he shall at the order of the Chairman Leave the house."

The building that replaced the burnt down school was not the last one built for the district. There appear to have been at least two if not three subsequent structures. The last probably built in the late 1850s, only about 10 years after its predecessor was built.

Here's a picture of the last District 2 school house, dating probably from the 1920s.







Information for this entry came from the minute book for Bovina Common School District Number 2, 1815-1867, courtesy of the Bovina Historical Society. The book had come down through the Storie family and was given by the family of Vera Storie.

Halloween Night, 1923

On the morning of November 1, 1923, the seven pupils at the Yankeetown School District trudged their way up Cape Horn Road to find that during the night their schoolhouse had burned down - maybe a kid's dream.

The Yankeetown School District was Bovina Common School District number 9. It was created in the 1830s. The schoolhouse likely was built around the same time but by the 1850s, it was reported that the building was in poor condition. At some point, it probably was replaced or rebuilt. The student population for district 9 hit its peak in the 1850s with 42 pupils. It began dropping steadily so that by the start of the 20th century only about 10 students were enrolled. In 1909, district 9 began sending its students to the Maynard District (district 1), which was about two miles away from the Yankeetown school building. In 1918, the district reopened its school, but after a couple of years was once again sending their students elsewhere.

In 1923, the distrct made one last attempt to run a school, only to have the building burn down on Halloween night. Was it just a coincidence that it happened that night, or was it a Halloween prank that went awry? The reason for the fire was never discussed in the local press. The Catskill Mountain News reported:

Last Thursday morning the schoolhouse at Yankeetown, Bovina, was destroyed by fire of unknown origin. The blaze was discovered about 12:30 by Mrs. Eli Felton, the roof and windows already being gone when discovered. Nothing was saved from the building. The loss was covered by Insurance. It is expected that steps will soon be taken to replace the burned structure.

The district held a box social on November 13 for the benefit of the school. Students finished the school year in the McCumber home on Cape Horn. The district operated a school for one more school year (likely at McCumber's) then again contracted out to District 1 for subsequent years. A replacement school was never built, though the district officially existed until 1967, when the remaining Bovina Common School districts were merged with the Delhi Central School District. And whether it was a poorly extinguished stove, a disgruntled student, a Halloween prankster or something supernatural that led to the destruction of the Yankeetown School will never be known.

This picture was provided by the late Anna Hobbie Lounsbury. She was told that it is a picture of the Yankeetown Schoolhouse. It is believed to be the only photograph in existence of this Bovina school.

School District Centralization in Bovina

This is another article that ran in 2006 in the Bovina UP Church Newsletter about Bovina Schools.

The disappearance of commons schools in Bovina in the twentieth century was part of a statewide trend. Rural school districts faced decreasing enrollments and a weakening tax base as the century progressed. School district centralization was seen as a more efficient way to educate children, so the state provided financial incentives for centralization. This prompted a steady growth in the creation of central school districts, especially during the economic depression of the 1930s. Bovina lost five common school districts during the depression. The Andes Central School District was created in 1933, taking Bovina districts 7 (Coulter/Russell Hill) and 8 (Biggar Hollow). In 1936, the Delhi Central School District was created, incorporating district 6 (Lake Delaware). District number 2 (Pink Street) became part of the South Kortright Central School District at its creation in 1938.

This left seven districts in Bovina at the end of the 30s, and only four of them, Districts 1 (Maynard), 3 (Butt End), 4 (Bovina Center), and 5 (Miller Avenue/Bramley Mountain) were operating schools. The question now was not when would these districts be merged into a central district, but into what district would they go? This led to a battle between the Delhi and Andes districts for the Bovina districts.

Andes advocates argued that the Andes school was two miles closer to Bovina and that Bovina children would mix better with those in Andes. They also argued that when the anticipated reservoirs for New York City were created that its student body would be reduced. Bovina students would help keep the Andes numbers respectable. The fact that Delhi had larger classes also argued for merging with Andes.

Advocates for merging with Delhi argued that Bovina students in the past had attended school in Delhi. They pointed out that Delhi was Bovina's shopping, trading, banking and railroad center and that the drive did not require going over mountainous roads, which were dangerous in the winter. They also argued that the Delhi Central School would provide a larger curriculum. The Andes advocates in return argued that many from Bovina did their shopping and banking in Andes and that the roads to Andes had been safe enough for transporting Andes students for years.

Petitions supporting the merge with Delhi were submitted to the Commissioner of Education in early 1939, signed by 80% of the eligible Bovina voters. In 1943, it was reported that petitions were submitted showing that 78% of the voters supported joining the Andes district. The State Education Department was justifiability confused by the conflicting petitions.

In 1942, the Rapp Committee was created to develop a Master Plan for school district reorganization. When the plan was issued in 1947, the remaining Bovina school districts were to be joined with Andes. In 1958, the plan was revised, placing the remaining Bovina common school districts in Delhi, not Andes. Why this change happened is not clear. Neither the original nor the revised plan was compulsory, but that same year, districts 5 and 10 (both on Bramley Mountain) were ordered abolished and annexed to Delhi. Time was running out for Bovina's common schools. By this time, only districts 1 and 4 were still operating schoolhouses. The last Bovina schoolhouse closed in June 1961. In 1965, the state ordered all remaining districts that sent all their students to another school be dissolved by July 1, 1969. On June 28, 1967, voters in Bovina voted to dissolve the remaining contract districts in the town and merge them with Delhi. They were officially abolished two days later. Thus ended the common school era in Bovina.

Teaching in Bovina's One-room Schools

In the interest of full disclosure, this blog entry is a variation on an article I did for the Bovina UP Church Newsletter in 2006.

With 13 common school districts, Bovina had numerous teachers during its history. In the early years, there were two school terms, winter and summer. Teachers for the winter term usually were men. It was felt they could better handle the larger boys. The boys had to work the fields in the summer, so they weren’t as likely to be in school. In the 1865-66 school year, William Seacord taught the winter term at District 4 (the school in the Bovina Center hamlet) from December 1865 to March 1866. Maggie Scott taught the spring term from April to September 1866. This was not always the case. District 6 (Lake Delaware) that same year had women teaching both in the winter and summer terms.

The rate of pay for male teachers was higher than that for females. Bovina district 7 (Russell Hill Road) in the 1877-78 school year paid Thomas Ormiston for the winter term $9 per week, including room and board. The wages and room and board it paid Mary Gladstone for the spring term was $6 per week. In 1890-91, district 6 was paying its male teacher $3 more per week than its female teacher. As Bovina and the rest of the world moved into the 20^th century, this gender difference in salaries was not always the case. In 1908-09, District 2 (Pink Street) paid John McCune $336 for 160 days or $2.10 a day. That same school year, Kathryn Reynolds in district 4 was paid $527 for 185 days, or $2.84 each day. In 1925-26, district 4 had one male and one female teacher; both paid the same - $1140 each per year.

Teaching tended to run in families. Thomas Gordon taught in Bovina schools in the 1870s and 80s. His daughter Margaret taught Social Studies to many students at Delaware Academy from the 1940s to the 1970s. Three of teacher Thomas Ormiston’s daughters, Lois Davidson, Ruth Monroe and Marjorie Whalley, all taught in Bovina.

Lois recollected her time as a teacher in notes she wrote in the early 1970s and transcribed by her son Allan: “I graduated in 1915 [from the teacher-training program at Walton High School] and was hired to teach at the Miller Avenue district at $10 a week. We had to do our own janitor work. I well remember coming home from school the first day saying I would rather earn my living doing manual labor. I eventually grew to like it and taught six years ending with a salary of $20 a week.”

Among the last Bovina common school teachers were Grace Coulter Roberts, who taught in Bovina’s district 4 in the 1930s, Stella McPherson, who taught there in the 1940s and Edward Schenider, brother of Lillian Hilson, who was the last teacher at the Maynard (District 1) school, teaching through the 1958-59 school year. Mary Hyzer Jardine was the last teacher to teach in a Bovina common school, teaching at district 4. It was the end of an era when district 4 closed in June of 1961.

The 3Rs in Bovina - The Numbers

This is an entry that first saw the light of day as an article in the Bovina Community Newsletter, produced by the Bovina UP Church, in 2006. It ties to some of the census information I've been providing lately, so this seemed like a good time to share this.

In 1820, the year Bovina was founded, one third of the town's population of over 1200 was made up of children aged five to fifteen. A little over half of these children actually attended school in one of the town's five school districts that year.

By the 1850s, Bovina had thirteen districts. Some of these districts were joint districts, overlapping with Delhi, Andes or Middletown. The number of school-aged children was close to 600.

After the 1860s, as the town's population dropped, so did the number of school children. In 1878, 282 out of the 360 school-aged children in Bovina were being taught in the town. By 1909, ten of Bovina's eleven school districts were still operating their schoolhouses, but the number of children attending was down to 180 students.

In 1936, Bovina was down to nine districts, with two of these contracting their children out to other schools. Bovina had 127 children attending school through the 8th grade that year. Part of the reduction in school districts was caused by the creation of central school districts in Andes, Delhi, South Kortright and Margaretville. At the end of the 1930s, only seven districts were still in existence in Bovina.

The last school to operate in Bovina was Bovina District Number 4, which is now the public library. That school closed after the completion of school in June 1961. (I missed attending school here by one year - I started school in the fall of 1961 in Delhi.)

If you want to see some pictures of Bovina's one-room schools, go to my Flickr page. And if you have pictures you would like to share, please let me know. And stayed tuned for future blog entries about Bovina schools.

Photos on Flickr

Finally, a bit late, but as I promised, I've started uploading images from my historian files onto Flickr in a group called Bovina (NY) History. The link is at http://www.flickr.com/groups/1109140@N20/. I've started with images of Bovina's one-room schools and some of their classes. Bear with me as I get used to all of this. You should have no problem seeing the pictures and I'm hoping you can add any comments. Let me know at my e-mail if you are having problems getting to the pictures or adding comments: rlafever[@]nycap.rr.com

Enjoy the pictures.