White Clay Creek School -- District No. 36

Postcard showing the White Clay Creek School

In the past we've taken a look -- sometimes in-depth, sometimes in a more cursory manor -- at most of the 19th Century schools that educated the children of the farmers, laborers, and artisans of Mill Creek Hundred. There has been one that I've skipped over so far, partially because I didn't much information about it, but mostly because I had never seen a photograph of it. One of the real joys about continuing to write the blog (when I thought I would run out of topics years ago) is that you never know when something wonderful will come out of the blue.

A few weeks back, Mary Torbey showed me a postcard she had recently purchased, which was labeled as "White Clay Creek School Building". I had never seen this particular one before, but I was pretty sure I knew what it had to be. The White Clay Creek School, District No. 36, stood for many years along the Capital Trail, the Road from Stanton to Newark, the Road to White Clay Church, or any of the many other things this stretch of road has been known as over the years. Although I knew where it had been, I did not know when it was built, when it closed, or when it was torn down. I figured I might be able to find out some more about it, but the first order of business was to verify that the schoolhouse on the postcard truly was the District No. 36 school.

As stated, the school stood on the north side of the main road to Newark, just east of Polly Drummond Hill Road and White Clay Creek Presbyterian Church. It is clearly seen on the 1849 map below. The trick to the current location, though, is that this stretch of the old road dipped south of the current path of Kirkwood Highway (as highlighted in yellow below). Therefore, the school sat south of Kirkwood Highway, as it so happens, on the property of a current school -- Shue-Medill Middle School. Its location is circled in red in the bottom photo below.

S.H. (School House) 36, on the 1849 Rea & Price map

Path of the old road, highlighted in yellow

Red circle indicates location of the White Clay Creek Schoolhouse

The real kicker, though, in proving that this really was the District No. 36 school in the postcard was (as so often seems to be the case in situations like this) something in the background. If you look in the back left of the photograph (enlarged below), you can see a house. In trying to judge the angle, I first thought it must have been at the corner of Capitol Trail and Polly Drummond -- and long gone by now. However, I quickly realized that this house is still standing, and there's a decent chance that some of you have been in it before. This house, for the past 60+ years, has been the Kirkwood Animal Hospital.

Enlargement showing the house in the background

And this is the house, now the Kirkwood Animal Hospital

Once I determined that this was the White Clay Creek School, the next thing I wanted to know was when it was built. That could be hard to figure out for sure, but there were clues that could help narrow it down. As the 1849 map shows, there was definitely a school at that location at least that early. The style of the building in the picture looks very similar to other mid-19th Century school houses like the District No. 38 in Stanton, the District 33 Brandywine Springs, or the Harmony School on Limestone Road. Since it does not look like the larger schools built in the late 1800's and early 1900's, I think it's safe to assume that the schoolhouse in the photo is the original one. Since the building itself is long gone, the next best way to determine when it was built would be to find out when the property for it was acquired by the school district.

Since it stood on the north side of the road, I initially assumed it had been a part of the farm to the north, which was owned from 1808 until 1865 by Andrew Gray and then his son Andrew C. Gray. It was later purchased by Judge Hugh Morris. However, after being unable to find any sale between Gray and the school district, I tried the owner to the south. It turns out, that was the direction to go. On August 22, 1839, Amos and Ann Sanders sold 38.05 perches of land (just under a quarter of an acre) to School District Number Thirty six. In 1792, brothers Amos and Ellis Sanders had purchased a 200 acre tract from Thomas Shields, which in 1819 they officially divided, with Amos receiving the western 41 acres. It was from this land that the District No. 36 property was taken. (Amos Sanders' house appears to still be standing, but that will be an investigation for another time.) I think it's safe to assume that the schoolhouse was built soon after the 1839 transfer.

Part of the 1839 sale from the Sanders' to the District No. 36

On the 1868 map below, you can see the boundaries of District No. 36. Even nearly 30 years after its creation, the district is not densely populated, except for two regions. Towards the northeast corner, near the Old Coach Road/Upper Pike Creek Road intersection, there were several mills. More importantly though, I think, a short distance west of the school stood the Roseville Cotton Factory. At the time of the school's creation, there were about 30 houses present for the workers at the factory. My guess is that many of the White Clay Creek school's original pupils were the children of the cotton factory workers. Although to be fair, at least some of the students probably worked at the mill, too.

1868 Beers map, showing District No. 36

The White Clay Creek School seems to have had a pretty quiet and uneventful history, albeit one that lasted over 80 years. There were undoubtedly many dedicated teachers who toiled away in the little school over the years, most of whose names I do not know. Judging from the reports from the early 20th Century, it seems like the teachers moved around quite bit, rarely staying at one school for more than a few years. From the few newspaper articles I could find, some of the teachers were: Mary Osborne (1896), Lillian Armor (1907), Anna M. Glenn (1909), Frances Medill (1910), Florence J. Little (1911), Catherine Heiser (1911), Deborah Wilson (1912), Celia Mahoney (1913), R. Elizabeth Stroud (1914), and Bessie Leach (1916). So, as you can see, quite a bit of turnover.

Notice of the sale of school properties at the Deer Park Hotel
There is no mention of nachos

I haven't found a definitive date as to when the school closed for good, but my assumption is that the 1922-1923 school year was its last. As you can see in the notice above, the school was part of a sale of unused properties on Halloween Day, 1923. (As a side note, while I'm sure that at least some of you spent some of your money for school at the Deer Park, I'll bet none of you spent money on a school there.) I believe District 36 was likely absorbed into the Newark public schools. It's probably no coincidence that the new Newark Public School on High Street (now Academy Street) was opened the following year, in 1924. Used as a public school until 1981, it is now UD's Pearson Hall.

The District No. 36 property was purchased at that 1923 sale by W. Vaughn and Mary Heavellow. They used the old school as their home until selling it in 1948 to Paul Burge. Burge sold it two years later to Mary Hutchison. In 1952, the Newark School District announced that it would be erecting a new elementary school opposite the old White Clay Creek School. The new school would be named for E. Frances Medill, then an 83 year old retired teacher of 52 years. Miss Medill had attended White Clay Creek, and began teaching there in 1887. She apparently did several stints at the little school and had a great impact on the area.

Miss Medill, however, is not the only former White Clay Creek teacher to have a school named for her. The new teacher in 1914, R. Elizabeth Stroud, later married Harvey Maclary. Mrs. Maclary taught for fifty years, and in 1967 (three years after her retirement) the new Maclary Elementary School opened not far away, in the Chapel Hill area off of Possum Park Road. Mrs. Maclary was apparently very involved in the school that bore her name, up until her passing in 1980.

Although the old school was still standing as the new one was being built, I don't think it survived much longer. Plus, who would want to live in a house literally directly off of an elementary school parking lot? I like kids. Have a couple of my own. But, no. And while it's technically possible, I doubt there are any alumni of the White Clay Creek School still with us. However, I'm sure many children over those 83 years or so had lots of fun in the yard, received a good education, and left with many great memories of the District No. 36 White Clay Creek School.