West Hill Schoolhouse Preservation

A WEST HILL SCHOOLHOUSE: A LABOR OF LOVE

by J. David Book, retired Cabot School educator (1999)

David Book, author, lecturer, historian and retired Cabot School principal, led his Heritage elective class in a project to restore a one-room schoolhouse at West Hill.

A few miles west of the village of Cabot is a tiny crossroads community, simply known as West Hill. A hundred years ago, it was a quiet rural neighborhood, home to about two hundred hardy souls, many farms, a church, a mill, and a small one- room schoolhouse. Today, there is little trace of that thriving community: a few houses, no church or mill, and only a few working farms. Nevertheless, because of efforts by the Cabot Historical Society and the Heritage class at Cabot School, the schoolhouse stands as a lasting monument to a long lost way of life.

In 1996, students were brainstorming ideas that might make good service learning projects, underwritten by the Learn & Serve component of Vermont Rural Partnership. Cabot was an original member of that consortium. A student suggested getting involved in the restoration of the West Hill Schoolhouse, which had been in process since the Cabot Historical Society purchased the building from the Town for one dollar in 1970. It was a natural fit: place-based, hands-on learning and a great opportunity to join forces with a community organization.

Society members painstakingly and lovingly already had completed much of the physical restoration of the school. The Heritage class (a high school elective course) focused on research, collecting artifacts, interior renovations, and the development of a living history program that could sustain the site as an ongoing community resource.

Students found original records from West Hill School collected in the Cabot Historical Society archives. This was very fortunate. No school records from any of the other fifteen school districts that existed in 19^th century Cabot have survived. These records – 157 hand-written pages that cover the District #4 (West Hill) School Committee’s decisions and transactions from 1820 to 1893 – are remarkable social documents. Among other interesting facts, they reveal:

• · Local control was paramount.

• · Male teachers were paid twice the salary of female teachers for the same length term.

• · Teachers seldom taught at the same school for more than one year.

• · Teachers “boarded around” in the homes of their pupils, often changing homes each week.

• · There were generally two terms: a summer term of eight to twelve weeks attended mainly by girls, and a winter term mainly attended by boys.

• · Parents of children attending school supplied a cord of firewood as a part of the tuition.

• · The local school committee met monthly and was composed of men.

• · The present schoolhouse was the second for the district, used between 1854 and 1917.

• · As many as thirty-five students may have attended a term.

• · Students as young as four and as old as fifteen were in one teacher’s attendance roster.

Much more information was in these records. The Heritage class completed a twenty-nine page digest of highlights.

Artifact collection was an enjoyable part of the project. Students looked at hundreds of pictures of one-room schools across the nation and compiled a list of items that were in use at the time. Antique hunting became an adventure. We secured more than 50 old textbooks, all used in the era; slates and slate pencils, a wash basin, ink wells, school bell, water bucket and ladle, pencil box, lunch pail, tea kettle and a box stove. Other acquisitions include a dry sink, kerosene wall-mounted lamps, a 38 -to 48-star flag, and portraits of Washington and Lincoln.

Interior renovations included constructing a teacher’s desk platform and a wall bench desk. Students used blackboard paint to create a blackboard area in the location of the original slate.

The final phase of the project was creating an enduring living history laboratory to address use of the building after restoration. It provides an opportunity for observers or participants to learn what an authentic one-room school experience really was like.

This adaptation is used by permission of the author, copyright © 1999, J David Book