Liberty School

Liberty was a one-room schoolhouse on the northeast corner of Main Street and Dutch Lane.

Storytellers of the past remarked that the school had an original location separate from its later, more permanent spot.  One historic account places the original school at the west end of Dutch Lane near the current entrance to Coyote Crossing.

The other possible location of the original school was further east, roughly halfway between Main Street and Nofsinger Road on Dutch Lane.  The school was near a large pond, and a story that was often related was that a student drowned in that pond.  The school was moved because of this tragedy.

What we do know for sure is that the school building was moved in 1866 to the northeast corner of Main Street and Dutch Lane, situated close to and facing Main Street. In 1892, the building, replaced with a larger structure, was moved back on the property and rotated with the entrance facing Dutch Lane. Gotleib Brodt built the building for $350 in 1892.

In the old days, there was a wooden sidewalk from the school's front door to the southwest corner of the grounds, i.e., the intersection of Main St. and Dutch Lane. At that corner, there was a stile (i.e., a ladder) that the students would use to scale the wood fence that lined the property to the south and west. The fence had no gate.

Enrollment at school usually hovered around twenty pupils. At its peak, the little school housed nearly forty students. During the 1918-19 school year, the students only attended school for 129 days because of the flu epidemic.

By 1958, the east side had been expanded to make the school larger.

By 1961 Liberty was the last remaining one-room schoolhouse in Tazewell County.  That year they decided to close and consolidate with Pleasant View.  To consolidate, 2/3 of the voters needed to approve. When the vote was counted, 32 of 41 in attendance at the public meeting were for consolidating.

After the property was sold off, it became a residence, and the building still exists today.