Liberty School

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

Storytellers of the past remarked that 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 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. The building was built for $350 in 1892 by Gotleib Brodt.

Back in the old days, there was a wooden sidewalk from the front door of the school 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. ladder) that the students would use to scale the wood fence that lined to 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 that year 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. It was in this year that 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 to this day.