7. Rockville Academy Bench

This “fire side bench” was made in 1941 by Thomas W. Pyle, principal of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and an avid woodworker. A handwritten note nailed to the underside of the top plank reads: “fire side bench, 17^th century ‘Joint Stool’ motif. Designed and built by Thos. W. Pyle, 1941. Wood from walnut tree on grounds of old Rockville Academy (Library), blown down in Storm of August 1933.” In the 17^th century, “joint” (joiner-made) stools - with a plank seat, turned legs, and box stretchers between block feet - were far more common than chairs with backs.

The Rockville Academy operated from 1812 until 1916, but struggled after the 1860 establishment of county public schools. Its second building, built in 1891 at 103 S. Adams Street (now offices), housed grades 1-3 of the Rockville Elementary School when the walnut tree from which this bench was fashioned came down during the hurricane of August 23, 1933; there were no names for Atlantic storms until 1950.

In June 1926, Pyle became the principal of the Bethesda school which opened in 1925. In his book Bethesda: A Social History, William Offutt writes, “Pyle became over the next twenty years, the most respected man in Bethesda,” serving the new junior-senior high school in 1928 and then the new Bethesda-Chevy Chase Senior High School in 1935. Later he served as an assistant superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools. A 1962 middle school in west Bethesda is named for Pyle.

Pyle gave the stool to his long-time colleague and friend Edwin W. Broome, Jr., the county school superintendent from 1916-1953. Broome’s daughter Eleanor donated the stool in 2009.

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