Historical Society Returns To Middle Gate

One Room Schoolhouse

By Eliza Hallabeck

Writing on the chalkboard reminded visitors at Middle Gate School District’s schoolhouse on Sunday, September 20, the year was 1850, not 2009.

Overseeing for the first portion of the day, Barbara Wilson and Dan Wolinsky, both with the Newtown Historical Society, stood inside the schoolhouse with a number of visitors, nearly all dressed in period attire.

Benches and desks line the schoolhouse, and a stove in the center would have provided heat during the winter, which, according to Mr Wolinsky, would have been when most of the students attended school. The rest of the year was needed for planting and harvesting.

“Paper was not a cheap commodity as it is today,” Mr Wolinsky said. Students attending the school in 1850, when the school was built, would have had slate boards to write on.

For Sunday, different types of games that would have been played by students were situated around the room on the surrounding table. Students then, as Mr Wolinsky pointed out, faced away from their teacher.

“You had to memorize things,” he said, of the teaching method then, “and a lot of learning was verbal.”

Next year Mr Wolinsky and Ms Wilson said the yearly opening of the schoolhouse may be celebrated with a school lesson. This year the event was an open house, but next year there could also be specific times designated for activities like Tug of War. 

“They told me I could have a cookie if I could do this,” Emma Hungaski said, while attempting to swing a wooden ball attached to a stick up to land on a flattened piece of the stick.