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Going to School in Portsmouth: Interviews with people who went to one-room schools

August 12, 2024

portsmouthhistorynotes Portsmouth History 2 Comments

I’m going through Elmhurst memorabilia as I prepare for a special program at the Portsmouth Historical Society on September 8th – Going to School in Portsmouth. Each year my students worked on a different local research project.

What was it like to go to a one or two room school?
In 2005 Elmhurst 3rd graders interviewed Portsmouth residents who had that experience.
Here is a sample of some of the questions and answers from those interviews.

Interview of Mr. Douglas Wilkey
Quaker Hill School and other schools in the district

What did you wear? They wore knickers that went right under the knee and socks that pulled up and folded at the end.

How many students were in your class? There were from 32 to 36 students in the class.

How many classrooms were in your school? There were three classrooms at Newtown School. There were two rooms at Quaker Hill School. Anthony School had ten rooms. Anne Hutchinson and Coggeshall had four classrooms.

How were kids punished? We were whacked with rulers.

Mrs. Joy Schuur went to Coggeshall School

What were your teachers like? The teachers were single and when they got married they weren’t teachers.

What subjects did you have? We had more music than you do. They didn’t have library or gym. They had math, spelling and language.

What kind of holidays did you have? We had no spring break. There was a long Christmas and Easter break.

Miss Fay and Mrs. Powers went to Bristol Ferry School

What games did play at recess? We played hopscotch, jump rope and jacks. They had a morning recess which was fifteen minutes and afternoon recess after lunch which was an hour long.

How many grades were in your school? They had grade one to grade eight.

What did you wear to school? Girls wore dresses and cotton stockings. Boys wore pants or knickers.

What was the discipline like? If you got in trouble you would get sent out of the room, sent to the principal’s office or had to sit in the corner. The first thing they would do was have you sit in front.

What were the bathroom’s like? There was one outhouse.

Mrs. Wilkey went to Newtown School
Some information the students learned.

Newtown School had three classrooms.
The oldest students might have been 16 years old.
They had spelling bees and Mrs. Wilkey did well.
They had an art teacher and a music teacher, but no library or physical education class.
Ten or twelve students might not pass on to the next grade.
Girls were not allowed to play team sports.
If students were bad, the principal would call the parents and they were in trouble at home.

Bristol Ferry School
Coggashall School

Anne Hutchinson School Dedication 1928

May 9, 2021

portsmouthhistorynotes Portsmouth History , 2 Comments

Anne Hutchinson School has been in the news lately. I had little information about the school itself, but I have been looking through a folder of old clippings on loan from Jim Garman, and I came across an article about the dedication. There were familiar names in the article. H. Frank Anthony was the chairman of the school board. Howard Hathaway was the President of the Town Council. The Weyerhaeuser Lumber Company provided the land for the school.

Hutchinson School at Dedication 1928

The dedication ceremony itself began with the children of Quaker Hill School singing patriotic songs. From the article it appears that 150 students had been crowded into Quaker Hill School with half day lessons and they would be attending the new school. The representative of the Rhode Island Department of Education, Dr. Charles Carroll, expressed pleasure that the school was named for Anne Hutchinson. Anne, he said, “established the first class for home education in the United States”. Carroll noted that the town voted to establish a school in 1716 (Southermost School built int 1725) and in 1916 the town built Quaker Hill School (now the current administration building) which was considered the finest rural school house in the state. Town Clerk George Hicks noted that Weyerhaeuser had conveyed the three acre property to the town as a free gift. Hicks talked about attending Bristol Ferry School and how careful the students were to not mar any surfaces.

Every room of the school had potted plants and cut flowers from Mr. Vanderbilt’s Oakland Farm greenhouses. Pictures were loaned by noted Portsmouth artist Sarah Eddy.

The article describes the building:

“The new building, completed and up-to-date in brick, with four classrooms, teachers sitting room and office for the superintendent. In the basement are the coatrooms, with arrangements for children’s coats, and a playroom large enough for all the pupils. The sanitary arrangement are the best. The artesian well was put down by Whitworth and Bridge. Charles F. Grinnell and Son of Tiverton were the contractors for the entire building. The many large windows make the lighting in the class rooms perfect. These rooms are two west of the corridor, and two east, with office rooms branching from the classrooms. The building cost, completed, approximately $35,000. The grading on the lawn was by Howard Hathaway.”