History of School District #3 - Richmond Township

A letter sent in 1854 to all taxable inhabitants of the school district stating the following first documented the history of School Section 16 in Richmond Township:

To Morgan McKoon, a taxable inhabitant of School District No. Three of the Township of Richmond:

Sir, you are hereby notified that the school inspector of said township on the fourteenth day of August, A.D. 1854 formed a school district in said township which they numbered School District No. 3 and which is bounded as follows:

S. W. 1/4 of Sec. 10, the S.W. 1/2 of Sec. 9, the S.E. 1/4 of Sec. 8, the E. 1/2 of Sec. 19, Section 16, the W. 1/2 of Sec. 15, the N.W. 1/4 of Sec. 22, the N. 1/2 of Sec. 21, the N.E. 1/4 of Section 20.

Said district meeting will be held at the dwelling house of Leander Andrus on the twenty sixth day of August 1854 at two o’clock p.m. You are hereby directed to notify every qualified voter of said district either personally or by leaving a written notice at his place of residence, of the time and place of said meeting, at least five days before the time appointed therefore as above and after so notifying every qualified voter within the boundaries above described you will endorse on this notice a return showing such notification with the date or dates thereof and deliver the same to the Chairman of the meeting to be held at the time and place above mentioned.

Given under my hand this fourteenth day of August A.D. 1854.

Sanford M. Stone,
Clerk of the Board of School Inspectors

Notified verbally: Hiram Jackman, Henry Babcock

By written notice: Leander Andrus, Pliny Corbin, Timothy Ingraham, Peter Dennis.

Signed Morgan L. McKoon.

At the next meeting of the school district at the home of Leander Andrus on the 25th day of September, 1854 it was resolved that Pliny Corbin be the Director, M.L. McKoon be moderator, and Leander Andrus be assessor for the ensuing year. By unanimous vote it was resolved that the district board procure a site for a schoolhouse of Caleb Miller and to raise the sum of seventy five dollars for the purpose of building a schoolhouse and procure a stove. The next annual meeting of the district school on the 29th day of September in 1855 was held in the schoolhouse. The records of the students for the first 10 years are not available. The student roster starts in 1865 and continues through 1950.

By 1885, the school, built 30 years earlier, was too small to support the large number of students living in the district and so on September 1, 1885, at the annual meeting of the District School Board, the legal voters of Richmond Township voted to build a new school. The land surrounding the one-acre site in School Section 16 was at the time owned by George Gower. Under the directorship of Alvarado Glaspie and supervision by building committee members Lewis Burt, Alfred Jeffery and Norman Cook, the job was completed by the contractor, O.P. Chapin, on the 25th of June 1886 at a cost of $449.00. The new school was built right next to the old structure, which was used until the new building was completed. The old school building was sold to John Ball for $6.75 with the condition that it be moved from the premises by March 1887. The first teacher to teach in the new building was May Chubb. There were 44 students in 1886. The family names of these students were Ball, Brown, Burt, Clark, Howe, Jeffrey, Kuehn, Maplethorpe, McConnell, McFarland, Montgomery, McKiernan, Nuss, Ogden, Potter, Strutz, Ward, and Wegner.

In June of 1928, Director John Ganfield motioned to approach the School Board to ‘build up’ the porch into a cloak room. On July 17, 1952, as many schools in the country were consolidated, the residents of the School Section District voted to annex with the Richmond School District. In 1990, James McKiernan, then owner of the school and land on which it stood, donated the building to the Richmond Area Historical Society.

On February 16, 1994, after 42 years of disuse, the building was moved to Bailey Historical Park in Richmond. With help from the membership and support from Richmond Township, the City of Richmond, private citizens, businesses, and organizations, the old school has once again has been brought to life to be enjoyed by all citizens of Richmond and neighboring communities.

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Picture of District 3 Students taken ca. 1890
 

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I wish to thank Mrs. Elizabeth Ball of Richmond for lending me the old school records so that they could be transcribed and displayed here.
The students, whose exact years of attendance are not known, attended the school in the 1930s, '40s and 50s.