August 1, 2011 Coats Museum News
When one travels throughout Harnett County, massive brick buildings, big yellow school buses, and many trucks and cars of all sizes and colors speak that this is a public school. There are some people who drive past these modern schools who can recall the days when the public schools were small structures which usually contained two rooms with no bathrooms or water except in a bucket or cooler. Those former students recall few maps, a blackboard, double desks, and books that their parents had purchased from town stores. Marbles, jack rocks, stick and homemade baseballs were used to pass time at recess. Walking two or three miles to get to the school was no big deal even when snow was on the ground. They even recall when the school buses were call school trucks.
When young students tour our Coats Museum, they are shocked to discover that the museum was formerly an old schoolhouse where the boys and girls and teachers walked to it everyday to have classes. They are surprised to learn that there were lots of little schools on the farms that all boys and girls walked to each day. Coats Grove District #3 was the only school that was not on a farm and it was moved and converted into a museum in 1990 and dedicated in 1995. They are also dismayed that black students had their own schools in the country. Only the Coats Colored School which closed in 1952, so the black student s could attend the new brick Gentry School at Erwin, was in town. The Wiley Frazier School was located on the current Johnson Road and the Dickinson School was in the Turlington’s Crossroads area.
Some of the youngsters want to know where the schools were located and what happened to them. The following information can be found in the 1985 Coats Reunion Project book, “Together We Leave”. The facts are condensed here for those who do not have a book.
Grove Township had more than seven schools in the area. You will read about seven of them. Grove #1 was known as Ennis School and it dates back to 1885 when Cornelius Hodges donated 1 acre of land for a school. This site was on the current Chic Ennis Road off NC Highway 27 toward Benson. The school burned and was replaced by a tenant house and a barn which was made available by Rodolphus Ennis and it was also on the same road. The Ennis School had 88 students enrolled in it when the Coats brick school was being built. In 1923-24, the students at Ennis School moved into a brick school called Oakdale which was located close to the intersection of the Red Hill Church-Denning Road and Baileys Crossroads Road. Oakdale was built on the land of Jimmy and Mollie Woodall. It had a principal’s office, several classrooms, a large auditorium with a raised stage, and two bathrooms and no stalls. The seniors or the highest grade students were taught in the Mattie Suggs house where she had a room set aside for a classroom. The old house on the right, next to Dixie –Denning and before you get to the Lamm-Suggs Cemetery on Bailey’s Crossroads Road, is that school site. Oakdale Grove # 1 consolidated with Coats Grove # 3 in 1950. Tinker Howard bought the school building and allowed the community to use it for parties, showers, fish fries, retired veteran’s group, and Oakdale Extension Club meetings. In fact, a room was assigned to the club according to Juanita Hudson whose husband Mack Reid Hudson attended the school and his mother, Naomi Stewart Hudson, was a teacher in #1. The school was also a dwelling at one time and under different ownership was a club as well. It burned in 1972 and no complete picture of the school has been located by the museum volunteers.
Grove #2 School was referred to on the official records as the Gregory School District 2. It was named after a teacher named Albert W. Gregory who lived in the Barclays Inn at one time. This school had more than one location and the first one is somewhere in the Barclaysville area. On August 6, 1917, a petition was received by the county that the Gregory School sit remain unchanged unless it was moved near Bethel Church on the Johnston-Harnett County Line Road. This site was picked and a two room school was built at the cost of $1400.00. The old school was sold in 1917 for $161.00. In 1922-23, the school was known as Fair Hope and had 82 students. Do you wonder what the inventory of the school was like in 1922-23? There was 1 US flag, 55 double desks, 2 stoves, 14 square feet of black board, 2 pencil sharpeners, 10 windows shades, 1 open well, and six maps.
Herbert L. Johnson and Lottie Godwin Pollard attended Gregory and recalled in 1985 that the well water was put in a cooler on the porch for students to drink from an individual tin cup that the student brought from home. Lottie remembered that the cup was used to drink hot chocolate that was made from ingredients that different students had brought from home. Wonder if it was one of those little foldup tin cups.
The Gregory School was consolidated with the Coats Grove # 3 School in 1933-34. J.T. Jerome was the Coats School principal and F.W. Reams taught the first agriculture class that year after the state had approved teaching vocational classes in 1931, the same year that the 8 month school year was mandated for all districts.
Next week we shall continue our journey and learn the names and a very small bit of information about the other early schools in Grove Township. Read “Together We Leave” or “The Coats , North Carolina Heritage Book” for sale at the museum for in depth information about teachers, students and pictures. My mother taught at a country school in Elevation before she married my dad and I am proud to honor her birthday this week by giving a gift to the Coats Museum Endowment.
When one travels throughout Harnett County, massive brick buildings, big yellow school buses, and many trucks and cars of all sizes and colors speak that this is a public school. There are some people who drive past these modern schools who can recall the days when the public schools were small structures which usually contained two rooms with no bathrooms or water except in a bucket or cooler. Those former students recall few maps, a blackboard, double desks, and books that their parents had purchased from town stores. Marbles, jack rocks, stick and homemade baseballs were used to pass time at recess. Walking two or three miles to get to the school was no big deal even when snow was on the ground. They even recall when the school buses were call school trucks.
When young students tour our Coats Museum, they are shocked to discover that the museum was formerly an old schoolhouse where the boys and girls and teachers walked to it everyday to have classes. They are surprised to learn that there were lots of little schools on the farms that all boys and girls walked to each day. Coats Grove District #3 was the only school that was not on a farm and it was moved and converted into a museum in 1990 and dedicated in 1995. They are also dismayed that black students had their own schools in the country. Only the Coats Colored School which closed in 1952, so the black student s could attend the new brick Gentry School at Erwin, was in town. The Wiley Frazier School was located on the current Johnson Road and the Dickinson School was in the Turlington’s Crossroads area.
Some of the youngsters want to know where the schools were located and what happened to them. The following information can be found in the 1985 Coats Reunion Project book, “Together We Leave”. The facts are condensed here for those who do not have a book.
Grove Township had more than seven schools in the area. You will read about seven of them. Grove #1 was known as Ennis School and it dates back to 1885 when Cornelius Hodges donated 1 acre of land for a school. This site was on the current Chic Ennis Road off NC Highway 27 toward Benson. The school burned and was replaced by a tenant house and a barn which was made available by Rodolphus Ennis and it was also on the same road. The Ennis School had 88 students enrolled in it when the Coats brick school was being built. In 1923-24, the students at Ennis School moved into a brick school called Oakdale which was located close to the intersection of the Red Hill Church-Denning Road and Baileys Crossroads Road. Oakdale was built on the land of Jimmy and Mollie Woodall. It had a principal’s office, several classrooms, a large auditorium with a raised stage, and two bathrooms and no stalls. The seniors or the highest grade students were taught in the Mattie Suggs house where she had a room set aside for a classroom. The old house on the right, next to Dixie –Denning and before you get to the Lamm-Suggs Cemetery on Bailey’s Crossroads Road, is that school site. Oakdale Grove # 1 consolidated with Coats Grove # 3 in 1950. Tinker Howard bought the school building and allowed the community to use it for parties, showers, fish fries, retired veteran’s group, and Oakdale Extension Club meetings. In fact, a room was assigned to the club according to Juanita Hudson whose husband Mack Reid Hudson attended the school and his mother, Naomi Stewart Hudson, was a teacher in #1. The school was also a dwelling at one time and under different ownership was a club as well. It burned in 1972 and no complete picture of the school has been located by the museum volunteers.
Grove #2 School was referred to on the official records as the Gregory School District 2. It was named after a teacher named Albert W. Gregory who lived in the Barclays Inn at one time. This school had more than one location and the first one is somewhere in the Barclaysville area. On August 6, 1917, a petition was received by the county that the Gregory School sit remain unchanged unless it was moved near Bethel Church on the Johnston-Harnett County Line Road. This site was picked and a two room school was built at the cost of $1400.00. The old school was sold in 1917 for $161.00. In 1922-23, the school was known as Fair Hope and had 82 students. Do you wonder what the inventory of the school was like in 1922-23? There was 1 US flag, 55 double desks, 2 stoves, 14 square feet of black board, 2 pencil sharpeners, 10 windows shades, 1 open well, and six maps.
Herbert L. Johnson and Lottie Godwin Pollard attended Gregory and recalled in 1985 that the well water was put in a cooler on the porch for students to drink from an individual tin cup that the student brought from home. Lottie remembered that the cup was used to drink hot chocolate that was made from ingredients that different students had brought from home. Wonder if it was one of those little foldup tin cups.
The Gregory School was consolidated with the Coats Grove # 3 School in 1933-34. J.T. Jerome was the Coats School principal and F.W. Reams taught the first agriculture class that year after the state had approved teaching vocational classes in 1931, the same year that the 8 month school year was mandated for all districts.
Next week we shall continue our journey and learn the names and a very small bit of information about the other early schools in Grove Township. Read “Together We Leave” or “The Coats , North Carolina Heritage Book” for sale at the museum for in depth information about teachers, students and pictures. My mother taught at a country school in Elevation before she married my dad and I am proud to honor her birthday this week by giving a gift to the Coats Museum Endowment.
