The Alward School

See this house?  It wasn't always a private residence.  Until 1928, it was a one-room school house!  It also just so happens to be the childhood alma mater of Eleanor Youmans, who attended the school from 1881 to 1886.

The Alward School, one of nine former sub-districts of the Harrison Township School District, was built in the triangular shaped lot formed by Beecher and York Roads and State Route 16 in Pataskala.  It began as a log building called Nichols School, which was replaced by a frame building in 1845.  Thirty-eight years later, in 1883, the frame structure was torn down, and a third, brick structure replaced it.  The new school, renamed Alward, cost $2,157 to construct.  Today, the original brick hides under contemporary white siding, several porches have been added to the exterior, and an inviting tire swing sways under massive trees.

Youmans composed a history and poem commemorating the school for a 1924 Alward School reunion, both of which appear in a the 7 May 1936 special "Golden" edition of the Pataskala Standard.  She writes:

Three schoolhouses have stood on the triangular field formed by the crossing of York Street and Old Columbus Road and another road which intersects Columbus Road and York Street from the north, three miles east of Pataskala.  Only the last building, built of brick in 1883, by a man named Stothard, supervised by Bert Alward, bore the name Alward School.

The ground on which the three schoolhouses stood belonged to the late Benjamin Nichols and his father before him, and was donated for the use of a school by them.  The first building, of logs, was named the Nichols School, and stood opposite the farmhouse now owned by Curtis Bowlby, facing south toward York Street, on the southwest point of the triangle.

The second building (also called Nichols School) was frame, built by B. F. Sutherland, sometime in the fifties (as the writer's father was born in 1845, attended there with his numerous brothers and sisters.)  It may have been the late forties.

No copy of the old registers is available, to ascertain the names of early teachers.  Mrs. George Nichols was a teacher there, Mrs. Ella Martin, Martha Clark; the last person to teach in the old frame schoolhouse was the late Fred Thomas, beloved by all who knew him.  He also taught the first term in the new brick schoolhouse, and subsequent term; he was followed by Elmer Morrow, Margaret Forsyth and Rosa Rogers, during the time the writer went to that school.  A list of all the teachers of these schools, which endured for over sixty years, would fill the column of a newspaper.  Sometimes there were two teachers in one year; for example, Martha Clark taught the summer term in the frame building, in 1882, and Fred Tomas taught the winter term.

It is a striking commentary upon the times, that, in the present day, when thousands of country schools have closed for lack of funds, we descendants of those who attended the Nichols School, and who ourselves attended the Alward School, can find no record of the district.  And yet we like to believe that we live in a more enlightened age.

Where we first went to school, three roads
Spread wide inviting arms,
Beckoning travelers onward,
Through hills, to peaceful farms,
A stream ran not too far away,
Forming a quiet pool
And skating pond, for childish play
Where we first went to school.

Bobolinks sang on the fence;
Bees hummed in jimpson weeds;
The air was filled with thistle down
And shining milk weed seeds;
Along the hedgerows, rabbits hid;
Green pawpaw bushes, cool,
Held nests of tiny feathered things,
Where we first went to school.

No other skies have been so blue;
Nor sunshine beamed so bright;
Birdsongs were always sweeter there
And clouds more billowing white.
No teachers ever were so kind--
Indeed, that child were fool,
Who could not learn contentment
Where we first went to school!

In addition to the school's history and the poem she wrote in its honor, there is also an image of the Alward School in the collection of glass negatives taken and owned by Youmans, which shows the structure's original brick facade.  Who knows, but maybe it's Eleanor herself posing on the front steps!

My thanks go out to Martha Tykodi for supplying a copy of the original article, and granting me access to the original glass plate negative!

Top Image: Photo of former Alward School building, now a private residence, July 2010
Bottom Image:  The Alward School, courtesy of West Licking Historical Society, from Eleanor Youmans Glass Plate Negative Collection