The Schoolhouse
School Breakout
- This schoolhouse is an authentic restoration of the school first constructed in 1819.
- The original school was situated four feet below flood plain.
- Served as the cultural heart of a bustling frontier community.
Cultural Heart of the Community
Just a short walk from the Newel K. Whitney Store, the sawmill, and the ashery sits the historic recreation of a building that pre-dates all of them: the Kirtland Schoolhouse. Many significant community events occurred in this multipurpose building.
The first schoolhouse built in Kirtland was a log structure erected in 1814. Then in 1819 a larger and more functional frame building was built near the river. This second school stood until it was destroyed by fire in the 1860s. By using early property records that listed the exact coordinates of a corner of this building, researchers dug and found the original foundation buried under four feet of rich Ohio soil, right where the records said it should have been.
The foundation was largely intact, and some of the charred remains were still buried with the foundation. But “the original building was situated well below the Chagrin River flood plain,” says anthropologist Mark Staker, who assisted the discovery team. “In fact, historical documents confirm the original school continually suffered flooding, and a special ditch arrangement was constructed to keep water out of the building.” That low-lying placement, combined with nearly 150 years of settling, weathering and soil decomposition, left the foundation well below modern ground level.
“The foundation we discovered was made of native stone quarried nearby,” says Staker. But simple wisdom borne from experience dictated that the restoration include “carefully reburying the stones and bringing the new foundation up to grade so as to avoid the original flooding problems.
Careful archeology and analysis of early photographs helped provide significant details about the original structure during restoration.
When precise data for a particular aspect of the building was unavailable, historians and craftsmen relied upon the best information known about buildings from the time period. Staker says modifications were made to accommodate modern building standards, but, “based on all the information available to us, it looks like the original.”
In addition to offering the expected instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic, the school also served as town hall, polling place, and church meeting house. Evening classes were held for adults. For some years the school was the cultural heart of this bustling frontier community.
Helen Mar Whitney, daughter-in-law of Newel and Elizabeth, recalled early Sunday School gatherings in the building: “Among other pleasing recollections were our Sunday Schools, where I used to love to go and recite verses and whole chapters from the New Testament.”