Two of Cecil County’s One-Room Schoolhouses

Two of Cecil County’s One-Room Schoolhouses

The Chesapeake City one-room Colored schoolhouse as renovated in 2006

Miss Alverda Ferguson and student stand in front of the Fingerboard School, circa 1917

The Chesapeake City Colored School

Lois Maria Sewell: “This building that I live in was once a one-room Colored schoolhouse. They closed it in 1942. I was here in the first grade and I remember it well. The older kids were on one side and we were on the other. I remember that Miss Emma Boyer had a long stick to correct the kids. The blackboard was towards the back and Miss Boyer had a cowbell that she rang when recess was over.

“This house is partitioned now, but when it was a school house it was one big room. This building has the original boards but they've been covered with shingles. Miss Betsy Robinson used to teach here, and Miss Mary Veal, also.”

            “We had to go outside to use the bathroom, the outhouses. I didn't have to walk very far to school, just right next door. But after first grade I went to the Carver school in Elkton. The bus would pick us up and take us across the lift bridge. Then we would stop on the North Side to pick up the kids who lived over there.

“I still remember most of the teachers at Carver: Miss Lang, Miss Long, Miss Jones, and Mr. Bessick. We had very good teachers. Mr. Charles W. Caldwell was our principal. When I was in high school I transferred to Dunbar High in Washington, DC. I graduated from there in 1950.”

The Fingerboard School—Earleville

Miriam Burris: “I attended the Fingerboard one-room schoolhouse from 1929 until 1936. I remember it well. I remember warming my hands on the pot-belly stove. We had extreme winters then, and I recall walking to school over snow drifts and never breaking through. Sometimes we went in a horse-drawn sleigh or carriage. The pump was outside, so water was carried in a bucket with a dipper. Of course, there was no indoor plumbing, so we used outhouses and, boy, were they cold in the winter.

            “I remember how we used to bring our sleds to school and, after eating a quick lunch, we bundled up and took our sleds across the field as far away as we could. Our teacher, Miss Ferguson, had a large hand bell and she used to ring it at 12:50. Of course, we could never hear it! So she would bundle up and come across the field to get us. Several times, as I recall, we pulled her back to the schoolhouse on a sled. She was a wonderful teacher, and I daresay we learned more than the basics: how to get along with others and how to have compassion for others, which she taught by example.”