Historic
Tour > Virtual Tour > Geddes Town Hall School House
Geddes Town
Hall School House
Historical
Name(s): Geddes
Town Hall School House
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Geddes
Town Hall School House
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Date
constructed: 1895
Architect:
Unknown
Style
of Architecture: Vernacular
Original
Use: Schoolhouse
Dates
of renovation: Moved to EMU July
7, 1987.
Current Use: Repository of
educational history
History:
The Geddes Town Hall School House arrived
on a flat bed. It was moved to its present
site on the campus of Eastern Michigan University
on July 7, 1987 to be a repository and showcase
for the history of teaching. The building
was donated by the Geddes family who owned
the property upon which it had been built.
The wood
frame structure is actually the second Geddes
Town Hall School House to be built. The original
house was constructed of brick in 1852 and
located on the northwest corner of William
Geddes Farm on Morgan and Thomas Roads in
Pittsfield Township, Washtenaw County. The
brick building was replaced by the current
wooden structure in 1895.
The school
housed 9 grades in a single room with one
teacher. By 1900 the grades were decreased
to 8. One-room schoolhouses were quite common
in the United States in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. One-room schoolhouses
peaked at 200,000 around 1925.
Going to
school in a one-room schoolhouse was an adventure.
Heating was minimal. The school got its first
wood and coal-burning stove in 1926, replacing
an older even less efficient wood-burning
stove.
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Another
view of the Geddes Town Hall School
House
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Not until 1940,
did the school board install a coal stove. The
building was wired for electricity in 1932 at
a cost of $32.00, and eventually also got
running water.
Indoor bathrooms, however, never arrived. This
lack of bathrooms is thought to be the reason
for its final closure in 1957.
Minimal indoor plumbing may have spelled the
final end of the Town Hall School but as early
as 1930, one-room schoolhouses were starting
to decline. By 1950, the number had fallen to
75,000 one-room schoolhouses in operation. Town
Hall School followed the same trend. In 1955,
the number of grades in the school were reduced
to kindergarten through sixth. In 1957 it was
annexed to Ann Arbor Public School system and
closed.
When Geddes Town Hall School house was donated
to Eastern in 1987, the University planned to
furnish it with contemporary teaching implements
and use it as a working classroom. “As
EMU was the first teacher education school west
of the Allegheny Mountains, the project also
[was] intended to serve as a reminder to future
area residents, students, and faculty of the
beginnings of formal education in Michigan.”
The schoolhouse would be a repository for the
collection and preservation of educational history.
When it
arrived the building was largely bare containing
only its original bell and piano. Donations
from around Washtenaw County have filled in
the gaps. Today the school is used as an educational
facility where students in the Education Department
demonstrate early 20th century classroom life
for school children from the Washtenaw.
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Location
of Geddes Town Hall School House (Click
on the image for a bigger view)
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