Returning again to the hills of Columbus this week we will relate the facts regarding District #10 known as the Carter School. Regretfully this school house no longer stands as it burned several years go. The Carter School was on the corner of Shawler Brook and Kelly Roads and was last owned by Walter Harsnett. The photo accompanying this article gives one and idea of the style of the schoolhouse and shows what was a chimney located at the rear, also that this school had a bell tower on the roof. Also note that the door was not on the front but on the side with two windows towards the rear of the building.

The below documentation of Carter School was written several years ago by the Columbus Historian contained in “Columbus Cronicles” that she wrote documenting the history of Columbus through a series of articles. The article written below is quoted verbatim as she wrote it and all credit for the information should be given to Mrs. Avery.

GOING TO SCHOOL IN THE 1920S AND 30S

“My dad, Donald Brown, who was born in Columbus in 1911 and lived on what is now his son’s Roger Brown, farm, walked to school at the Carter School House. At the end of the Eighth grade, the children continued to school in New Berlin at the High School.

“Some children drove a horse to school each day! My dad boarded in New Berlin for the week. My grandfather, George Brown, would sometimes tale Dad to South Edmeston to the train station on Monday mornings and Dad would ride the train to New Berlin at a cost of twenty-five cents per ride. By the time the train arrived in New Berlin, it was around ten o’clock which was too late for Dad to go to school that morning (which was OK by him). He boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Pugh (where Margaret Spicer lives today) on Cushman Street, paying five dollars a week board. On Friday’s, around four o’clock in the afternoon, he boarded the train for South Edmeston, was met by my grandfather with horse and wagon, and was taken home for the weekend. If the weather was good. Dad sometimes would ride his bicycle to New Berlin to school. He kept his bicycle in the Hotel barn, free of charge. Sometimes his father would take him all the way to New Berlin with the horse and wagon. Other times he would ride with whoever was driving the milk team taking the milk to South Edmeston and would catch the train.

“One Friday night, when he was supposed to take the train to South Edmeston, the passenger train had derailed. He called Hubert Spurr, who was stationmaster at South Edmeston, and asked him to notify his father to come to New Berlin and pick him up. The men at the train station noted that the work train was headed to South Edmeston and that Dad would ride on that. So he called Hubert Spurr back with that information and boarded the train, riding in the engine. He says this was the highlight of his life.

“Dad was seven years old when he started school. His first teacher was Jessie Horton (Donald Horton’s sister). School that year started on September 3,1918 and ended on July 25,1919. He finished eighth grade in the year 1924 at the age of twelve in the Carter School. He being in a one-room school, he doubled up on his subjects and that way finished elementary school in six years instead of eight.

“He was transferred to New Berlin for his freshman year. He had not passed spelling so was hoping that would keep him in the Columbus School. But my grandfather went to New Berlin and talked with the principle and they worked out a way for Dad to go to New Berlin and take his spelling class the first semester.