Continuing the diversified history of the above educational institution, with the establishment of the subscribers a later meeting was held to elect a proper Board of Trustees consisting of eight prominent citizens of the township. Daniel T. Dickinson was chosen President, Daniel S. Dickinson chosen as clerk with the remaining six chosen was John Latham, Dauphin Murray, Rufus Baldwin, Calvin Milles and Phineas Atwater.
A site was chosen for the building that being as written in the previous article opposite the Presbyterian Church and adjacent to the Guilford Creek. The land was owned by Rufus Baldwin who donated the site for a token of fifty cents. This monetary amount was chosen as it was required that money be exchanged to make the sale completely legal.
By the year 1829 the building was completed and the final touch was made in November of that same year. A meeting by the Trustees resulted in a gentleman by the name of Howard Dresser be retained as the first teacher. His salary was a meager amount by today’s standards being $75 for a year and given room and board. Mr. Dresser would continue to serve as a full time educator for three years before giving way to other teachers.
The Academy continued to serve a three-fold purpose that being it housed the Common School District #10 on the first floor and the Select Academy on the second floor. Additionally it continued to serve as a meeting place for at least two churches, one of which was the Christ Episcopal Church later to be erected in the village proper, still later to be destroyed by fire and to be replaced with the structure we see today in the village, though not serving as a religious edifice now. The second religious society to use this Academy building was the Second Methodist Church or Society of Guilford. Still later this Society would erect their own edifice around the corner on the is now known as Marble Road. Still later after the closing of this religious edifice, it would remain vacant, later to be purchased by a private individual and torn down for the site of the Town of Guilford Town Barn and Town Offices. An update this site has now been abandoned as a Town Barn with the new facilities located still further down the Marble Road (this being the old County Road 36).
Guilford Center Academy would continue in this dual purpose for the next twenty years. However by 1844 it was decided to abandon the Select School and turn the building over to the Trustees of District #10 for exclusive use as a Common School. 1876 would see the building continue to be uses as a Common School for many years. The building no longer stands and this writer has been made aware of exactly when it was taken down and by J. W. Bump in 1933. If this writer’s information is correct, Mr. Bump was the owner of the “Angel Inn” at that period of time.
To continue this educational institution’s history Ms. Ann Tobey, now living in Aurora, New York compiled the history of her family entitled “The Tobeys of Afton” which is available for reading at the Guernsey Memorial Library. Included in this book is the documentation of her father John Tobey’s teaching at the one-room school (Guilford Academy) from September 1926 to March 1927. This documentation is quoted verbatim as follows:
TEACHER’S MEMORIES
“I graduated from Smyrna High School in June 1925 (note: the Tobeys were early pioneer settlers of Smyrna) and worked on the family farm that summer per usual. Someone from Morrisville and Norwich came to see me at the farm sometime during the summer and invited me to take Teacher Training Class in either school. [This was a one-year course, offered to high school graduates and often taught in a public high school, which prepared students to teach elementary school or “common branch” subjects. These classes were a major source of one-room district schools in the state.] I had no plans for what I wanted to do so did accept going to Norwich, which was much more practical as I would share an apartment with Marion (Dad’s sister), who had one and was working for the phone company.
