The subject of this week’s article “the Trestle School” still stands on County Road #35 about half-way between Guilford Center and what is known as East Guilford and is greatly changed from the photo that is included with this documentation. This writer has also included for this article a photo of the late Olin Phillips driving his mule cart to school. His former farm is located on the Phillips-Odell Road which leads off County Road #35 towards what is known as Godfrey’s Corners on County Road #37 (Winsor Corners to Mt. Upton Road).
The Trestle School (so named for the long trestle on the former O&W Railroad from Guilford to Sidney) is located, as written above, in an area known as Humphrey’s Corners. The history of this early schoolhouse dates approximately to 1831 and when traveling this road the school is located in a small hollow about 700 feet south of what is now the Rockdale Road. Now that I have thoroughly confused you with all these directions, take a nice Sunday afternoon drive and explore the area for yourself. You cannot get lost!
The Trestle school was a fairly large for its day and the average school population was between 12 and 14 students. To name a few of the older generation who attended this district school were Pershing Schlafer, Charles Hatton, Olin Phillips, Henry Blinco, and Robert Phelps. As was the norm with these district schools one teacher taught all the grades.
Back to Charles Hatton, who was a Grade 4 (1931) student and quite a poet white he was attending school there. One such poem appeared in the June 1931 issue of THE PINNACLE, which was before the consolidation of the district schools in the township. His poem was called “RAIN” and is printed below as it appeared in the above publication!
PIT, PAT, HEAR THE RAIN
FALLING ON THE WINDOWPANE
LITTLE PUDDLES IT WILL MAKE
KEEPING ME WIDE AWAKE
IN THE MORNING, I WILL WADE
IN THE PUDDLES IT HAS MADE
THERE MY SAIL BOATS I WILL SAIL
MAKE BELIEVE I AM CARRYING MAIL
It has been written, that in spite of the lessons that the students had to learn, such as the three ‘Rs’: Geography, History, Arithmetic, all was not work and no play in these early schools. Boys will be boys and they enjoyed playing pranks on each other and teasing and picking on the girls.
There were different forms of recreation in the early days before television, movies, organized sports and let us not forget computers, cell phones, iPods, etc. Recreation would include ice skating in winter for all (still popular), hunting of fur-bearing animals by the boys, as the pelts from these animals would bring from $2 to $5 each. Quite a goodly sum of money for a young boy in those days! Do not forget sleigh riding (not too popular anymore), skiing on barrel staves (a more modern way is now done) and a host of others. And do not forget the snowball fights (this writer is unaware of whether this is continued or not, however it was very popular when this student was in school.)
One such prank story was told by one of the old-timers about a boy who trapped a skunk before school started. Naturally, the boy used gloves to remove the animal from the trap. These gloves were usually left outside the schoolhouse when the bell rang. This intrepid hunter was late for school, and threw his gloves under the stove with others, not smelling the skunk. Slowly, the murky, acrid odor of the skunk’s urine permeated the schoolroom. The teacher told the offending boy to leave and get himself a good washing at home before returning to school. The boy did this, but left the gloves under the stove to dry. The smell continued to be stronger and stronger, but no one would tell the teacher where the odor was coming from. Not at all! School had to be dismissed till the next day when the air was cleared.
Pranks were not intentional and were not always planned. When this writer began the research for these articles (and it is still continues) I contacted Pershing Schlafer and asked him if he had any school memories. I will now quote verbatim what Mr. Schlafer wrote me.
SCHOOL DAYS MEMORIES
To name a few that I remember along with Humphrey’s Corners, which we called it Trestle because of the Trestle of the 0 & W Railroad over Ives Settlement Road. I remember the South Hill School, Ives Settlement School, Yaleville School, Guilford Center School, Winsor Corners School and the Puckerville School.
