Summer is ending, September is arriving. It is schooltime again—the children of Williamsburg are getting ready to return to their classrooms in the Anne T. Dunphy School and regional high schools and vocational schools. It was much the same 100 + years ago. This postcard from about 1901, showing the old district schoolhouse in the Searsville section of Williamsburg (up the top of Village Hill at the four corners), is known as a “penny postcard” because it cost one cent to mail. The schoolhouse was one of nine district schools in Williamsburg and Haydenville at the time. The early school, built in 1785, was called the Center District School. Then, formally known as the Hyde District No. 2 School, and finally the Searsville School, the schoolhouse closed in 1923. Williamsburg’s own poet laureate, John Milton Black (1898-1943), who grew up in Searsville, wrote this poem as a tribute to his dear schoolhouse.
“The Little Red School House”
The little red schoolhouse!
How dear it has grown;
The years we have lived,
How fast they have flown!
My schoolmates, God bless them,
Seem dearer and nigh
Each season that passes,
Each year that slips by.
No one can see the future
But all can search the past,
And find some pleasant memories
To cling to, to the last.
Come to the Meekins Library and find out interesting bits about Williamsburg and Haydenville history and read more poems by John Milton Black. Visit the Meekins website and explore many local history online resources. Thanks to Collin Black for permission to use his great-grandfather’s poem. Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist. #throwbackthursday; #tbt.
Posted to Facebook 8/22/2024