As has been written numerous times before in the documentation of school history, if new historical information became available that may be of interest to all that read these articles, it would be passed to the public via The Evening Sun. Such is the case with the Cutler District #11 in Columbus.
We have Rose Wellman, Sherburne Town Historian, to thank for the above photo of the Cutler District School, which was located near Sears Pond on County Road 24 (Shawler Brook Road) in the Township of Columbus.
Rose came across this photo of the school and we are assuming from the photo that the schoolhouse was the proverbial “little red schoolhouse.” You will note in the photo that the flagpole was attached to the building rather than stand alone. The chimney was located at the read or north side of the building and the building apparently faced the pond, which would indicate that the schoolhouse was located on what would be the east side of the pond with the door facing towards the road.
The most interesting segment of history is that from this postcard view of the school on the reverse side are the names of the students in the photo, which if you are familiar with the area are names of families, some of whose descendants still reside there.
As a tribute to these students, the information on the back of the card reads as follows:
Best Wishes - July 2, 1909 from Miss McConnell (we assume she is the teacher in the photo) and signed Earl Cutler.
The names are as follows in order Jesse Horton - Ted Whitney - Earl Cutler - Walter Merrells - Ezra Horton - Blanche (Whitney?) -Albert (Cutler?) - Charles (Merrells?) - Leon Burdick and John Doyle with the notation taken as Sears Pond!
One student, Ted Whitney, would go on to be teacher for a great many years, extremely instrumental in the Columbus Community Church, a World War II veteran and for many, many years a guiding light as a member of the Chenango County Historical Society. To have known Ted Whitney was indeed an honor by all.
With this new documentation of Columbus school history we conclude the history, to date, of known Columbus one-room schools and it is sincerely hoped that to all who have read these articles that they have proved to be enjoyable.
In the next series of schools we will be traveling, again, to the southern section of the county for brief histories of the schools of Coventry. And in closing, the plea is once more put out for any and all school memories to be forward via e-mail to news@evesun.com. All information received will be duly credited unless it is to remain anonymous.