This week’s article will concentrate on the numerous joint districts, which became a fact of life with the demise in population to maintain the one-room schools. The maps which are attached to this article are self-explanatory as to dates, etc. Credit for the research of these maps goes to Mrs. Leigh Eckmair for her ongoing research relevant to the school districts of the Central Unadilla River Valley Corridor. The shaded areas (the original maps are in color) will show all the readers an approximate insight at to the consolidation of school districts and dates.
This writer regrets that with the consolidation of the districts in the Guilford Township I have absolutely no information and in the following paragraphs only a brief mention as to the location, etc. of these long lost schools.

Joint Districts #3 and #4 - Mt. Upton/Gilbertsville
The 1875 map of the Town of Guilford shows us that Joint District #3 was a fairly small district (probable cause of being a joint district) and that the school site was actually, we assume, in Otsego County as this map does not show a school site. This district was located south of Mt. Upton and ended about where the County Road enters Route 8 at what is known as Latham’s Corners. Where the actual school was remains, at this time, a mystery, and as this writer has written time and time again, should historical information be revealed, well the book always is open for new pages!
The Joint District #4 included the village of Mt. Upton and again no school site is shown as actually being in the Town of Guilford, across the Unadilla River it would probably be located in Otsego County.

Joint District #5 - Rockwells Mills
Again another mystery was this renumbered and is it a duplicate of the above information. Rockwells Mills, once a thriving community, the mills located there were engaged in the production of material which was furnished to the Union Army during the Civil War. I do not profess to be an expert on that subject and Tom Gray -Guilford Historian wrote a book a few years ago regarding this subject. This may be purchased at the Chenango County Historical Society for all who wish to further their education relevant to the Mills. In the late Mert Brownell’s book “Unadilla Valley - 1788-1976 he documents the history of this once lively hamlet in Chenango County - p. 76-87. In his historical writings, I will retract my earlier statement of no information as Mr. Brownell wrote that the school was 300 ft. north of the church, and in my earlier church articles “In the House of the Lord” the photo of the “Old Union Church” as Rockwells Mills was known shows the school in the distance. The first school was built in 1807 of logs and in 1826 was rebuilt to a frame schoolhouse. This schoolhouse burned in 1836 and was rebuilt the same year. It was a large one-room school with an entrance hall across the front. Mr. Brownell went on to write that he attended this school in 1901 for two years. As has been written many times, the larger boys carried the drinking water from across the road from a spring which was in front of the school. It was placed on a small low stand against the wall with the usual tin dipper. You held up one finger, teacher would nod and you could walk forward, dip out the water, and what you didn’t want went back to the pail. If you held up two fingers, it was a pass to attend the “outhouse” a small two-room building, boys on one side, girls on the other. Partition had several board patches nailed over the peek-holds that the girls had cut with their jackknives from the girls side. At the time Mr. Brownell wrote his documentation, the school (converted to a private home) was still standing!

Joint District #21 - Guilford-Bainbridge
The last joint district is the above, and no information is available with the exception that on the 1875 Map of Chenango County shows the schoolhouse actually in the Town of Bainbridge and in proximity to the latest Chenango County Road would be in the vicinity of the Case Road.
A historian’s wish is that if only all the school registers and minutes of the early school board (trustees) meetings had been preserved, the answers to a great deal of educational history would be answered.
With this we close yet another segment of this long-running history and as has been said “To be continued.”