The former No. 5 Public Schoolhouse, sometimes called the McCartney School, was a one-roomed, brick school built c. 1875 along Kirk Road.
The Concord Township School Board paid $530 for 1 acre of land from Samuel Myers and $2,160.50 to build the schoolhouse, according to the Concord Township School Board Minutes from 1836-1883. Lewis W. Kitzelman received the contract to build the school, and Benjamin Green built the fence along two sides of the property for $19.20. Mary Bates was the first teacher and was paid $40 a month.
A local newspaper article from the 1930s detailed how the Concord Township one-roomed public schoolhouses typically served 25-40 pupils across eight grades and that the classrooms were “bright and cheerful” and had an “air of informality and hominess.” The general layout of the schools were described as having small cloakrooms upon entrance through double doors, various sizes of desks, a central stove, and a brightly painted interior.
Mrs. Beaulah Newlin Pennington, a direct descendant of Nicholas Newlin and prominent member of Concord Township, was the last teacher to instruct students at the No. 5 School. She taught for close to 20 years at the No. 5 School. Mrs. Pennington noted that during the Great Depression, many of her students couldn’t afford lunches, so she made a school lunch menu for the week. She often made soup on a pot-bellied stove with donated spare goods such as potatoes, beans, and garden vegetables.
The school closed in 1948, along with the other numbered schoolhouses, after the Concord School opened on Bethel Road. Mrs. Pennington was a lifelong educator and went on to teach 5th grade at the Concord School after No. 5 School’s closure, closing out 45 years as a teacher in Concord Township.
The schoolhouse was converted to a private home in the 1970s.
This property is a private residence, and not open to the public.
Concord Township Historic Resource #51
