Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Old Pocomoke School
This larger 1877 map will add some context to the detail of Market
Street just posted. The mapmaker did not go beyond 7th Street in
delineating the Pocomoke City of 1877. Am I correct in assuming that
"Public School No. 2," upper left, is the old school still in use in the
1940s? If so, it was erected in 1867, ten years before this map was
made, 40 feet by 56, the lot being about 3 acres in size. It lasted for
82 years. My brother Dale was a pupil there for some months in 1946 when
our parents lived briefly in a rental behind the barn on the Duncan
Farm [Ellen Barnes] on Dividing Creek Road. I suppose there is no other
group member who attended school there?
I attended the first grade there for the 1948-49 school year. I was in the class of Miss Sara Dallas which was on the second floor. I remember the long flight of wooden steps outside on the east side of the building (Walnut Street side) that we climbed to get to our classroom.
ReplyDeleteA news account reported on the fire which broke out while classes were in session in March, 1949. It stated some 190 first through third graders were attending classes and that they filed out safely under the supervision of Principal Miss Annie Ross. Pocomoke firemen had the blaze under control in about 30-minutes. The three-story structure suffered roof and water damage. An overheated flue was believed to have been the cause of the fire.
The new brick elementary school on the north end of the property (4th street, between Cedar and Walnut) was under construction at the time. Not sure, but I believe we were taken into a section of that building until our parents arrived to take us home. We were off from school for several days.
The new school opened in the fall with classrooms for first through third grade. I attended second and third grade there. A first floor section of the old building still remained in use when I attended fourth grade in that remaining part of the old building. -tk