Parents Paid For Children's Education

Quebec School, before taxes

The early families scattered throughout the mountains and valleys to the west of Rosman provided for the education of their children through subscription schools.  Parents paid a fee for their children to attend.  The tuition could be cash or produce from farms or gardens.  These schools were often rough built facilities which were also used for church services.  The normal school session ran from four to eight weeks.

Old Gloucester School

In the 1870s and 1880s public schools were built throughout the Gloucester and Hogback townships.  These were typically one-room schools constructed by the men of the community.  Tall windows on one side and end of the building provided light.  They had wood burning stoves and students were responsible for chores such as sweeping floors, washing chalk boards, carrying wood and building the fire in cold weather. 

They had handmade benches and tables and few supplies.  Parents normally provided textbooks and passed them down through the family.  Schools operated anywhere from two to six months a year, often toward the shorter period of times.  Teachers were usually young, sometimes younger than some of their students, and paid very little.  Classes consisted of anywhere from a handful of students to 50 students.

As the population of school age children changed schools closed and new schools open.  Over the course of several years the same school may have been known by different names.  One-room schools included New Prospect Church and Macedonia Church Schools, Pine Grove School on Diamond Creek (also known as Possum College), Owen, Vance Galloway, Pea Ridge, Hogback Valley, Puncheon Camp, Oakland, Montvale, Bohaney, Union, Robinson, Shoal Creek, Stover Camp and Old Log Schoolhouse.

When T.C. Henderson, who had attended and then taught in these schools in the Quebec area, became superintendent of schools he made plans to improve Transylvania County Schools through larger and better equipped school buildings, longer (nine month) school terms, better teachers with higher pay and public high schools. 

Quebec was the first district in the county to vote a special tax on property in order to raise funds for a new school building in 1907, thus beginning the era of the shining white multi-room schoolhouse.

Lake Toxaway's multi-room school in the early to mid-1900s

In 1915 the new Lake Toxaway School replaced the old Pea Ridge School.  Over the years the two-room school was expanded three times.  By the 1950s there were multiple classrooms with nearly 100 students.  It was the largest community school in the county and even had a cafeteria.  The government subsidized a lunchroom, known as a “soup room” beginning in the 1930s.  Lunches were five cents or could be paid for with corn meal, milk or vegetables.

The Balsam Grove School opened in 1922.  Soup and sandwiches were provided to students here as well.  Lunches could either be paid for in cash or with produce.

Joseph Silversteen sold property to the Transylvania County Schools and provided lumber for a three-room school in the Silversteen Community in 1923.  The partition wall between the classrooms could be moved to form a large room for programs, meetings and gatherings.  The third room served as the lunchroom and gym.

Silversteen School, 1946

By the 1946 T.C. Henderson’s “modern” school were inadequate, overcrowded, out-dated and in some cases unsafe.  Probably the worst in the county was the Silversteen School, although it continued to operate for ten more years.  Students were bused to Rosman for one year until the new T.C. Henderson Elementary School opened in the Fall of 1957.

Lake Toxaway, Quebec and Balsam Grove were the last community schools in the county to close.  Students from Balsam Grove were sent to Rosman Elementary in 1957, those from Lake Toxaway and Quebec went to T.C. Henderson .

Photographs and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.  Visit the NC Room during regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional photographs.  For more information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-3151 X242.