Goshen History: The Little Red Schoolhouse

Staff Writer

There is a small, red, well kept building on Newcomb Road in Goshen. The date on the front of the building is 1840 and was called, appropriately enough, The Newcomb School. As early as 1822, the town had been divided into 12 school districts plus a Union District, each with a schoolhouse. No child had to walk very far to attend school, but many of the teachers did.

The majority of those schools no longer exist or have been converted to houses. But the little, red schoolhouse still stands as a reminder of a poignant slice of Goshen history. How did it all begin? “The first compulsory education law in this country was enacted in 1642 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritan notion of education as a moral, social obligation was thus given the sanction of law, a pattern later followed by nineteenth century crusaders for free public education.”* However, most of the laws mandating education for all children in the US did not begin in earnest until the mid-nineteenth century, making Goshen a town ahead of its time.

One of the other schools, The Goshen Academy, built in 1824, produced future ministers, missionaries, lawyers, doctors, judges and senators. Today, that building houses (since 1955) the Goshen Historical Society. By 1898, there were only six schools still open; Goshen Center (still around) Newcomb, East Street, West Side, West Goshen and Hall Meadow. This is a story about the little red schoolhouse, still standing in its original state; Newcomb School.

In 1909, Newcomb School, a one room building, had eighteen students ranging in age from six to fourteen. Perhaps their family names will spark a memory in many of Goshenites’ memories; Thomen, McElhone, Fessenden and Ives. While the students could easily walk to school, their teacher, Lucie Ludington, a Goshen resident, lived five miles away from the school. Each day, Lucie rode her bicycle to school if the weather was good. However, when winter came, her mother drove Lucie to school. She arrived with a packed suitcase on Monday, and was picked up by her mother on Fridays after school had adjourned for the week. In this friendly town, Lucie stayed the week with the Ives family. Can you imagine this situation happening today?

Lucie, herself was a graduate from the Goshen Academy. At that time, the Reverend Harry Small, a school board member, appointed Lucie to the teaching post at Newcomb School, after asking her only a few questions. You might think that insufficient, but Reverend Small was the minister in this village and was more than likely well acquainted with Lucie and viewed her education as well qualified by the standards of the day.

Amongst her duties as a teacher, Lucie also maintained the heat source for the schoolhouse, starting each morning with kindling to warm the room for her students. Before leaving at night, she banked the fire with ashes. Evidently, she did a good job, as the schoolhouse never burned down! Fifty-nine years after her teaching experiences at Newcomb School, Lucie was still with us and commented on this task, “I never lost it,”**

Today, the little red schoolhouse remains standing as a landmark from an earlier time in Goshen history.

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*Katz, Michael S.

A History of Compulsory Education Laws. Fastback Series, No. 75. Bicentennial Series.