LONG EDDY, NY — “People were born at home, baptized in the church, had kids who walked to school, and then were buried in the cemetery,” said Terry Milk of the Rock Valley Cemetery Association.

She was speaking about the close relationship between the local house of worship, the Rock Valley Schoolhouse—and its near neighbor, the final resting place for many local residents and their descendants, including many veterans of past conflicts around the world.

The old schoolhouse, tucked away in a quiet corner of the history-rich hamlet of Rock Valley, was constructed in 1885. The one-room schoolhouse operated until sometime in the early 1940s, when rural schools were centralized.

Then it was used as a community polling station, and was deeded to the Rock Valley Cemetery Association in 1953.

The association has lovingly maintained the historic building for more than six decades as a place for families to gather after a burial, the private place of final rest.

In 2006, a group of dedicated local folks decided it was time to restore the old school, the only one of the original 29 schoolhouses in the area still a public building. 

Once restored, it could stand as a living history museum honoring Rock Valley’s early settlers. Two years later, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and the New York State Register of Historic Sites.

Since 2010, a series of summer artistic programs have been held there, including poetry, readings, concerts, oral history and storytelling.

“The goal has been to create awareness of the schoolhouse and its historical values to the community, promote interest in the arts and culture, and to raise funds for the maintenance and upkeep of the building,” explained Bobbie Oliver, artist and artistic chairperson of the schoolhouse.

“It brings the community together to appreciate the schoolhouse and its history, its beauty as a place of learning and an architectural object… it creates a community,” she added.

The story of the schoolhouse

“Schoolhouses were built when and where they were needed,” the building’s website notes.

“An annual tax would have been levied by the Hancock District on the families sending children to the schools. These taxes paid for the building, its maintenance, the teacher’s salary and supplies. Schools were very much controlled by their local community.”

Land for the Rock Valley Schoolhouse was originally donated by George Oestrich. Shortly thereafter, John Inman, a mason and carpenter, was hired by the Hancock School District to construct the building for $750, a sum that included materials and labor, according to the website.

The schoolhouse is described as a traditional single story, rectangular wood-frame structure, featuring clapboard-style wood siding, which was whitewashed to preserve it. The outside steps are made of locally quarried bluestone, and there are three large windows on each side of the long building.

A cast iron wood-burning stove provided heat. Today it sits in the center of the room, facing the blackboard and the teacher’s desk. Over the blackboard are displayed images of George Washington and Abe Lincoln, as well as a 48-star American flag. Walt Whitman watches from a place of honor along a side wall.

Over the teacher’s raised platform and desk is a display of cursive writing with flowing examples of English letters—Aa to Zz.

Numerous period-correct artifacts are on display, including a small collection of McGuffey Readers (Eclectic Readers, a series of guided primers for grades one to six, were textbooks used in American schools from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century), a teacher’s marble inkwell set, an original ballot box and several reading and writing guides for the students.

The front lawn is home to a huge church bell, donated by Bobbie Oliver and her husband, the owners of the adjacent restored church and grange hall.

Several of the old desks, rescued from storage in the attic, bear silent witness to young boys who carved their initials into the wooden tops: “W.S. 14 YR 1920-1921.”

Visiting the past

“My grandchildren love this place, visiting the graves of relatives, and seeing where everybody went to school, said Terry Milk, who married Jim Milk, a fifth-generation local who, along with his wife, operates Rock Valley Spirits, a Catskill Mountain distillery located on part of his family farm.

And of the old schoolhouse, she said, “You feel like the spirit of all these people is still here. The patina is warm and inviting.”

Taking a break from distilling some beverages, Jim Milk recounted that in bygone days his great-grandfather Will and his wife Libby settled over the hill in Goulds. Will was known “nationally as a hunter and trapper of foxes.”

The school and adjacent cemetery were located on a steep hill. “I swear it’s because those old farmers didn’t want to waste any flat land,” he said—and he would know, given his knowledge of the land and farming.

His father attended the one-room schoolhouse, and along with a lot of other kids, went sledding down the hill to school during the winter. The kids had to carry the sleds back up the steep slope to home after classes were dismissed.

“So when he was six or seven, he and his sister, who was maybe five, got to the steep part on the hill by the cemetery. He stopped, got on his sled and said ‘You’ve got to drag me home, or I’m going to stay and freeze to death, and Mama’s going to get mad at you!”

The schoolhouse is located at 9598 County Hwy. #28.

For more information about the Rock Valley Schoolhouse, its history and upcoming summer arts programs, email therock

valleyschoolhouse@gmail.com.

For a list of those buried in the Rock Valley Cemetery, as of 2001, visit www.dcnyhistory.org/cemrockvalley.html.