The 24 School Districts of Phelps

A series about our early schools
Over the next months, the Phelps Community Historical Society will highlight each of the twenty-four Phelps schools in our newsletters and website. We hope that our readers will offer information (pictures and stories) that we can add to our articles. Our first school to be looked at next month will be School District # 1 in Oaks Corners.
A Brief Introduction
     The early American Republic promoted education as part of its liberal agenda. However, the earliest schools were affordable primarily to the children of the wealthy. This would not do for our first governor, George Clinton who said: “The erecting of public schools for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic is an object of very great importance which ought not to be left to the discretion of private men but be promoted by public authority.” (1) Gov. Clinton promoted a law which would create a common school system throughout New York State.  
     On April 9, 1795, the New York State legislature passed an act to create a system of public education in the state. Each township of the state would elect a small school committee to supervise the schools and the appointed trustees for each school in the township. A fund from the state was divided among the towns and the schools. The original fund was raised by a lottery and the sale of state land.  By 1798 New York had 1,352 schools serving 59,660 children. (2) 

     By 1812, a permanent system of common schools with school districts for each township was created by the state legislature. By 1825, New York had the most superior schools in the nation. The town of Phelps developed twenty-four districts. Each district had a school and a number. Some of the schools were also identified by a family name. These school/districts can be found on the 1904 map on our website. 
     Most of the early rural schools were poorly lighted, cold in the winters and generally uncomfortable. The teachers were often quite young and usually poor. The teachers depended on the parents of their students to provide room and board. It might be a mistake, however, to imagine that the education was second rate to our modern system. Here are three math problems that are taken out of the one room schoolhouses. Let’s see if you can answer them.  Remember, the students did not have calculators – maybe you shouldn’t either. The answers are posted below (no peeking).

•  “The forward wheels of a wagon are 14 ½ feet in circumference, and the hind wheels 15 feet 9 inches, how many more times will the forward wheels turn round than the hind wheels, in running from Boston to New York, it being 248 miles?”
•  “A hare starts 40 yards before a greyhound, and is not perceived by him till she has been up 40 seconds; she scuds away at the rate of ten miles an hour, and the dog, on view, makes after her at the rate of 18 miles an hour: How long will the course hold, and what space will be ran over, from the spot where the dog started?”
• “There are two numbers, whose product is 1610, the greater is given 46; I demand the sum of their squares, the cube of their difference?”

The district stories:

School District # 1 - Oaks Corners

School District # 2 - Melvin Hill

School District # 3, 4, and 5 - The Joint Districts

School District # 6 - The Skuse School

​School District # 7 - The Henpeck School

​School District # 8 - Vienna Union School / Phelps Union and Classical School 

​School District # 9 - Cuddeback or Cuddeback Station District

​School District # 10

​School District # 11 The Humphrey School

​School District # 12 - The Hill District (The Flood School)

​School District # 13 - The Stryker School

​School District # 14 - The Burnett District

​​School District # 15 - Th​e Hoppel-Knickerbocker District

​​School District # 16 - Maryland District

​​School District # 17 - Taney District

​​School District # 18 - The White School

​School District # 19 - The Whiskey Hill School

​School District # 20 - Dimock School

​School District # 21 - Coxsackie School

​School District # 22 - Henpeck School

​School District # 23 - Orleans School

​School District # 24 - Armstrong School

• Ans. - 7167
• Ans.  - 60 5/22 seconds and 530 yards
• Ans.  – The sum of their square is 3341 and cube of their difference is 1331

• (Minutes of the Board of Regents, February 16, 1787 in Proceedings of the Twelfth Anniversary of the University Convocation of the State of New York, Albany 1875, pp. 252-254) 
• (Robert F. Seybolt, The Act of 1795 for the Encouragement of Schools and the Practice in Westchester County. Albany: University of the State of New York, 1919)