Cooleemee's Old Wood School

Cooleemee's Old Wood School. . On this corner lot stood Cooleemee's Old Wood School. It faced east on Watts Street and extended all the way to Duke Street. , Local school classes were held as early as 1899 in a mill house on Main Street. The foundation for this school was laid in 1901, with its official opening in December of 1902. , Its first principal was J.B. Craven, a Methodist minister and its student body numbered 160 students. Professor J.D. Hodges, Miss Rosa Tatum and others served as principals over the years. , The Old Wood School was a two-story frame building with eight class rooms. There was an assembly hall which was also used for chapel. , Each room had a pot-bellied stove. Scores of Cooleemee boys had the chore of firing-up these stoves each morning. There were outdoor toilets for the staff and young scholars in the rear yard. A cast iron pump provided water drunk from a gourd or a tin dipper. , The Old Wood School was a major step forward for education in Davie County. It was Jerusalem Township's seventh public school. , Erwin Mills built the school and maintained it. Erwin Mills General Manager T.V. Terrell and mill book-keeper J.W. Zachary served on the Jerusalem Township School Board in 1906 along with prominent farmer W.H. Hobson. , The Old Wood School drew white students from the surrounding countryside as well as the mill village. High School graduations began as early as 1908, when six scholars received their diplomas for completing eleven years of schooling. , Those who attended this Old Wood School recall their teachers as all being called "Miss". Many of them lived at the Riverside Hotel, located down the road on Cross Street. Among the list of beloved teachers were Rosa Tatum, Mary Eliza Hudson, Creola Wilson, Emma Grimes and Grace Coley. , After the "New Brick School” was built on Marginal Street in 1923, the Old Wood School continued to be used for teaching grades 1-3. At one time there were so many students that a nearby mill house and a tar-papered building were engaged to hold the student body. , Hundreds upon hundreds of students who sat in its classrooms and marched down its halls went on to become literate and productive citizens. Hugh T. Lefler, prominent North Carolina historian, received his first years of education at Cooleemee's Old Wood School.