Larryville School

 

This historic, one-room schoolhouse in a rural part of Piatt Township, Lycoming County, PA, operated as a school from 1876 to 1958.

" The Great Flood of 1889 washed away the original building, and Gooding's father, John D. Neff, built the structure that remains today on Spook Hollow Road"

1914 - S.B. Mallory, Teacher

1938

Renewal project is planned for one-room school 
WILLIAMSPORT. Pa. (2014)

 They waded long distances through deep snow storms, used pages from outdated Sears Roebuck catalogs for toilet tissue and scorched their faces on the heat of the pot-bellied stove while their backs froze.

 Nonetheless, one graduate of a one-room schoolhouse, Etta N. 1 Gooding of Jersey Shore, finds it very sad that the surviving schools of yesterday are now often no more than neglected relics. At 98, Gooding is believed to be the oldest surviving graduate of the Larryville School in Piatt Township, where plans are being made to restore the structure as a museum of sorts.

 Ultimately, Betty Neff, a graduate of the school and a teacher at Williamsport Area High School, would like to restore the building and its contents as a museum for community use. Neff and others are in the "early stages" of forming the Larryville School Restoration Association and acquiring the school. They have been working on those aspects for about a year, she said. Those elements must be in place before fund raising and restoration can be planned, she said.

 The school, which closed in 1958, dates back to at least 1876. The following year, according to a state report, there were three schools in the township educating 142 students.

 The Great Flood of 1889 washed away the original building, and Gooding's father, John D. Neff, built the structure that remains today on Spook Hollow Road. Gooding's nephew, Richard Neff, to whom Betty is married, was In the last class held in the building be fore It closed. Schools certainly have changed from those days, Gooding observed

. While children had to endure many hardships to obtain an education, they also bad certain advantages that today schools do not offer. "Everybody was in one room,' Gooding said. "The little ones in the first grade learned an awful lot from the ones in the upper grades. The school day, typically, would begin with the teacher working with the youngest children while the older pupils studied their lessons. As the day progressed and the teacher made his way up the levels. the younger pupils would listen in on the more advanced lessons.

 In those days, snow days were unheard of, Gooding said. Actually, quite the opposite was the situation. The cold winter months allowed children from the agricultural community time to at tend classes. , "Most of the kids lived on farms and had to help," she said, noting that school was conducted from September or October through April. Basically, it was in operation when the growing season was over. 

"But the kids didn't know any better. They didn't complain. They just went to school," Gooding said. On days when the weather was terribly brutal, Gooding remembers, adults would transport the children on horse-pulled wagons or, during times of snow, by sleigh. "We'd go, regardless," she said, adding. "It doesn't snow now like it did then." 

Still, much more numerous were the days when, after treading through wet snow in heavy woolens, school children would sit near the pot-bellied stoves to dry out. A neighbor of the school would take some of the outer clothes next door to dry. 

Most of the time, the stove would be kept at a comfortable level, but other times it would get very hot, Gooding said. Only the basics were taught in those one-room schools, she said, listing curriculum of reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, geography and history. 

And, like today, the students had recess. The teacher needed the time off to attend to numerous chores. Teachers' responsibilities included shoveling paths through the snow in front of the school and to the outhouse, fixing damaged quill pens and making a fire to heat the building. They were paid about $40 a month. 

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when Gooding attended Larryville School, it was not common for girls to complete high school education. But her parents emphasized education, and Gooding continued her schooling at Jersey Shore High School after receiving her diploma from Larryville at the age of 14. She later received a nursing degree at Rochester, N.V. "They (her parents) wanted each one of us to have a high school education," she said of her five brothers and four sisters. "They wanted us to learn to do something that we could use to support ourselves later." 

=============

READ MORE
===========

 Piatt Township was formed from part of Mifflin Township by the Pennsylvania General Assembly on April 30, 1857. The new township encompassed what was the southernmost part of Mifflin Township.  Piatt Township is named for William Piatt who was an associate judge in Lycoming County when the township was created.  Larrys Creek, which bisects Piatt Township, is names for Larry Burt, the first settler in the area, who lived near the mouth of the creek near what is now the hamlet of Larry’s Creek.  Other settlers soon followed Larry Burt to what is now Piatt Township.  They settled along the banks of Larry’s Creek near where it flows into the West Branch Susquehanna River. 
 Piatt Township is bordered by Mifflin to the north, Woodward Township to the east, the West Branch Susquehanna River to the south, and Porter Township to the west.  Lycoming County is about 130 miles northwest of Philadelphia and 165 miles east-northeast of Pittsburgh.  The township has a total area of 10.1 square miles.  The surface of Piatt Township is rolling with valuable bottom lands located along the river, in the great bend known a Level Corners.