Chapter 4 – Section 2-d

At a meeting of the Board of Education of Union Township (Little Levels District) on July 17, 1866, it was ordered that a school for colored children be established according to law, the enumeration showing that there were over thirty in number.   It was to be located on Stamping Creek, in what was called “Irish Town”.  John J. Kinnison, James Morrison, and R. F. Williams, members of the Board, ordered that a suitable house be procured and the necessary arrangements be made for the school.

On Sept 18, 1873, it was ordered that J. G. Beard be appointed to take charge all the funds belonging to the colored population of said district and dispose of same in such a manner as he should be deem best calculated to advance the educational interests of the colored population of the district, as to providing houses and teachers for the colored population and, as there was such an amount due them as would be more than necessary for teacher’s salaries for three or more years, it was ordered that the said John G. Beard be authorized to use as much of the money as would be necessary for building or renting houses.

Evidently the salaries allowed the colored teachers were less than the white teachers received for in 1876, the Board ordered John G. Beard to employ a teacher for the colored school on the mountain in his district – salary not to exceed fifteen dollars.  Near the turn of the century, there were fifty-six colored pupils in the Little Levels District.

The first colored school in the Edray District was in the “brush country”, the McDowell School, but the old records have been lost and the date is uncertain.  It was probably not a great while after the free school system came into affect, or perhaps as late as 1880.

In 1901, the Board of Education of Edray District ordered that a school for the colored children of Marlinton and vicinity be established provided a suitable room could be found.  In 1917, a new two room building was built for the colored children in Marlinton.  The contract was awarded to F. P. King for the sum of $1495.

In 1907, a new sub-district was established in the “lower brush country” for the benefit of the colored youth of that section of the country.  The following committee was appointed to secure a suitable room for holding the school in the term of 1907-08 : Bessie Hill, Wm. A Wilson, Lewis Wheeler, J. A. Peters, and S. A. McChesney.

In 1923, a new one room building was built for the colored people at Brownsburg according to the planned specifications approved by the Department of Free Schools.

June 1884 – At this date there was one colored school in the Huntersville District.  The records do not show there the school was located but mention of it is made in the mandates of the Board of Education of the District.    The school must have been on Browne Mountain in there was a Negro settlement there rather early on.

In 1883-1884, the enumeration showed twenty-two Negroes between the age of six and twenty-one in this district.  In 1886-87, it sowed seventeen.  In 1888, the trustees of the Browne Mountain colored school wee ordered by the Board of Education to repair the school building at a cost of not more than fifteen dollars, S. H. Goodwin taught this school in 1898.

The only colored teacher whose name has been mentioned in the records is that of James J. Jones, who has employed in 1888 to teach the colored school in the Sunset sub-dist for a term of four months commencing Dec. 11, 1889.

It seems that the colored population of the county was very scattered.  However, whenever there were enough pupuils to establish a school, there seems to have been one.  In most of the colored settlements, there was a colored school.  In the Greenbank district there were no colored schools prior to 1900.