Marshallton School, District #77

Marshallton School #77, 99, 99½ in 1930

Over the years, I think we've covered just about every old schoolhouse that does or did once stand in Mill Creek Hundred. However, there's one schoolhouse we've mentioned only in passing, which technically stands in Christiana Hundred, but which served many MCH schoolchildren during its tenure. And because it looks very different from all the other area schools of its day, it's likely that many of you who have seen it may not have even realized that it was a school, let alone its age. I guess you can say that its design was very forward-looking, since to me it looks like a small office building that could have been built at just about any time in the second half of the 20th Century. It is, however, a product of the late 19th Century.

The schoolhouse in question stands in Marshallton, and it's the second of three that have served the children of the village and surrounding area. It's not surprising that the first school didn't come around until a little later, because the Village of Marshallton itself didn't exist until about the 1830's, when the Marshall brothers built the first iron mill there. Originally, any children living in what would become the Marshallton area would have walk up the road to the District #33 Brandywine Springs School, located on Duncan Road just south of McKennans Church Road. I haven't found any direct documentation for when the Marshallton School opened, but I have a pretty big clue.

On July 15, 1854, James and Eleana Cranston sold one acre of land at "the forks of the old New Port Road with another road leading towards Wilmington" for $100 to School District Number Seventy-seven. This, of course, today, would be the southeast corner of Newport Road and Old Capitol Trail. If we assume the schoolhouse was simple and quickly-built, it likely opened for classes in September 1854. It was also likely a small, one-room schoolhouse, probably of frame construction. I've never found a photo that states it was this school, but I have a hunch about one we'll get back to later. This was the primary schoolhouse in the area for the next 40 years.

However, by the early 1890's Marshallton was growing, as was the student body, and the old school was becoming insufficient to meet the needs of the community. This would become a recurring theme over the years. In fact, a few years earlier in 1888, District #77 was divided and a new District #99 was created. As best as I understand, no new schoolhouse was built and the two districts shared the old #77 school, but there was another room (and another teacher) added to it. It seems that they were a combined district, covering the same geographical area. Not only do some articles call them a combined district, but also there are public petitions for tavern licenses wherein the petitioner states what district they're in, and several of these say they're located in 77 and 99.

Announcement of new school - May 8, 1893

Even that division didn't solve the problem for very long. The area was growing, and still more room and funding was require to meet the schooling needs. To that end, in early 1893 the state legislature gave approval for the two districts to borrow money for a new school house. Also, later in 1893, there was yet another division and new district created. District #99 was divided and District #99½ came into being. Again, they seem to have all been the same area, as more tavern license petitions stated their locations being in District Nos. 77, 99, and 99½. I think the reason for all this can be found in the article above, which states that, "By the passage of this measure the school here will secure an additional dividend of the amount appropriated for state schools." It was all about getting more of that sweet, sweet, state money.

But the more important takeaway from the article is that the reason for securing more funding was for the erection of a new school house. At least some of the funding was secured (there was more borrowing after the school was built), construction began, and the new, two story, four-room, brick school was dedicated on September 1, 1894. There's no mention of the old school, but the new one was built on the same one acre lot. Unless the demolition of the old structure and erection of the new was all done over the summer (which I think is unlikely), then perhaps the brick school house was built behind the 1850's school.

The Marshallton School, probably soon after 1900 (note the flagstaff)

In any case, the new school was about as modern and state-of-the-art as rural schools got in 1894. It was of a similar design to the Brandywine Springs and Sharpley Schools, but about two decades earlier and two stories instead of one. The following year in 1895, the Marshallton students raised money to purchase a new flag, and what was at the time reported to be possibly the largest unspliced (meaning one piece of wood) flagstaff in Delaware. US Senator George Gray came out to give a speech at the official flag raising.

Marshallton School and its students

A decade later there were two separate minor scandals involving the school and District #77, 99, 99½. First, in 1904, George Spicer decided that the districts owed him $65 for water that students had drank out of his pump over the previous few years. Spicer owned the store across Newport Road from the school, which later would be owned by John H. Foard. The following year there were public accusations of misappropriation of funds by members of the school board, but in the end I don't think anything really came of it.

By the late teens, the next problem that arose was more serious and more familiar -- overcrowding. After only about 25 years, the school house was again insufficient to meet the Marshallton area's needs. This was not an uncommon problem at the time, and in Marshallton they took several different measures to alleviate the overcrowding. One of the temporary solutions was to hold classes in nearby buildings. Lessons were taught in second floor rooms of both Foard's store and the former Cope's store (the brick house across Old Capital Trail), by then a private residence. When these were not enough, a new structure was built. No, not a new school yet -- that wouldn't come for another decade or so. What was built was what was known as a portable school, or portable annex.

The Marshallton Portable School in 1920, front and back

The portable school was a small, frame building located behind the main school, on Newport Road. It was actually about the same size as many of the earlier, 19th Century school houses, and, I believe, meant to be temporary. However, after it was no longer needed in the early 1930's, the portable school was sold and converted to a private home. It still stands today behind the brick school. And if you go back up and look closely at the photo at the top of the post, you can see a bit of it behind the school to the right.

Labeled as the Marshallton Portable School, but
maybe the original 1854 school?

There is one lingering mystery I've found, which involves the photo above. In the Delaware Public Archives, it's labeled as being the Marshallton Portable School, and is in with the 1920 pictures. It's definitely not the new portable school, and it's quite possible that the photo is just mislabeled. If not though, could this be the original 1854 District #77 School? I would have assumed it would have been torn down when the new school was built in 1894, but perhaps not.

In any case, by the late 1920's all the heroic measures taken by the districts were proving to be inadequate, and something new had to be done. The story played out over the course of several years and countless community meetings, but in the end local residents decided to consolidate the Marshallton districts with the also-outgrowing-its-facility Brandywine Springs School district. In a way, this brought things full circle, as the kids of the Marshallton area originally attended the Brandywine Springs school. In 1931, the new and very modern Marshallton Consolidated School was constructed just a few hundred yards east.

The Marshallton Consolidated School, 1932

This new and much larger Marshallton school itself became overcrowded a few decades later, a problem alleviated by the construction of new suburban schools, such as Anna P. Mote (who was a teacher and principal at the brick school), Marbrook, and a new Brandywine Springs school. But unlike the original 1854 school, these newer Marshallton schools were not demolished, even after their traditional schooling days were done. Being larger, the 1894 school was eventually converted to business use, unlike some of the older, smaller schools that were sometimes converted for residential purposes. The picture below is from a 1961 newspaper article about Marshallton, but does not say what the building was being used for, or why there was a garage door on the side.

View of the side of the school, now with a garage door
installed, from a 1961 article about Marshallton's history

At some point (maybe in the 1970's or 80's?) its windows were replaced and its appearance slightly altered (the tan sections between the windows), but this now 130+ year old school still stands and functions today. And I would bet that most people going by it today have no idea that almost four decades of school children took their learning in this brick edifice.