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 One-room
schoolhouses are part of our history – a rich history full of
memories. In Marion County, there were at least 130 such structures,
built to offer students the opportunity to obtain an education,
especially in rural areas. School sessions consisted of a single 72
day term in the winter. Students left school in the spring in time to
help with planting crops and returned after the fall harvest. Later
there were two terms, which lengthened the school year. One-room
schools were located about two miles apart, so most students had to
walk no more than one mile to school.
In today’s fast-paced world,
many of these pieces of our past have been put to other uses, fallen
down, or been torn down. We have seen them used as houses, township
offices or garages, farm buildings, and storage buildings. At one
time, the Linn School building was used as a corncrib.
But it was not destined for
destruction. Instead, it was rescued and restored through the
partnership of the project funders, Merle Hamilton and Oliver
Hamilton, along with The Marion County Historical Society and Quality
Masonry Company, Inc. of Marion. Oliver Hamilton, (born August 24,
1903), attended school there from 1909 to 1915, while his brother,
Merle Hamilton (born September 29, 1907) attended from 1913 to 1917.
Oliver’s daughter, Judy Hamilton Kilbury, also attended Linn School
for one year in 1942, the year the school was closed.
Restoration of Linn School –
located about two miles north of the Marion city limits on Ohio Route
4 – was accomplished because of the desire of the project funders to
preserve this piece of rural Ohio history. Built in 1897 of soft clay
brick and lime mortar with approximately 800 square feet, the school
served students in grades one through eight.
 Emanuel
Hamilton, father of Oliver and Merle, owned and operated a stone
quarry just south of Linn School. Merle described the interurban
train which passed in front of the school, noting that he often rode
it to school. Stories are fondly told of three brothers – Leroy, Sam,
and Paul Hinaman – who, in the first decade of the 20th
century traveled to school on a horse-drawn sled early each morning.
It was their job to stoke the fire so that the building would be warm
when the other students arrived. There was no pump or well at the
school so the older boys and girls carried water in a bucket from the
Charles Linn farm across the road. Government-supplied powdered soups
were prepared on top of a pot-bellied stove for students who couldn’t
go home for lunch. Teachers boarded at the Oley Linn and Emanuel
Hamilton homes.
Oliver and Merle Hamilton
approached Quality Masonry Company, Inc., to prepare a plan to restore
Linn School to its early-1900s condition. The building underwent
complete interior and exterior restoration and many components were
replaced. It was furnished with salvaged blackboards, desks, and
other accessories and is now listed on the National Register of
Historic Places. The successful partnership of the Hamilton
brothers,
Quality Masonry Company, Inc., and The Marion County Historical
Society has provided an excellent site for educational programs that will enable
the children of today and tomorrow to better understand the history of
education in Marion County.
Today the Marion County
Historical Society is working toward our goal of making the Linn
School handicapped accessible and building an information kiosk.
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