PENCE SPRINGS (Hinton News) – It is time for another edition of A Peek into Summers County’s Past. Every week, a local history collector, William Jones, shares a piece from his vast collection. He provides information and photos of the topic. Most of the items are directly connected to the county’s history, while some are only tangentially connected. This week we travel to the Pence Springs area to discuss local schools.
Jones began by talking about some of the schools to serve the area. He said, “Pence Springs has an extensive history in regards to schools. To begin, the first school in this area was the Mays School. The second to be established was the Buffalo [Lick] School. Also, there was a school near Lowell called Kellan School. All three schools were the standard one-room schoolhouse for the general public. They were all consolidated into one school called Pence Springs School around 1900. One of the three schools mentioned is still standing, the Buffalo School house. It was renovated in 2008 to serve as a camp. During the renovation I acquired the original 1800s wooden shutters that had been removed from the building and stored in a crawl space under it.”
The original Pence Springs Hotel buildings have served many purposes throughout the years. According to Jones, “Sometime in the 1930s Eleanor Roosevelt had her hands in briefly converting what had previously been the Pence Springs Hotel into a finishing preparatory school for young girls. This all took place around the same time as The Great Depression and her husband President Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ that had been established to improve the lives of people suffering due to hardships at that time.”
“The building then became a state prison for women. It was restored and operated as a hotel again by Ashby Berkley from the 1980s to the 2000s, my mother was one of his chefs for over a decade. Then, in turning full circle it became the therapeutic private school called Greenbrier Academy For Girls until March of this year. In between all of this the county built what was known just as the Pence Springs School, that I previously mentioned. It housed everything up to the 8th grade. The children went to Talcott from their 9th grade year until they graduated.”
Speaking specifically on the topic of the Pence Springs School, Jones said, “The original Pence Springs School had only four rooms, where multiple grades shared a room. Early one morning in 1941 it caught fire and was totally destroyed. It was located along Route 3 at the corner of the road that goes across the Pence Springs bridge. The county had to act fast to find a suitable location to hold school while the destroyed building was cleaned up and a new modern brick building was built in the same location. It is currently still standing. After some indepth research it was determined that classes would be held at the Lahey Boarding House on the other side of the river due to the close proximity of most of the students that lived in Pence Springs proper. So the students up to the 8th grade went to school in the boarding house while the new building was being built.”
Talking about his personal connections to the items displayed in the photos, Jones stated, “I recall visiting Alvin Garten and his family in the evenings for many years before he passed away in 2013. He too, was passionate about history, especially of Pence Springs. He told me about the school burning down when he was in the 3rd grade, and how school was held in the parlor at the Lahey Boarding House for a year until the new brick school was finished. He had this old original photograph of the school that I copied during one of our many chats about the history of Pence Springs.”
Going into more detail, Jones noted, “This table is the only known piece that survived when the Lahey Boarding House met the same fate as the Pence Springs school house and burned down later in the 1940s. Suzanne Tolley Humphrey, my neighbor and close friend gave me this cherry country Sheraton table that is from the Civil War era that came from the Lahey Boarding House not too long before she passed. She knew I was as obsessed and cared for our history as much as she did and it would be well taken care of. Suzannes mother Margaret Tolley, was raised by Dennis and Francis Lahey after Margarets mother died during the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. Dennis and Francis were the owners and operators of the boarding house.”
In conclusion, Jones said, “Suzanne’s family originally moved from Virginia to Pence Springs in the 1880s. It can be assumed that this Civil War-era cherry country Sheraton table came with them when they relocated to Pence Springs. It must have been very special to the family as it was carried out of the house while it was burning. The concrete steps to the front porch are still in the yard of the house to the right of the bridge in Pence Springs. I also have two of the early original desks from the school that had been replaced before it burned with the more modern classroom desks at the time that I purchased at an auction Ashby had in Pence Springs around 2010.”
With that, we have come to the end of another edition of A Peek into Summers County’s Past. Did you know about all of these schools in the Pence Springs area? Be sure to come back next week for another glimpse into the county’s rich history.
If you have a story from Summers County’s past that you want to share, send us an email at news@hintonnews.com.
