CLAYTON W.Va. (Hinton News) – Editor’s Note: Each week, local history collector William Jones discusses items from his collection and their historical significance. In this edition, he talks about the Clayton School.
This week’s piece of Summers County history is about the Clayton School. To fully tell the history of the Clayton School, we must first go to the year 1856 and before. Classes in the Clayton and Griffiths Creek area were taught in various homes, predominantly on Griffiths Creek.
These schools were called “subscription schools.” Parents of this area signed an “article of agreement.” This bound them to send their children to school for a certain period, typically for a minimum of three months. This allowed teacher’s pay to be allotted for a designated amount per scholar attending the school they were teaching for a month.
“School Masters,” or teachers as they are known today, were predominantly women of the community from prominent family names that you know throughout the history of Summers County, such as Ballangee, Graham and many others. Many did not have formal training to hold the title of teacher as they are required to do today.
In 1868, the first school in this area was constructed at the cost of $444. This building served as a schoolhouse and a church for this community. Serving as both was typical of this time in rural places such as Griffiths Creek and Clayton. Little House on the Prairie is a prime example of a building serving a small community as the church and schoolhouse.
This building served the community for roughly two decades until 1884 when the official “Clayton School” was erected. Sometime in the 1890s, two schools were built on Griffiths Creek. The first was a building built on one of my ancestors, George Flint’s farm, now the well-known Dodd Farm, called the “Flint School.” The “Camp Rock School” was established above where the Griffiths Creek Church now sits. The stone foundation of this building can still be seen today in my cousin’s front yard.
In 1919, these schools were consolidated into a new two-room school. By 1943, enrollment had declined so much that classes were held in one room with one teacher for all of the students. Grades 1 to 8 continued until 1961. Glenna Harris finished her teaching career at this school, having taught there from the day it opened to the day it closed, a 42-year tenure. When the school closed its doors, it was the first time in 93 years Griffiths Creek did not have a school.
As for the Clayton community, it too started with church and school using the same building. It was a log building that was built where the current Clayton church is now located. The first school was taught by a man named Peter Rookstool in 1856. Little is known about schooling in the community of Clayton until after the Civil War, which led to four years of no education in the area.
The school opened in the fall of 1865 in the second story of Joseph Graham’s home. The photo of the tiny log home depicts where school was held, in what is essentially a small attic space. The old log building where school was held was in too bad of disrepair to use following the war. Around this time, West Virginia adopted the free education system that is in place today. This was new and uncharted territory for almost anyone who had been in the education system just a few years prior. It was a trial-and-error learning system for– the teachers and the students of that time.
There were a few different locations of school buildings in this area. Sometime after 1884, the school attendance had grown so that it warranted the construction of a three-room school. Two of these rooms were classrooms, and one was a kitchen. It even had what was considered a luxury at that time; an indoor “outhouse.”
This school remained in operation until closing in 1963. My grandparents, David and Catherine Jones, lived just east of the Clayton post office during that time. They had four children; my father, David, and three daughters. My Aunt Debbie was the only one of their children who attended Clayton School. When they relocated to Pence Springs in 1961, their children started attending school there. My father started his education career at the elementary school in Pence Springs and then finished it up by graduating from Talcott High School in 1974, with the other children from the area, including the students who were bussed from the Clayton and Griffiths Creek area after their schools were closed.
This brings me to the wooden book in the photo. My good friend, the late Ann Hedrick, bought me this book at a yardsale probably 20 years ago. She found me many pieces like it because she too had a love for the history of Summers County.
It is a book that was put together in a handmade wooden binding by the teacher at the time to show the artistic talents and writing skills of her students. It holds the works of 18 students in 1960, including my Aunt Debbie. The first page of the book holds the title, “Writing and Art by Clayton School.
If you have a story from the history of the area to share, send an email to news@hintonnews.com.
