Schools: Columbia School House

Columbia School House
 
This article is the third in a series on one-room schoolhouses in Lee County. This month, the featured school is the Columbia School, District # 6, presently located at 1500 245th St. in Van Buren Township, Section #13. This property is shown in the official records of Lee County, IA as “having been formerly located in Township 67 N, Range 7 West of the Fifth Principal Meridian in Lee County, IA lying Easterly of the highway formerly known as the State Road or in later years known as RR #2.”


Photo Courtesy of John and Mindy Value

Early history of the abstract regarding this property states “that it was part of Lee County, IA, lying South of the Missouri Line extended Easterly is known as the ‘Half Breed Tract’ and the title was acquired by the United States of America from the French in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and from the Sac and Fox Indians, the inhabitants, by the treaties of August 4, 1824 and of September 21, 1832.”
 
No substantive information is available regarding how the partitions of this land were filed in the courts, as the opening entry of the abstract states that “all matters of record prior to the date of the recording of the Root of Title are omitted except what is included in the present abstract.”
 
The abstract lists ten owners of said property, including the present owners. It is stated that “E.R.
 McVay was the one that sold the property to Columbia School, District No. 6 on April 23, 1913.” It is noted in the abstract that “said property was listed as a former school site when each owner bought it”. It is unknown when the Columbia School was established but plat maps of 1874, 1897 and 1916 in the Donnellson Genealogy Department show a lithograph of a school house on said property; following is a statement found by Carolyn in the History of Lee County Rural Schools 1830-1962: “It was in the school year of 1910-11, when Tom Knobbs was teaching the Columbia School in Van Buren Township, that as he stood in his classroom he saw a Model T approaching the school house. Because it was such a rare sight at that time, he allowed his students to stand at the windows to watch it pass as it “chugged merrily down the old dirt road.” It is noted in that same history that “the school closed in 1948.”
 
The property is approximately one acre in size and many of the original trees remain today. The building has been remodeled into a residence on the original site. The current owners of the property are John and Donna (Mindy) Value. They purchased the property on December 29, 1997 from Pat and Patricia Rooney. Diane Kruse and I interviewed the Values in late July and they gave the following information regarding the Columbia School and the property as it is today.   

They told us that the Rooneys added a family room and basement to the east side of the house along with a small deck to the north as well as finishing the two larger rooms upstairs. The Values finished the small middle room upstairs. An early photo shows three windows side-by-side on the south side of the main level. When the remodeling was done by the Rooneys, two of the windows were eliminated leaving only one of the three windows. The loft area has very small windows, one on each of the south, west, and north sides of the house. The original area of the school building has a crawl space under it; the bell tower which was atop of the entryway has been removed. According to John, the entry way has the original barn siding on the walls; the lower grades attended class on the first floor, while the upper grades attended class in the loft of the building. There was a horse barn on the property; reportedly children rode horses to school and could house them in the barn while attending classes. The photo shows a fence line where children could also tie up their horses.

The Values believe the building was used as a ‘holding house’ for the Underground Railroad prior to it being used for a school. John and Mindy tell of finding a pair of shackles that had been attached to a very large beam in the crawl space and that this beam went the entire length of the house. They also have a ring of keys; it was noted that one of these keys opened the shackles.
 
In an earlier story on the Underground Railroad in the 2006 February issue, written by Erma DeRosear, she stated that “if an escaping slave was being helped, the Missouri people would place a lighted lantern in an upper north window which made it visible at a home in Iowa. If it was safe to bring the slave over, an answering lantern would be placed in the Iowa window facing south.” As noted earlier in this article, this schoolhouse did have small windows on the south, north, and west sides of the house in what was the loft area; therefore, it can be assumed that this property could have been used as a probable holding house for the UGRR connection.

Ink wells were found on the property as well, apparently having been left behind from school days. John pointed out a trap door leading to the crawl space which still exists in the house today and is kept covered; the chimney on the north side of the house, which one can assume was associated with a wood or coal burning stove, has been removed.

Another fascinating item of interest is that the Values told of several incidents that they have witnessed in the house, since their acquiring it in 1997, which lead them to believe it is haunted.

 If anyone has additional information regarding Columbia School (especially what the building was used for prior to its becoming a school), special remembrances, or photos, please contact Diane Kruse (319-470-8982) or Carolyn Dischler (319-469-7631); send it to the Donnellson Library, 500 Park St. or our e-mail address [email protected].

 Diane and I wish to thank John and Mindy Value for providing the above information and giving us a tour of their home.
 --Written and submitted by Carolyn Dischler.
 

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