Former 2-Room Schoolhouse Used Until 1927 in OH

East Liberty School, District No. 11, Green Ohio

Date added: October 22, 2024

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Ohio
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The early settlers of Green Township were Pennsylvania Dutch Germans, and immigrants from Germany and France. The first settler who purchased land from a federal agent was John Kepler from Center County, Pennsylvania. Earlier settlers had established themselves as squatters in the Township while the State of Ohio was still establishing counties after surveying of the Congress lands. They settled in Section 16 at the center of the Township, however no town was platted on the site. The first homes, schools and institutions were log houses built from the abundant surrounding forest. The migration to Green was fueled by the pursuit of a growing new religion. Green was part of the first Evangelical Circuit west of Pennsylvania and played a crucial role in the development of the Evangelical Association in the Midwest. Early settlers Conrad & Catherine Dillman offered their home as a meeting place for the newly formed congregation, led by circuit preachers. The first Evangelical Church in Ohio, Emanuel Evangelical was constructed just outside of Greensburg in 1838. As the congregation grew, larger churches were constructed in 1851 and 1889. The congregation at Greensburg hosted several conferences of Evangelical leadership, including the first held west of the Allegheny Mountains.

Possibly the first school in the Township was taught by William Triplet with children assembled at an old shanty on township Section 16 land. A German school was also taught east of East Liberty in 1823 by a Mr. Crum, in a log school house erected about two years previously. Mrs. Herring, daughter of Andrew Kepler of East Liberty remembered subscription schools stating, "in those days, they had to pay 50 cents a month for each scholar, and if a teacher failed to secure enough scholars, no school could be held for two or three years." Her sister Mrs. Paulner remembered working the farm, "I had to plow many a day for my father, and no time to go to school."

An 1856 Summit County map shows the two main hamlets of Greensburg[h] and East Liberty in Green Township. The only labeled educational building in Green Township in 1856 was the two-story red brick Green Seminary located in Greensburg. Citizens of Greensburg organized a stock company offered in shares of $50 each for purposes of building a seminary college. The Greensburg Seminary Association associated with the Evangelical Church raised enough money to build the school located on the site of what is now the residence at 4718 Massillon Road. One of the stockholders was A. Leopard who owned a brick yard located in the southeast portion of the center of Greensburg off Main Street (Greensburg Road), and was likely the source of brick for the building. Greensburg Seminary was established in 1855 located on one acre on the southwest quadrant near the center of town at the intersection of Main Street (Greensburg Road) and Massillon Road (SR 241). The Seminary opened its doors to 8 men and 11 women, growing quickly with 98 students the following year. Lack of finances and the Civil War led to closure of the school in 1865, and the building was demolished in 1885. A wood frame dormitory built in 1856 and associated with the school remains today just west of the square on the north side of the street at 2235 Greensburg Road. The Green Historical Society makes note of an early frame school house at the corner of Massillon and Turkeyfoot Lake Roads which no longer remains.

The 1874 Atlas of Summit County shows the two main hamlets of Greensburg[h], and East Liberty in Green Township, each with a schoolhouse. The Greensburg District No. 7 Schoolhouse was located on Main Street (Greensburg Road) to the east side of the main intersection on the south side of the street adjacent to the Methodist Church located to the rear and west. Summit County property records indicate an 1869 brick house at 2320 Greensburg Road remains on the site which may incorporate the earlier Greensburg District No. 7 school building.

The hamlet of East Liberty, four miles northwest of the hamlet of Greensburg, was laid out in 1839 by John Castetter, of Pennsylvania, and generally maintained the characteristic store, tavern, post office (Summit), and "sundry mechanical establishments." Castetter ran the post office and the town tavern. Families represented the German Pennsylvania Dutch heritage including the Keplers, Buchtels from Pennsylvania and the German Boettlers family who settled in the hamlet.

The 1874 map shows East Liberty at the crossroads of East Turkeyfoot Lake and South Arlington Roads with a "Watering Place" at the center intersection. A Reformed Church, Green Cemetery, Evangelical Church, hotel, blacksmith, store, harness shop and school are noted on the map. The school is situated at the same location as the 1890 East Liberty School, District No. 11 on East Turkeyfoot Lake Road, Lot 8 adjacent to the Evangelical Church located to the east on Lot 7; with a house in 1852 carved out of Kepler family farmland. Both the school and church lots were acquired by Rebecca Peters in 1859, shortly before her marriage to farmer John Stein in 1860. Rebecca Peters Stein was born in 1840 in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania in 1840, the daughter of teacher and East Liberty - Summit Postmaster John Peters and wife Katherine, who came to Ohio in 1846. Her husband John Stein was born in Germany in 1820 and together they had 11 children. The Stein family would have been motivated to find a school for their children and offered land for a schoolhouse in East Liberty. The schoolhouse remained on the property until 1890 when she sold Lot 8 to the Board of Education. There are no records indicating if her father John Peters taught at the East Liberty School before his death in 1869.

In February 1890, the East Liberty School Board appointed a committee to investigate sites for a new school building. In May 1890, they reported the demolition of the old East Liberty School. The new brick East Liberty School, District No. 11 was completed in the same year. The architecture and picturesque Romanesque Revival style with red brick masonry construction located at the center of East Liberty reflected the German heritage and commitment to education within the community. A bell gable with a school bell was located proudly at the roof over the front entry.

The 1892-93 school year included 32 students in the primary, 26 students in the upper grades, and two teachers Mr. Wesley Buchman and Miss Elsie Miller. The student body included 12 members of the Kepler family. The Board of Trustees was comprised of members: Joel Staver, Clerk; Frank Kreighbaum; and Huston Kreighbaum. Mrs. Helen Workinger Franks at the age of 18 years taught 1^st-4^th grades at the school from 1910 to 1912. She recalled earning $45 per month of which $3 paid the janitor, who rang the school bell in the morning and started the stove fire. The school bell rang at 8:00 am to remind students to leave for school and again at 9:00 am for the start of class. Fifteen minute recesses were scheduled at 10:30 and 2:30 pm with a "noon hour" for lunch which children brought with them to school and kept in tin boxes on shelves by the door. Along one classroom wall was a long "recitation desk." An entire class would go up to the bench and sit while they recited their lesson for the day. Mrs. Franks taught about 30 students in four grades and stated that teaching four grades at once was a problem, but they did the best they could with an overflow situation after the 1910 consolidation. She recalled that in the other room, was another teacher instructing grades 5th-8th.

Oliver Kepler, who lived behind the school building and was one of Green's first settlers "would complain that he did not know when the children studied, because they always seemed to be outside, either playing or making trips to the outdoor restroom." His son Clayton Kepler attended the school and "[i]n the spring and the fall they [the students] wouldn't go so regularly … [he] remembers plantings and harvests when sons and daughters were needed in the fields." An 1895-96 Term Souvenir Program indicates 12 girls and 15 boys attending the school in the "Advanced Department."

Consolidation

By 1891, Green Township had grown to contain 14 school districts, each one potentially having its own one-room schoolhouse, with an additional joint school district at the southern border of Green Township and Jackson Township. District 6 contained a "second room" in Aultman and Greensburg. By 1910, the Summit County Atlas noted that the Township was reduced to eight school districts and was working towards consolidation into two schools with East Liberty absorbing three districts and Greensburg taking in five districts. In 1913, an addition of 8 rooms was made to the Greensburg School creating the first consolidated high school in the township.

Consolidation of the East Liberty School required its use as a two-classroom schoolhouse with an additional "portable building" constructed to the rear north to accommodate students which can be seen in an undated aerial image of East Liberty. In 1926, the school and portable building were accommodating approximately 90 students. Thirty 6th-8^th grade students attended under the tutelage of teacher Mr. Wilcox in the "left room"; thirty-eight 1^st-3^rd grade students in the "right room"; and the 4^th and 5^th grade in a "portable building" to the rear of the school building. The school was operating beyond capacity.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, professional educators and school administrators pushed for consolidation and country schools were gradually abandoned. The issue of consolidation created a bitter debate throughout the United States. Books published between 1908 and 1925 advocated rural consolidation in glowing terms. Mabel Carney in her book Country Life and the Country School (1912) stated "the one-teacher school system, as frequently maintained, has served its day … It has no place in the highly complicated social life of today, in which competition is the keynote of the age … " However, schoolhouses had become integral to rural life. Andrew Gulliford in his book America's Country Schools states,

Rural people knew, however instinctively, that to lose their school meant to lose the focus of their community. Boards and trustees of one-room schools went to great lengths to try to keep their schools open; they specifically hired teachers with children of their own who would attend the school and augment declining enrollment. The loss of a one-room school symbolized an abrupt entry into the 20^th Century and a shattering of community spirit of the original settlers. Parents feared that if their children left the community to attend school elsewhere, they might one day leave permanently. And as country schools consolidated, the exodus from the farms increased.

A 1914 survey by the U.S. Bureau of Education compiled a report from 18 states. At this time, Ohio had approximately 9,000 one-room schools, with consolidation becoming the trend, and the state no longer recommended designs for one-room schoolhouses. Some communities no longer survived after their one-room schoolhouse closed, with many communities defined by their school district boundaries.

In 1927, the East Liberty community constructed a new school building to the east of the District No. 11 School at 811 East Turkeyfoot Lake Road, likely as the result of the push towards consolidation and need for additional space. One student remembers marching up the street with the entire student body after returning from the Thanksgiving Holiday in 1927 to the new school at 946 East Turkeyfoot Lake Road. The new school remained in use by East Liberty until 1983 when it was sold to Chapel Hill Christian School and was recently demolished. The East Liberty School, District No. 11 was vacated in 1927 and used sporadically for community events such as those conducted by the Green Community Institute. The building was sold in 1937 to L.L. Parks during the Great Depression and used for auto storage before remaining vacant for 10 years. It was used as Nicholas Square Furniture Store beginning in 1956 until Mr. Square's death in 2002, followed by the family periodically re-opening the store. The schoolhouse was purchased by the Circle K in 2015, who donated the building to the City of Green in 2015.

Green Township One-room Schoolhouses

In addition to the East Liberty School, District No. 11, remnants of early schoolhouses in Green Township include:
The Storebox (Foust) District No. 3 Schoolhouse
Located at the southwest corner of Cottage Grove and East Turkeyfoot Lake Road. Summit County property records indicate that the house located on Parcel# 2814333 at 3912 Cottage Grove was constructed in ca. 1882. Historic resources indicate that the school was later converted to a residence.

1878 Heckman (Willow Grove) District No. 5
The schoolhouse was located at northeast corner of Heckman and Mayfair, address 4325 Mayfair Rd., Parcel# 2812429, now a vacant lot. The schoolhouse may have been moved to another lot.

Ca. 1885, 1901 Aultman (Lauby Rm. 2) District No. 6 Schoolhouse
The Board of Education gained title to the property in 1901, and may have had a schoolhouse on the lot. The vernacular Front Gable wood frame building was sold by the Board of Education in 1923 and converted for use as a private residence. The belfry was removed, a hipped roof front porch added, first floor windows were reduced in size on the facade and side elevations, and a second floor was added to the interior.

Greensburg District No. 7 Schoolhouse
The 1874 Atlas Map indicates the Greensburg[h] schoolhouse was located on Main Street (Greensburg Road) to the east side of the main intersection on the south side of the street adjacent to the Methodist Church located to the rear and west. Summit County property records indicate an 1869 brick house at 2320 Greensburg Road remains on the site which may incorporate the earlier Greensburg District No. 7 school building.

1885 Lichtenwalter (Shaffer/Maple Grove) District No. 13 Schoolhouse
The schoolhouse was lost to fire in August 2016.

1887 Comet District No. 14 Schoolhouse
The schoolhouse was "located a short distance west from the post office," with largest enrollment of 28 students. Status unknown.

Early Education in Ohio and Summit County

The importance of education was recognized as a priority from the earliest days of formation of the State of Ohio. The government began surveying for the sale of land in the 1790s and set aside Section 16 of each township, composed of 640 acres or 1/36" of each township, for support of a public school. In 1802, framers of the Ohio Constitution reaffirmed that no law should prevent the poor from equal participation in such schools endowed by the government. In most cases rental income from the 640 acres of land, which was most likely virgin forest, was too little to support public schools. Parents who wanted their children to be educated were forced to pay to enroll them in a subscription school. These subscription schools were the first schools in Ohio and conducted for 8-12 week terms between spring planting and autumn harvest. Ministers were often the most educated persons in pioneer communities, and it was not unusual for them to teach in a subscription school as a source of income. The log cabin subscription school buildings were never intended to be anything more than a temporary accommodation on the frontier, and for the most part no longer remain. Church sponsored academies became common, although it was rare for a school run by a particular minister to last any length of time.

In 1808, the Ohio legislature officially chartered the first academies in Dayton, Chillicothe and Worthington with local residents subscribing to the school through the offering of labor and building materials rather than cash. Vernacular frame or brick school buildings were constructed by local carpenter-builders generally as generic Federal I-shaped structures one-room deep. Legislative action in the early years of the State's history was confined mainly to passage of acts providing for the leasing of the school lands and the incorporation of seminaries and other private institutions.

Public education in Ohio began in 1825 when the Ohio legislature established a property tax to support public schools and required townships to form school districts with directors elected by voters. These funds were insufficient in most cases to construct buildings and pay teachers. Most schools continued to be built by community labor, gradually producing a network of one-room schoolhouses within a two-mile walking distance of every student.

In 1838, a provision was made for a state superintendent of schools to which the Honorable John Lewis was appointed. As a result of his suggestions, a law was passed providing for a uniform system of schools, with county superintendents and township inspectors. In 1845, the first teachers institute was held and in 1848 a law was passed appropriating money for the purpose of teacher training. These early schools were conducted with all pupils sitting in one room and reciting to a single teacher. Any systematic graduation or grade classification was impossible; the chief impediment being the lack of suitable and sufficient school buildings. It was not until about 1850 that a specific course of study was adopted for grades. Akron was the forerunner in the establishment of a school board in 1847 which had full control over all schools in the town, followed by a state law passed in 1849 allowing any incorporated town or city to do the same.

One of the most significant pieces of educational legislation in Ohio during the nineteenth century was the Akron Act of 1847. With the rapid growth of Akron, there were 690 children between 4 and 16 years of age with about one-half attending public and private schools taught in a variety of rooms "temporarily hired and unsuited for the purpose in many respects." A committee organized by Reverend Jennings of the Congregational Church proposed to incorporate the town of Akron into a single school district with taxes to support free schools for all children; elect a six member school board for their management; and make graded school free to everyone with qualifying exams for those beyond primary grades. The legislature adopted this plan which became the model for graded schools throughout the state of Ohio. The law was extended over the next two years to include any incorporated town or city if approved by a majority of voters, and in 1850 to include all townships or special districts having at least 500 people.

The State of Ohio adopted a new constitution in 1851 with the statement that "The General Assembly shall make such provisions, by taxation or otherwise, as, with the income arising from the school trust fund, will secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the State; but no religious or other sect or sects shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of the state" By 1855, a free grade level system had been permanently established in the state supported at the expense of the State and by local taxation.

Schoolhouses in Ohio

The majority of brick one-room schoolhouses built after the Civil War used mass vernacular construction material and had hardwood wainscoting halfway up the wall inside the classroom. Brick vernacular schools can be found throughout the United States, particularly in the Midwest with bricks baked in local kilns with colors reflecting native clays. Because of their sturdy construction and easy adaptability, brick schools became plentiful, helping reinforce the popular conception of the little red schoolhouse. School districts hired expert masons to construct the walls. The buildings tended to follow two major design tenants: (1 they were symmetrical from the front, with a door squarely in the middle, or if they had two doors, the front view was always symmetrical; and, (2 the door faced the adjacent local road, perhaps as a symbol of the building's access to anyone in the rural community.

Brick schoolhouses were constructed in some Ohio communities from an early date, depending on the availability of a skilled mason, but their number increased dramatically after the passage of extensive school legislation by 1853, following revision of Ohio's constitution. Responsibility for local school funds and ownership of school properties was assigned to newly created township school boards composed of one representative from each sub-district. This authority to own land and school buildings offered more stability than schools conducted on land leased or gifted by local farmers trying to educate their children. The state placed great emphasis on buildings, reporting in the 1855 First Annual Report of the State Commissioner of Common Schools, "the ultimate success of our whole system of Common Schools depends as much on a thorough reform in the construction, furniture, and care of school houses, as upon any other single circumstance whatever." State Commissioner Hiram Barney urged school directors to remind local citizens that the expense of providing a suitable school building would not recur for a generation. The number of school buildings more than doubled in Ohio from 5,984 in 1853, to 12,602 in 1858 with an average value of $340.

By the 1870s, small frame school houses had often replaced the earliest structures. For the third generation of schoolhouses, plan books reflecting popular architectural styles played a significant role in the shaping of American buildings. Architectural designs were made easily available for replication by carpenters and other builders anywhere in the country. Many of the one-room schoolhouses built during the last quarter of the nineteenth century were brick, often incorporating the distinctive characteristics of local builders with elements of popular architectural styles Fred Schroeder in his book The Little Red Schoolhouse states,

Despite these patterns, the architect-designed plans generally failed in rural schools. One way or another, the vernacular asserted itself. Exemplary schools might be built in the cities of New England, but invariably the scaling down of size along with the necessary paring down of appropriations simplified and obscured main stream Styles, and, like irrepressible mongrels, the rural school houses continued to assert and reassert their homely design genesis as a house for holding school. The final product was a native American architectural style.

The priority that communities placed on education was reflected in the number and popularity of sturdy brick school houses built during the last quarter of the nineteenth century in Ohio. Throughout the last half of the 19^th Century, state commissioners of common schools devoted efforts towards improving the design of school buildings, frequently including good examples in their annual reports. The simple brick vernacular symmetrical wood frame or brick Front Gable-type rectangular plan one-room school house proliferated within the state.

By the nineteenth century, a belfry or belltower usually placed above the entrance to the school had become a status symbol for many districts, replacing use of a hand bell. Some schools had simple roofs protecting their bells while others had elaborate bell towers. Schools built in the 1880s had often received a vestibule and bell tower by 1910. A subscription for a bell was often taken up among the community. The bell became used for calling children, warning of danger, or ringing at Christmastime. The bell was a source of community pride. However, by the twentieth century, bell towers on rural schools came to be a relic of the past and did not represent twentieth-century virtues of efficiency, economy and progress. In 1890, Ohio reported 12,813 schoolhouse buildings in the state.

The Romanesque Revival style first emerged in Munich, Germany in ca. 1830, where it was called the Rundbogenstil or round arch medieval style. Beginning in the mid-1840s in America, by the 1850s and 1860s it became popular in the design of new churches and public buildings. It surpassed its predecessor, the Gothic Revival style, in popularity throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. The Romanesque Revival style was applied to a wide variety of building types such as railroad stations, civic buildings, schools, armories, commercial buildings, factories and masonry dwellings. The style began to appear in Ohio after completion of the 1846-1855 Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. designed by architect James Renwick, Jr. (1818-1895). The Smithsonian demonstrated the picturesque quality of the Romanesque Revival. The defining element of the style is the semi-circular or round arch used for all fenestration. Other distinguishing elements include masonry construction with broad smooth wall surfaces of monochromatic brick or ashlar masonry laid with thin mortar joints; belt or string courses marking horizontal divisions; carved archivolts; brick corbelling and arcaded corbel tables; square or polygonal towers; hipped or pointed roofs; and 6/6 or 4/4 windows on side elevations. The Romanesque Revival style is connected to the German tradition of brick architecture.

The more elaborate Romanesque Revival style brick district school house was unusual in Ohio. The 1873 Washington Heights School located 8100 Given Road, Indian Hill, Hamilton County; and, the East Liberty School, District No. 11 in Green Township which is the subject property.

The one-room, rectangular plan, 1873 Washington Heights School, with a 53' x 26' classroom, opened with an enrollment of 52 students. The building is noticeably larger than the common 32' or 36' x 24' school building of the era, designed to accommodate 40 students within the range of the teacher's voice. The red brick building with corbeled detailing has a projecting vestibule with double door entry and circular fanlight, with round-arched windows and door accented by a double row of headers with keystone. The interior walls have wainscoting extending from the floor meeting the lampblack-coated plasterboard to create a large expanse of blackboard. A belfry housed the cast iron school bell added in 1879. The building has a brick contemporary one-story addition to the rear.

The Romanesque Revival architecture of the 1890 East Liberty School, District No. 11 is demonstrated by the five-bay masonry symmetrical facade with round arched fenestration. The monochromatic masonry work includes a stone base and water table, a canted soldier brick belt course with stone accents, and corbelled brick. Interior elements demonstrate typical school house craftsmanship including the large open room with painted plaster walls, painted wood wainscoting, and milled wood casings with a bullseye motif. The East Liberty District No. 11 Schoolhouse measures 37'x 60'6" and was likely designed to accommodate two classrooms based on its larger size, although there is no evidence of demising walls. The single-door entry of the East Liberty District No. 11 school building and central chimney and stove location indicates design as a district schoolhouse divided for use into two classrooms. Little is known of the original schoolhouse plan or reasoning for accommodation for the growth of the school. Green Township population dropped from 1,911 in 1890 to 1,109 in 1900, perhaps not realizing projected growth.

The 1884 Madison Township School building (status unknown) designed by Columbus architects Terrell and Morris for Madison Township, Franklin County was cited as an excellent example of a school building by state school commissioners who presented a rendering of the building in their 1884 annual report. It was designed in brick and stone with slate roof in the Richardson Romanesque style. Constructed at a cost of $2,000, it seated up to 50 students with blackboards and double venting for fresh air. The red brick 1889 Boyd School (extant) located south of Township Road 361 on SR 201, Berlin, Holmes County is similar, but modified into a simpler Italianate design with round-arched windows with keystones. The building was named for teacher Floyd Boyd and operated as a school until 1952.

The later 1900 Pansy School District No. 7 (extant) located on SR 730, in the vicinity of Clarksville, Clinton County is a one-room vernacular red brick schoolhouse building with late Romanesque Revival elements and 29' x 40' floor plate. The building exhibits decorative brickwork in a label design at the roof eaves of the facade with a round-arched entry with keystone supported by pilasters and single door with fanlight. The interior exhibits wide board wood floors, plaster walls with blackboards lining the rear and side walls, and chimneys at either side where heating stoves once stood.

Green Township was organized and platted in 1809 comprised of approximately six square miles, part of the Congress Lands so called for their survey and sale by government agents rather than sale to private companies. Known as Town 12, Range IX, Green Township is situated just south of the Connecticut Western Reserve at the 41^st parallel. In 1840, Green Township became part of Summit County with a population of 1,536 people. Unlike most Western Reserve townships, Green Township developed without a village at its geographical center. Instead, between 1809 and 1900, five unincorporated hamlets formed throughout the Township including: Aultman, Comet, East Liberty, Greensburg and Myersville. These small independent rural hamlets emerged at major crossroads and contained higher concentrations of population within the Township. Each hamlet included churches, schools, post office, blacksmith shops, tanneries, and mercantile services providing basic needs to the surrounding agricultural community and often spanned no more than one-quarter mile. The defining characteristics of a hamlet included no internal street system or business core. Typical functional units included residences, farm outbuildings, a school, a church, a blacksmith shop or garage, and a tavern. Most of the citizens were farmers, with professionals limited to preachers and teachers. Hamlets are typically associated with the initial settlement period, due to the arrival of homesteaders and the need for a place to receive and send mail. The U.S. Congress had the power to establish post offices and postal roads, often located in general stores, became a powerful centralizing force of the rural landscape.

The earliest three hamlets in Green Township included: the smaller hamlet of Comet established in 1827; Greensburgh or Greensburg established in 1828 with an Inland Post Office; and East Liberty established in 1839 with a Summit Post Office. Green Township developed largely due to two stage coach routes, one running east-west on Greenburg Road, and the Massillon to Middleburg stagecoach route which ran north and south on present-day State Route 21. Land surrounding these hamlets was agricultural and rich in coal which became Green Township's second leading market product until declining in the early 1900s. The economy then shifted from farming and coal mining to small businesses, manufacturing, and industry. The arrival of the railroad in the 1870s brought the hamlet of Aultman the clay manufacturing industry and the establishment of a grain elevator by Ferdinand Shumaker from Akron. Myersville followed in 1876 and was the location of a railroad passenger station where coal from East Liberty and farm products were transported to the grain elevator and other destinations in Summit and Stark Counties.

Agriculture and wheat production were the major commodities of Green Township and defined its rural character. Turkeyfoot Lake and a small section of the Tuscarawas reservoir provided bodies of water and numerous creeks for agriculture and afforded sites for water-powered mills. "Well-kept farms, neat and comfortable residences, mammoth barns, and magnificent horses and cattle" defined Green Township by 1891. The Township was largely underlain with coal with an extensive mine under operation by the Lake View Coal Company, near East Liberty in 1891. Coal mines were discovered on many area farms as late as the 1880s making coal mining the second most common job, next to farming. The production of lime for building purposes was throughout different portions of the Township, with the manufacture of drain tile from the clay along the Valley railway in the southeast corner as an extensive industry. Green Township had an overall population of 1,911 in 1890.

Citizens did not authorize the incorporation of a three-mile square village at the center of Green Township until 1988, with the remainder of the Township later incorporated in 1991. In 1992, the population exceeded 5,000 and the village was officially declared the City of Green.

Building Description

The East Liberty School, District No. 11 is located at 3492 South Arlington Road, the center of the hamlet of East Liberty, Green Township, City of Green. The 1890 building is an excellent example of Romanesque Revival district schoolhouse architecture and one of two known extant Romanesque Revival district schoolhouses in the State of Ohio. The property is situated on Summit County Parcel #2804636, with a lot size of .538 acres. The building resides on the west side of South Arlington Road to the north of the main intersection with East Turkeyfoot Lake Road (State Route 19). The building's facade, east elevation, faces South Arlington Road. The property is accessed from Warner Alley, off of South Arlington Road with a small paved parking lot to the west and rear of the building. To the north and west of the building is cleared land and wooded acreage with a tributary from Cottage Grove Lake running in an east-west direction towards the north of the building. A small florist and gift shop is to the south of the building separated by Warner Alley. The building was moved by the City of Green in December 2015, approximately 500' to the north of its original site at 811 East Turkeyfoot Lake Road to 3492 South Arlington Road to rescue it from demolition from a Circle K development. The building maintains its orientation of the facade facing one of the two main streets within the hamlet. The schoolhouse remains located in the northwest quadrant of the intersection of South Arlington and East Turkeyfoot Lake Roads. The former site is now part of the parking lot of the Circle K convenience store and gas station. The Circle K buildings were constructed on the site of a demolished house, the former building site and immediate northwest corner of South Arlington and East Turkeyfoot Lake Roads.

The 1890 East Liberty School is an excellent example of a brick rectangular plan schoolhouse designed in the Romanesque Revival style. The facade is composed of five bays and measures thirty-seven feet by sixty feet, six inches. The original sandstone base and water table rest on a new concrete block foundation. The one-and-one-half story building is defined on the exterior by its monochromatic red brick construction, round-arched fenestration, belt courses and corbelled roof line. The centrally located projecting entrance is further distinguished with a double leaf glass replacement doors added between 1956 and 1975 capped with a historic fanlight outlined with a pediment roof. The stone keystone above the fanlight has carved lettering reading "AD 1890 Dist' NO 11." A belt course of canted soldier brick with rusticated stone accents at building corners separates the first and upper one-half stories. The 6/6 double hung round arched topped windows flank the corbelled center bay, which is further delineated by corbelled brick extending from the eaves to the belt course. The central round-arched attic window with stone sills has been infilled with wood. A heavy wood frieze outlines the chamfered hipped roof, simplified from the original design. Historic images show a bell gable at the peak of the center bay hipped roof, which was removed in 1938 and relocated to the East Liberty - Church of the Nazarene at 700 East Turkeyfoot Lake Road; and recessed entry with wood panel double doors.

The south elevation is composed of a trio of 6/6 round-arched windows with a smaller segmental arched double pane attic window infilled with wood at the gable end. Based on an 1892-93 historic image, the round-arched windows on the facade appear to be original. Masonry repair indicates a similar configuration at the north elevation with the trio of windows replaced by large sliding double garage doors and a steel lintel, likely occurring when the building was used for auto storage under ownership of L. L. Parks in 1937. The rear west elevation is comprised of four bays of round-arched windows with glazing removed and in-filled with wood. A central lateral chimney has been removed with evidence of masonry repair.

Arched windows have stone sills and triple-row brick headers with rusticated stone accents at the springing line. Wire mesh protective panels have been installed over round arch windows on the primary and south elevations. Contemporary utilitarian single pole light fixtures project from the facade over the main entry and over garage doors on the north elevation.

No historic drawings remain to determine the original plan of East Liberty School as a one or two-room district schoolhouse. Narrative and oral history indicate that the school contained two classrooms by 1910, but there is no evidence of demising walls creating two physically separate classrooms. An open classroom configuration is shown in an undated historic image. A central round-arched entrance leads to the large open room interior. Painted plaster walls with painted wood wainscot extending from floor to window sill height are at the south, west and east walls. Elongated round-arched windows exhibit milled wood casings with bullseye motif corner blocks. Windows on the west elevation have infilled recessed shelving. Modern peg board panels have been installed above the wainscot; possibly at the blackboard locations. Tall ceilings are finished with acoustical tile. Suspended fluorescent lighting and carpeting complete the interior finishes. A 37' x 17' open mezzanine has been added to the north, demonstrating contemporary material including plywood walls and flooring, treated wood columns and stairs. After closing the school in 1927, the building was sold in 1937 to L.L. Parks and used for auto storage before remaining vacant for 10 years. It was used as Nicholas Square Furniture Store beginning in 1956 until Mr. Square's death in 2002, followed by the family periodically reopening the store. The schoolhouse was purchased by the Circle K in 2015, who donated the building to the City of Green in 2015.