Shelter, food and clothing were the greatest concerns of early settlers throughout the township but once these basic necessities were acquired and life became easier, education was one of the first things that their attention turned towards. Since the 1840s, a number of schools have existed in the Strabane area. All the early ones, built of wood were lost to fires. Others built of brick or stone have survived, but with the changing face of rural education since the 1950s they became inadequate and were closed. To-day they remain as examples of buildings restored for a new use.
The early records of Strabane, then known as Nairn, note that on 1 June 1840, sixty-nine settlers from all parts of the township met and agreed to “subscribe either in the currency of this province or in labour”, amounts that they recorded after their names, so that a schoolhouse on “the Eighth Concession, Flamboro’ West” could be built.
John and Janet Fraser, Scottish settlers living on Lot 7, Concession 8, donated an acre of land at the southern end of their property to be used for such a building. On 12 November 1840, the volunteers held a framing ‘bee’ to raise the building and within a day had completed their task. Once work on the building started, it appears that the community began to make plans for it to be used throughout the week. By April 1841, with the work almost completed, a meeting was held to arrange for a Sunday School under the direction of Alexander Robertson Sr. and regular church services to be held. At the first Sunday service on April 25th, Thomas Farrow, Secretary for the Sunday School, noted that “forty names were taken.”
The official opening of the building as Nairn School took place on 16 August 1841, with the appointment of George Payne Harris as the first teacher. This first one-room school, built of logs, was quite small, approximately 24 feet by 30 feet, with an entrance facing west onto the Brock Road, then known as the Aboukir Trail, which ran approximately 350 feet west of the present road. The little structure did not last very long, as it was partially destroyed by fire after only two years. Another wooden building was erected and in use until 1870, when it was declared inadequate and replaced with a two-room brick school, one of only two in the township.
Stories exist that while the brick school was being built, the pupils were taught in a nearby house, so small that the teacher “could stand in the centre of the room and reach any unruly pupil with his whip.” When the new school, known as S.S. #9 was opened, Roger Maynard was offered the position of senior teacher and may have lived in a small white frame house, known as ‘the teacherage’, that was built soon after for the married men who might be appointed – young ladies, once they married, were not eligible for teaching positions! The school, although simple in design, was dominated by one outstanding architectural feature. Where the roof line is to-day broken by a central brick chimney, there was an elaborate belfry, reflecting the craftsmanship of the carpenter employed. Over the next thirty years, Strabane School gained a reputation, not only for the excellent appearance of the school building and its beautiful grounds, but also for the selection of books in its fine library and the high academic achievements of its many pupils.
The school remained relatively unchanged until the 1940s, when it, along with other schools in the northern part of the township, became part of the Wentworth County Board of Education. Before the end of the decade, another much more dramatic event occurred when fire broke out in the building on 21 March 1949. The local paper recounted the events and the shock the community felt with headlines that read, “All equipment is lost when building gutted. Accommodation not available now for 42 youngsters.” The fire, of unknown origin, left nothing standing but the four brick walls.
Although the school was rebuilt and ready for students when the September term began, there were signs that rural education was changing. Throughout Wentworth County there were many small one and two-room schools built originally to educate students in Grades 1 to 8, that were faced with the problem of declining enrolments and housed in old buildings. At Strabane, there were only classes for Kindergarten to Grade 2 by 1965 and vacant rooms in all the neighbouring schools. When the Spring term ended in 1979, the school was closed and remained empty until it was purchased two years later to become a private home.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 2004, 2024.
