SCHOOLS
The First Hillside Academy – In the 1850s Hugh Capner, the developer who had laid out Second through Fifth streets, donated an acre, and a public school was built there between 5 and 13 Everittstown Road. That high ground became known as "Academy Hill."
There had been several other schools in Frenchtown, but this was the grandest, especially when it was expanded to four classrooms circa 1870. It had four two-story pillars in the front, giving it a classy Mount Vernon look. It was known as Hillside Academy or Frenchtown Academy. In 1871 the principal was J.C. Butler.
Ruth Apgar, who matriculated there, remembered, “There was no inside plumbing and we got our drinking water from a big pail on a bench with a tin cup, which was placed in the back of the classroom. You had to raise your hand if you wanted to go outside to the toilet.”
Despite these sweet amenities, truancy seemed to be a problem. The following announcement appeared several times in the Hunterdon Independent in 1876:
TRUANTS BEWARE! – In order that parents and guardians may know whether their children and wards play truant when sent to school, I shall hereafter (each Friday), post up in the P.O., the daily attendance of each pupil for the week. Parents will please watch the record closely. S.R. OPDYCKE.
Simeon R. Opdycke (1841-1927) was a school teacher, farmer, sexton of the Christian Church, and apparently no one to trifle with.
In 1900 while officials and residents were agonizing over whether to improve or replace that school, the Frenchtown Star's Man About Town columnist wrote, “It has been shown by the State Superintendent that the present building is entirely inadequate” and “doesn't meet the requirements of the law with regard to heating, ventilation or sanitary regulations and stands condemned. Any attempt to repair the old building would be folly, for the ceilings are too low and the air space is not sufficient for the number of students that are crowded into each department.” The principal at the time was Paul R. Radcliffe.
No mention was made of those four grand pillars, so we may assume they were still performing satisfactorily, holding up the roof and giving this cold, cramped, airless structure the kind of exterior pizazz we all like to see.
After the school board decided to put $3,500 into improving the old school, it changed direction and decided to replace it. One morning in 1901 students arrived at school to find a notice saying there'd be no school that day because the schoolhouse was being moved.
It was brought down the hill and set up over a foundation, straddling the mill race, just north of that tight row of shops whose backs are to the creek and which front on Race Street.
Then classes resumed in it, while construction began on the new Hillside Academy exactly where the old one had been.
The old academy was sold for $103 to a Phillipsburg man who wanted to use the materials to build tenant housing for Alpha Cement employees in Warren County. Oliver R. Kugler, a Bridge Street merchant, got the contract to tear it down; it was shipped in November.
Tomorrow, guess what! The second Hillside Academy!
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"
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