Bernardsville School 1890

Bernardsville School was a one-room schoolhouse that stood along Anderson Hill Road, just north of the old Methodist Cemetery.  The building was the original Methodist Church and was sometimes called the Old Methodist Church Schoolhouse although it was a public school.  In the early 1880s, after the Methodists built a new church on Church Street, the old church building was moved from the cemetery and converted to the school. 

The photograph shows an early class, taken in 1890 or 1891, next to the school.  Kenneth Mathiesen, the teacher (back row center), came to New Jersey from Scotland.  Among the students was Edwin S. Spinning (1875-1970) who was later known as a local historian and as president of the Bernardsville Fire Company.

The schoolhouse served until around 1905 when the Olcott Building opened.  The 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance map indicates the old building was then used as a kindergarten.

Names written on the back

First Row: Edna Faust, Viola Manker, Mabel Riel, Frank Blazure, May Parker, Leslie Wright, Josie Wright, George Lent, Louie Brown, Lou Plairman, Will Curry, Theodore Wright, Earl Bunn

Second Row: Etta Hanna, Ida Abel, Maud Abel, May Drummond, Edith Butler, Flora Ballentine, Earnest Wright, Belle Riel, Lulu Wright, Charles Wright, ?, Harry Wright

Third Row: May Dotty, Fanny Plairman, Mabel Guerin, Anna Ten Eick, Edith Bowman, Wallace Lent, Will Douglas, John Winans, Dave Douglas, Will McFarland, Henry Ten Eick, Will Riddle, John Wright, Jennie Winans

Fourth Row: Daisy Bunn, Kitty Lent or Flo Leek, Agnes Drummond, Kenneth Mathiesen (teacher), Nellie Thorpe, Bentley Amerman, ?, Ed. Spinning. Dave Douglass, Eliza Faust, Charlie Abel