3 Early Schoolhouses
Survive in Herndon
Buildings
Are Now Used as Homes |
by
Peggy D. Vetter
Observer Staff Writer
|
| Although many early Herndon landmarks were destroyed by fires that twice burned
out the commercial establishments that flourished around the depot, three early
schools have survived. All three are now used as residences and none bear traces
of their earlier use. |
| Some of the information we have about early schooling in the town is contained
in a 44-page booklet written in 1962 by Lottie Dyer Schneider, who was born in
Herndon in 1879, the year the town was incorporated. Her memories cover 40 years
from that time, a period in which the population remained at around 800 people. |
| The Herndon Historical Society performed an invaluable service when they had
Schneider’s “Memories of Herndon” reprinted as one of their contributions
to the town’s centennial celebration in 1979, along with Francis Darlington
Simpson’s “Virginia Country Life and Cooking,” another important
record of customs in the town around the turn of the century. |
| Schneider says that Herndon’s first school was built in 1869 and burned
before she could remember it, although she knew the two men teachers who had taught
there. Among her father’s papers she found earlier receipts from two women
for tuition for teaching her sister, Edith Dyer; one dated June, 1866 was for
$2.60 for tuition for seven weeks, and the other for $1 for a month’s tuition
for one child. |
| The first school Schneider remembers was held in “The Yellow House,”
still a local landmark. The two-story building that now faces the W&OD Trail,
was originally on Elden Street, but was moved back when the Reed family built
a funeral home on the site. |
| Berkley Green purchased both buildings in the 1950s and maintains “The
Yellow House” in its original form. It contains two apartments. It is believed
that the house was only used temporarily as a school after another building burned
down. |
| The Herndon Seminary on Grace Street, now proudly restored to what is undoubtedly
better than its original condition, was established in the 1880s by a Mrs. Castleman,
widow of an Episcopal clergyman. She taught in the private school and along with
her four daughters, the Misses Mary, Lula, Ida and Virginia Castleman, brought
a new cultural interest to the town. |
| Mrs. Castleman, her daughters and several other women who were interested
in reading, formed the Herndon Fortnightly Club and Library Association. This
small group formed a lending library which grew through the years until it was
turned over to the Fairfax County Library System in its present form. The building
on Spring Street that houses the Fortnightly Library was built by club members
and is still owned by them but is leased to the county. |
| The Herndon primary school Lottie Dyer first attended in 1887-88 was in a
building called Garrett’s Hall, where the upstairs was used for lodge meetings
and public gatherings and the downstairs functioned as the school, furnished with
“crude desks and benches.” That building, no longer in existence, was
beside the railroad tracks on Station Street. |
| While Lottie and her younger sister, Edith, attended class at Garrett’s
Hall, her older sister, Edith, and other children of the upper grades, attended
school in a frame building on Center Street, that was built in 1875. It remained
in use as a school through the 1920s, and was then remodeled into a residence. |
| Miss Hannah Detwiler was teacher for the upper grades and Miss Fanny Weadon,
described by Lottie as “a capable, sweet-tempered woman who caused us to
love school and find pleasure in learning,” taught the lower grades. |
| A photo in the book shows the entire upper grades, composed of 30 students,
assembled in front of the school in 1897, with their teacher, Professor Harvey
Hanes. Under his tutelage, Lottie Dyer Schneider became the first Herndon student
to complete four years of high school studies. |
| Completing high school was an unusual feat in those days, when most youngsters
were fortunate if their families could afford to leave them in school through
the eighth grade, since they were needed to help on the farms and in the family
businesses. |
| A new building to house all the grades was built on Locust Street in the 1920s,
but it too burned down a few years later. Another school was built on the site
and lasted for 50 years. The complex that is currently the intermediate school
gradually built up around it, with many brick buildings added in stages. The original
building was finally torn down, to the dismay of the many local citizens who had
attended it, on July 4, 1977. |
| As the Herndon area grew, so did its schools. The nearby Floris Vocational
High School was closed in the early 1930s and those students came into town for
classes. The campus on Locust Street was filled to capacity. |
| First to leave were the elementary grades, which were moved to a new school
on Dranesville Road, leaving 7th through 12th grades on Locust Street. Finally,
a new high school was built on Bennett Street, and now only the 7th and 8th grades
remain in the old school complex. |
| Now instead of being counted by the dozens, Herndon’s school population
is counted by the thousands. |
