OLD TAPPAN—Thirty-one students, two teachers, and a principal—this comprised the entirety of Old Tappan’s two-room wooden schoolhouse in 1900.
The school stood on Old Tappan Road near Leonard Drive, next to the present Senior Center (formerly police headquarters). It was built in the 1880s, back when the future Borough of Old Tappan was still a rural village within Harrington Township.
The children of the local farmers would complete their morning chores and then journey to school each day, walking along the narrow dirt lanes or occasionally transported by horse-drawn wagon. Schooling ended by the eighth grade or earlier, which served the young pupils just fine—most would grow up to become farmers or learn a trade such as blacksmithing or carpentry.
Recollections from a former student of this school, May Mence Gifford, were printed in Old Tappan’s Centennial Book. May was the daughter of a local blacksmith, William Mence. She recalled starting at the school when she was 6 years old, in the year 1887.
She wrote, “I trudged off with a book bag containing a slate, rags and bottle of water to wash it, pencil box and First Reader [an early schoolbook]. No paper. Parents bought the books and pads then. The mile walk seemed short to the new school. There were two large rooms, only one of which was furnished for 60 pupils. The other room was empty, save for a table at one end of the room, upon which we placed our lunch containers and a pail of water and dipper from which everyone drank. Germs? We weren’t familiar with them.”
In the 1880s there was one teacher for the entire school, and she received a salary of $60 per month—equivalent to about $24,000 a year in today’s money. It was common in that era for a teacher, usually a young woman, to board with a local family.
Gifford recalled that in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, the students learned history, geography, physiology, algebra, word analysis, grammar, business forms, drawing, bookkeeping, and literature. Older students helped with teaching the younger ones.
By 1900, both classrooms in the school were being utilized and the staff had been upgraded to two teachers. That same year, the total borough population in Old Tappan was only 269 people.
In the winter, a charcoal-burning stove in each room provided the only heat. Each stove had a protective bumper surrounding it to prevent the kids from getting burned. This was also where the kids would dry their socks and stockings that had gotten wet while trudging through the snow to get to school. On very cold days, the children would warm their hands in a pan of water that had been heated on the stove.
The two-room schoolhouse was torn down after Charles DeWolf School was built in 1940. That facility must have seemed quite modern: it was the first school in town to have indoor plumbing.