The Lake Township School System

The Ruggles School

The first school classes in Lake Township were taught by Jonathon Williams at the home of Otis Allen during the winters of 1842-43 and 1843-44.   Williams was one of the first Township supervisors elected in 1842 when Lake Township was created from Lehman Township.  The Allen School was located next to the old cemetery on Township Route 779 two-tenths of a mile south of Route 29.

During the summer of 1844 the first school house was built on the farm of Henry Ide.  This may have been the Durland School west of its intersection with Route 29.  It is still standing but it is covered with a brown asbestos shingles.

In the winters of 1847-48 and 1848-49 Jonathon Williams taught classes at the home of Nathan Kocher at the Sandy Bottom area of the Lake on Queen of Peace Road.  In 1849 a school house, known at the West Corner School, was built at the site with Eliner Montross as the teacher.  The West Corner School would later become the site of the Laketon School.

In the winter of 1849-50 the Outlet School was open with Jonathon Williams as the teacher.  The Outlet School is still standing at the intersection of Legislative Routes 40129 and 40123.

Between 1844 and 1849 there were six schools built in Lake Township.  In 1849 there were two male and three female teachers.  There were 108 male and 70 female students.  The total cost of operating the 1849 school system was $120.75.

The number of schools in the Township varied over time.  There were seven schools in 1875 and eight in 1882.  There were nine schools in 1897 to 1900.  There were ten schools in 1901, and six schools from 1906 to 1910.  There were eight schools in 1915.

The school term from 1849 to 1864 was four months.  It increased to five months from 1865 to 1889.  It was six months in 1895.  By 1906 the term was seven months and increased to it's present eight months in 1915.

In 1856 there were two male and four female teachers in the Lake Township system.  The salary was $15.00 a month.  In 1880 there were three male and four female teachers and each received $18.00 a month.  In 1900 there were six male and five female teachers.  They were paid $25.00 a month.  In 1915 there were two male teachers at $72.50 a month and seven female teachers at $44.29 a month.

In 1873 there were six schools in the Township.  In addition to the Allen, Durland, West Corner and Outlet Schools, there were the Rock and Sweet Valley Schools.  The Rock School was located on Township Route 679.  The Sweet Valley School was located at the intersections of Township Routes 682 and 577 next to the Methodist Church in Sweet Valley.

At later dates the Ruggles, Pikes Creek, Green Valley, and Loyalville Schools were built.  The “Rock-Ruggles” or Rock No. 2 School was located on Township Route 679 to consolidate the individual Rock and Ruggles school houses which were dismantled.  Rock No. 2 is currently a home.

The Loyalville School was a two-story school which is still standing at the intersection of Legislative Route 40115 and Legislative Route 40128.

The Green Valley School is located on Township Route 748, a dirt road, along Fade’s Creek.  It is standing but is used as a storage house on the Lavin property.  The Pike’s Creek School is located at the intersections of Route 29 and 118 and is being converted into a home.

There was also a one-room school house along the Lakeside road near Alderson.  Dallas Township also had a large school at Alderson near the former site of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Station.

There were also two small schools in the Northwest, Mountain Springs and Beth Run Schools, which were built to accommodate the ice-cutting industry in the Ricketts Glen area.

The Laketon School, which had the earliest high school grades, was a four-room school house built at the turn of the century on Queen of Peace Road to replace the earlier one-room school house at the West corner.

Finally, the Lake Township School was built in 1925.  The Lake Township School, destroyed by fire in February, 1979, carried grades one through 12 and in time consolidated Laketon and the one-room schools.

In April, 1951, the Lake and Noxen Townships School Boards announced the creation of the jointure of the two school districts.  At the time of the announcement members of the Noxen Township School Board were Clarence Turner, Loren Case, Lester Kocher, Elvin Bean and Franklin Patton.  The supervising principal of the Lake schools at this time was George Taylor.

The Lake-Noxen Elementary School was dedicated on May 31, 1981.  The school had been completed in early January with students using the school for the second semester of the academic year.  The construction cost was $2.9 million dollars.

Copyright 2006-2008 F. Charles Petrillo