Laura Edington | Daily Journal Students from Washington Street Elementary School learned about how the days were for the students who attended the Bostick School.

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Laura Edington | Daily Journal The Bostick School was in operation from 1880-1922.

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Laura Edington | Daily Journal Brenda Baucom told the students about how the teacher was responsible for lighting the heater in the middle of the room every morning.

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Laura Edington | Daily Journal Betty McBryde, member of the Executive Board of the Richmond County Historical Society, rang the school bell to let the third graders from Washington Street Elementary School know class was beginning.

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Students from Washington Street Elementary School toured the past Thursday, starting with the Bostick Schoolhouse on Clayton Carriker Road.

Ken Bostick’s third grade class toured the one-room, historic schoolhouse and learned what students’ school days were like from 1880 until 1922.

Brenda Baucom, who gave the tour, told the students about the rules that teachers had to follow and punishments for students who misbehaved.

Baucom’s parents, Woodford and Lillian Sherrill, members of the Richmond County Historical Society, restored the schoolhouse from 1992-1998.

Rules posted on the wall for teachers included: “You may not marry during the term of your contract,” “You must be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless attending a school function,” “You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores,” and “You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is your father or brother.”

She pointed out that the classroom did not have electricity or a bathroom and explained how the former students kept cool using paper fans and kept warm using a small coal heater in the center of the room. Baucom taught the students how to use paper to make fans and cups for water.

Bostick said he has been bringing his class to the Bostick Schoolhouse for 10 years. He said he has a connection to the school because his grandmother, Myrtle McRae, taught from 1906-1912. She married Bostick’s grandfather in 1912 and had to leave the school because of the marriage. The old schoolhouse got its name from a mill in the area.

The last teacher of the school was Kate Millikin who taught from 1921-1922. After 1922, the school was closed down and students went to a school in Ellerbe.

The school was empty, except for serving as a storage barn for a couple of years, until 1992 when the Richmond County Historical Society began a lengthy restoration. The restoration took six years and the school was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior in April 2005.

— Staff Writer Laura Edington can be reached at 910-997-3111, ext. 18, or by email at ledington@civitasmedia.com.