Located at the intersection of Whitesville Road and Smith Mill Church Road, Smith Mill is one of the older established communities East of Delmar. The James Branch, Rossakatum branch, and the Wards Branch flow in this area. It is because of these streams that several mills were built on them.
George Smith came to the area in the 1700s. He and his sons, William ( -1835), Gillis ( -1809), and Marshall ( -1817), had a number of sawmills and grist mills. In 1802 Gillis Smith gave one acre of land for a church to be built. This was the beginning of Smith Mill Baptist Church (later called Little Creek Baptist Church). The church had organized in 1790, but the first building was completed in 1802. The Smiths thought they had settled in Somerset county Maryland, but they discovered they were Delaware residents when the state lines were resurveyed.
By the 1920s, Smith Mills would have a church, a school, and Workman’s store for merchandise.
Little Creek Primitive Baptist Church
The church still exists but is inactive; the current building was opened and dedicated in 1897. The large cemetery connected with it is, however, still active. In 1802 the mill pond was to the east of the church. The grist mill would ground the local farmers' grain, and the sawmill had an up and down vertical saw blade. Over time, the mills disappeared, and the pond was emptied.
above sketch of Smith Mill from Daily Times 01 June 1999
In Maryland, a state law stated mill owners who had dams had to have an eight-foot road across the top of the dam for traffic. It was the state’s way of getting out of paying to build bridges. I am unsure if the same law applied in Delaware, but it could be why Whitesville road, when looked at on older maps, does many odd twists and turns in the area where there had been mills, and the road may have been across the top of the dams. Some parts have been straightened out, but a few twists remain.
The Delaware Free School Law of 1829 established school districts in each hundred. The school district was to be no more than two miles from the outside border to the center. It also required the election of supervisors of each district and allowed them to tax to raise revenue for the school. It didn’t always work. By the 1870s, Little Creek hundreds were divided into five districts (46-51), and each had a school. By 1875 the numbering had changed, and Smith Mills was in district No 39.
Above Morris School no 39 from the Delaware Archives. No deed has been found that might establish a year when the school was started or whom the land came from. It was the custom to name schools after the family that had contributed the ground for the schoolhouse, so perhaps a Morris family member sold or donated the land for the school. There was a surge in building schools in 1895, so maybe the building is from this period.
Based on the photograph, the school was a one and a half story, clapboard siding, no basement, peaked wood shingle roof, one classroom school building. The inside we would have to guess at, but it probably had a cloakroom in the entranceway and then one large room with student’s desks and a teacher’s desk and blackboard.
In 1913 some families with children attending Morris School were; Havillah and Ella Carmean, Howard Ward, John and Adelie Baker, Alex, and Martha Hearn, and William A Jester family. Morris school would have an average of about 37 students at a time.
Some of the teachers were; 1914- Mabel E. Ralph, 1916/17 Kathryn M. Ralph, 1918/19 James H. Lecates (paid $70 a month), 1919/20 Eugenia M Brown, 1921-22 Mabel R Hearn, 1923/24 Sallie M Hearne, and 1924/25 Ermine Quillen.
You will often come across a bit of information on the internet that says when a woman school teacher married, she had to quit her job. This is false information; the truth was, teaching in a one-room schoolhouse was such a terrible job the school district was happy with anyone, married or single, who would teach in one. An example of this is Mabel Ellis Ralph (1897-1971). Mabel Ralph taught at Morris school in 1914 for forty dollars a month. In 1916 her sister Kathryn Ralph taught at Morris School for $42.50 a month. In 1917 Mabel married Francis Benjamin Hearne (1894-1962). After her marriage, Mrs. Mabel R Hearne worked at other one-room schools in the area returning in 1921 to teach the year at Morris school. Mrs. Hearne would teach at Delmar elementary school and later at the High School until her retirement in the 1960s. She would pass away in 1971. She had one daughter, Betty Frances Hearne (1922-2011).
The reason for having a rural one-room schoolhouse began to deteriorate with the advent of the improved road and the internal combustion engine. School buses could be used with dependability. The decade between 1925 and 1935 marked the closing of most rural schools in Little Creek hundreds. The Whitesville road was paved initially in 1930 as far as Smith Mills.
In 1925 Delmar wanted the one-room schools to consolidate into the Delmar School. Preaching “Better Schools,” the businessmen of Delmar went out and tried to convince the other schools to consolidate. A bond had been sold, and a new brick schoolhouse was being built in Delmar. More taxpayers were needed to pay for it. A vote was taken of the residents of the Morris School district No 39, and they voted 42 for consolidation and 14 against it. The last teacher at Morris School was Ermine Spicer Quillen, who taught in the 1924/25 school year. Ermine would go to the Laurel School District and continue teaching. In 1926 she would marry George Nye and continue teaching. In 1926 Morris School No 39 was consolidated into the Delmar school district. In 1928 the school building was sold for $50 to Everett Hearn.
Very interesting - where was the school?
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