The Kernersville Historic Preservation Society reopened the 19th-century Piney Grove Schoolhouse last week. Visitors can experience education as it was 155 years ago every Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to noon through the fall. Admission is free, though donations are welcome.
Located near the basketball courts in Fourth of July Park, 702 West Mountain Street, a volunteer will take visitors through the necessities and quirks of the past, such as the old-timey chalkboard, a potbelly stove, and the very real dunce cap in the corner.
“You could find things online, and you could read about the history, but until you’re sitting in a wooden seat and looking around and seeing the environment, you can’t understand what it must’ve been like,” Historic Preservation Society board member Bruce Frankel told Scope News.
Built in 1870, the schoolhouse served the Piney Grove farming community until a larger building was constructed in 1898. Almost a century later, the landowners donated the schoolhouse to the Town of Kernersville, which in turn entrusted it to the Historic Preservation Society.
The organization relocated and restored the building, adding donated items appropriate to the time period.
“The boys needed to bring wood for the stove. … They’d need to go out and get a bucket of water and put it by the door with a ladle and that’s what everybody used,” said retired schoolteacher and longtime volunteer Cathy Reynolds. “People just don’t understand in this day and age how hard it was.”
The schoolhouse is available for group outings scheduled in advance. Individuals interested in volunteering with the schoolhouse should contact the Historic Preservation Society here.
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