The Burrell School Board voted unanimously in October to close Stewart Elementary School, a local landmark that served the community for more than 90 years, at the conclusion of the school year.
In 1930, a 6.4-acre tract of vacant farmland in Lower Burrell was acquired for the school from the Reed Stewart family for $7,125, a price equivalent to about $135,000 today.
Construction of the school started in 1931, and classes began in the fall of 1932.
Among the students who attended Stewart when it first opened was a girl name Theta Stitt, a fourth grader from Lower Burrell.
In those days there were no buses to transport students, so Stitt walked daily to and from the school, which was more than three-quarters of a mile from her home.
She would wait at the bottom of her driveway to walk with other students who had farther walks who would pass her house on the way to school.
When Stewart School opened, it replaced the area’s four one-room schools: Yetter, Bon Air, Morrows and Glade View.
Prior to Stewart opening, Stitt had attended Glade View, where McDonalds now stands along Leechburg Road. In those days, the road was known as Glade Road.
With the opening of Stewart, the one-room school was abandoned. The only remanents of the original Glade View School is School Alley, a one-way single-lane road which joins the McDonald’s parking lot and Van Buren Drive.
In response to the post-World War II baby boom, a new elementary school was built in 1949 along Iowa Drive. It also bore the name Glade View School.
Old photographs show the original Glade View schoolhouse set in a field of vegetables belonging to G.R. Leslie, a local farmer. The land for the school was leased from him for $15 a month.
Stitt later depicted school life there when she wrote the history of “The One-Rooms Schools of Lower Burrell Twp” for the “City of Lower Burrell 40th Anniversary Book.”
“The original Glade View School had the desks arranged in rows with the larger desks in the back. Across the front of the room were blackboards and benches where each class would recite or perform their required skills,” she wrote.
“In the center of the room was a pot-bellied stove with a pipe extending through the roof, and each side of the building had large windows to provide light. As the students entered the door (at the back of the classroom) there was a cloak room on their left and cupboards for books. A (hand-operated water) pump in the school yard and out-houses (one for boys and one for girls) completed the basic necessities.”
Stitt related how when the students wanted a day off, they would have a particular group of fellow students catch a skunk and let it loose inside the school overnight.
The same boys also were known to climb onto the roof of the school and stuff the chimney with rags. When the stove was lit, the classroom would fill with smoke, she said.
Occasionally, one of the students would tamper with the lock at the front door so the teacher would be unable to open the school, she recalled.
Back in 1879, the Township of Burrell was subdivided into Upper Burrell and Lower Burrell. Newly formed Lower Burrell had seven one-room schools at the time: Ross, Valley Camp, Eckels, Martin, Yetter, Leslie and Braeburn.
• The oldest school in Lower Burrell was the Ross School, which opened around 1800. Parents paid tuition for their children to attend. For a time, classes were conducted in a whiskey distillery on the William Ross farm. Since the production of whiskey requires heat, the children could be kept warm during the cold months at no additional expense.
The Ross School was at the corner of Leechburg Road and Illinois Drive. The last classes held there were in 1898. The remaining students transferred to Glade View School.
• The Eckles School, which served students along Seventh Street Road, was built in the 1860s. It later was destroyed by fire when students preparing for the next school term were burning old papers and books nearby.
• The Yetter School was constructed around 1857 on Waters Road, near the present location of Burrell Lake Park.
• The Leslie School was on Spooky Hollow Road, near the intersection of Garvers Ferry Road.
• The original Bon Air School was located in the parking area near where U-Haul now stands at the intersection of Wildlife Lodge Road and Leechburg Road.
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•Martin School was on the hill above New Kensington High School, near the intersection of Powers Drive and Seventh Street.
•The Valley Camp School was built near the Allegheny River and was called the Lockhart School. It was later replaced by a one-room school on Valley Heights.
In the late 1800s Lower Burrell’s western boundary extended to the area the Golden Dawn Supermarket on Freeport Road.
In addition to the schools mentioned above there was a school along the Allegheny River between Edgecliff and Braeburn. It was called Seldom Seen School.
There also was mention of a school, at the base of Edgecliff Road along the Chartier’s Creek, called the Ingram School, which later was replaced by the Leslie School.
After her time as a student at Stewart School, Stitt attended New Kensington High School. She then continued her education at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University, before going on to become a teacher at many schools in the Alle-Kiski Valley.
And it all started at Stewart.