With special thanks to Mary Ann Radabaugh for updating this 1935 history in the early 1990’s. Without her doing this, all this history might have been lost.
A Subscription School is one where parents paid according to the number of children they had in school. Teachers stayed in homes in the community for free.
James Westfall taught the first Subscription School in the DeKalb District about 1814, in a building built for school purposes near the mouth of Leading Creek. There were 15 pupils. This Subscription School is thought to be the first in Gilmer County, West Virginia.
Glenville’s Subscription School was held at the Glenville Methodist Church in 1836 or 1838.
The next Subscription School was in DeKalb District. It was organized in 1844 in the Village of DeKalb.
Settlers in Troy District built a school on Sinking Creek in 1848. It was a Subscription School and became known as Low Gap School.
In 1850 Sand Fork settlers built a log structure used for worship and for school. Archibald Burke was it’s first teacher.
The residents of Spruce Run started Spruce Fork School #9 in 1862, a Subscription School that served Duck Run, Bull Runa and Spruce Run. William Schiefer was the first teacher there.
In 1935 Superintendent Carl McGinnis of Gilmer County Schools requested all one room school teachers research and write a history of their schools.
