Russellville School

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 According to Charles Hardy, in earlier years, the Maple Grove area was also referred to as Russellville. In his book Early History of Molalla and Nearby Areas, he also says Russellville was named after Wales Russell. Wales was known to be a very good violin player. He had a large family. By Charles’ recollection, there was Ab, Earnest, Pearl, Russell (he passed away at about 20 years old), Mrs. Strong, Mrs. Wells and another Mrs. Strong (two of the girls married Strongs). Wales’ wife was Elizabeth Davis. She was known to be the first white child born in Milwaukie, Oregon.

Charles said he joined the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at Russellville when he was about 15, I believe that church was held in the Russellville School. He would have been 15 around 1896-97, so that would have been in the first Russellville School building.

Hardy Road (just south of Russellville School’s location, north of Maple Grove School) was once known as Road 160 and also as Levi Davis Rd, until it was all surveyed and/or relocated and named Hardy Road.

Tom Clopton (that was at the 4-corners of the Sawtell Road) had two girls, Irene and Nelley. Irene was a school teacher for a long time, but Hardy does not confirm that she was teaching at Russellville. He does, however, state that Tom liked literary work and debates on certain questions, so they had debates in the Russellville Schoolhouse. At the time he wrote his book, he stated that Rich Helmig has the Tom Clopton place now. Rich Helmig was Bill Helmig’s brother. The 4-corners is where the fire station on Sawtell is now.

Maple Grove School was district 87. Maple Grove was not the original name. It was first called Troger District 87. Mr. Troger gave one acre for the first school building. The second school building was built in about 1933 and the district bought more land from Jim Bernard for school purposes. It was bought off from the old John Sherman place. John Sherman was a pioneer from an early day. Anna Goudy taught the first school in the Troger District in 1886. She was from Woodburn. The second teacher’s name in Maple Grove School was John A. Haylock. The third teacher was Ann Ross from Sellwood, Portland and the fourth was Nellie Sayer, also from Sellwood. 

S.M. Cooke and John G. Bleakney were responsible for much of the well-being of Maple Grove School. Bleakney was a colonel in the Civil War and Cooke was a teacher. They both visited school often. They watched over the Maple Grove School with great interest. Mr. Bleakney made up what he called a school roll-call once about everyone in school. Charles Hardy remembered some of them. Some are smart and some are smarter, but none can beat Miss Rena Carter.

There was usually only three or four months in a school year. There would be Spelling Bees or matches of mental arithmetic, written arithmetic, hygiene, physiology, geography and anything that was educational. Sometimes the bees and matches were held at night. Charles reiterated the very positive influence that Cooke and Bleakney had with their help in Maple Grove School. 

Dudley Boyles was a teacher for a time while Charles Hardy was at Maple Grove School. Zelma Ridings was as well.

There are copies of Charles Hardy Book Early History of Molalla and Nearby Areas at The Molalla Area Historical Society if you would like to read more of his book. This is just a very small bit from his book. He shares so much about different families that were in the area, businesses like saw mills, the teasel farm a bee ranch and so much more.

As mentioned above, some of the teachers that have taught at Russellville School were:

Clara (Moore) Kolshinski in the 40’s

Leona Cordill Schoenborn in the 30's

Hazel Hopfinger

Miss Whipple in the early 1900’s. She is in the class picture of 1912-1913 in the gallery below.

The class picture of 1912-1913 shows teacher Miss Whipple and students: Ethel Crites Pownall, Marion Crites, Charlie, Elemer (Pete), William Marts, Loa Marts Shilts, Etna Marts Krauger, and more that we will add the names of as we learn them.

The newspaper clipping class picture from the class of 1933-1934 shows teacher Leona Cordill Schoenborn, and students: Loretta Husbands, Margaret Reeves, Donald Lewis, Marion Schoenborn, Harold Christner, Hugh Carter, Elinor Dale, Ione Schoenborn, Reina Husbands, William Kickalnap, Leo Zahar, Barbara McCutcheon, Rowena Christner, Harold Dale, Milo Schoenborn, Arnold Christner and Doris Husbands. The picture was provided to the paper by Elinor Dale Scheer.

 We have dreamed of replicating the old Russellville School that was on our family's property when Bill bought the property in 1938. Bill and then Bill and Lea were the school sponsors for years until our area was consolidated to the Molalla School District and students in the area were bussed to town. Russellville School was closed in 1948 for this reason.

Unfortanately, the building was moved to an area of the farm closer to the house and repurposed as a farm building. They cut two large wholes in one side to allow parking for equipment and vehicles. In the early 2000s, the building was very distressed and the decision was made to dismantle and dispose of the building.

Fortunately, it turns out that they did salvage the back wall (the only solid wall that was on the builing) that was also the chalkboard. It has been kept in another barn to protect it from the elements.

We plan to rebuild the school. We are so excited to have the wall to work with, showing us what materials were used and the design as well as the size. We were able to use the size along with pictures to get an accurate size of the whole building.

The school was the "new" school built in 1899. The prior school was located across the road in a nearby field. We are still researching to find the dates the prior school was active and a more precise idea of where the prior school was located. That means that our wall is 126 years old. That is why you see one of the quick gift buttons as $126.

After much planning over the last couple of years, we have determined that we will need approximately $30,000 for materials and $60,000 for labor. We hope to see our community come together and see some of that reduced by local help. We have reached out to the historical agency for Oregon to see if we can get the wall on the historic register, however, we have not yet heard back. Regardless of how that goes, we intend to use the wall, pictures and info from interviews and documents that we have as a guide to build the school back as close as we can to it's original beauty.

We also have some really neat artifacts from the school like the bell, the lincoln picture that hung on the wall and various school books. Those will all go to the school house as well.

How do we intend to use the building? We are very excited to use the building for school and community events. We will work with local homeschool families so that they can use the school for activities as well as a place they can come together and do their work together so students can take their breaks together and help each other on assignments, etc... We will also be offering farm tours and school field trips with learning opportunities in the classroom, especially on days with inclimate weather. We have been forming our curriculum for the field trips for some time now and intend to get letters out to our local and nearby districts at the end of this school year and the beginning of the next school year. We will offer educational opportunities for nearly anything farm or forest related for nearly any age.

We are crafty people, so we also look forward to hosting community events with craft focus. We plan to have both classes and opportunities for community to come together and bring whatever they are already working on. We will have a library that will have books that can be enjoyed on site as well as books that can be checked out.

This school will not only be a great asset to our farm, but especially to our community. In its origin, our school and the nearby Maple Grove School (on the national historic register, reach out if you'd like to know more about how you can help that school), worked together and had their school times slightly ofset from each other so that the area children had more opportunity for education. Check out our page about Russellville School to learn this and more history as we will continue to update that page as we learn more about our area. We have recently found a living local that was involved with the school and are interviewing and obtaining documents that we will share there as we get them.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. If this is something you would like to contribute to, we appreciate all gifts large and small, as well as physical help. Every bit makes a difference and your gift will make a difference in our community for many years to come. We can take cash, check, card, venmo, cashapp or payment through the donate button here. If you'd like to contribute through venmo, you can do so here. Please put School rebuild or Russellville School in the "for" line so we know that that is what that gift is for. We are @russellvillefarm The last four of our phone is 1683. Our logo is our profile picture.