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A SCHOOL HOUSE IN ANNAPOLIS
by Pat Melville Some information about schools and education in Maryland is found in private manuscripts in Special Collections at the Archives. This article and future ones will highlight some of the collections. The Mrs. James N. Galloway Collection [SC374] contains materials on the Gibson family of Anne Arundel County, including papers relating to a school in Annapolis for the years 1828 through 1832. During that time the Trustees of the Primary School District 38 were establishing a school on Green Street in Annapolis. The relationship of that building to the current Annapolis Elementary School on Green Street cannot be determined without further research. In 1828 the trustees included Dennis Claude, Edward Sparks, and Thomas S. Alexander. They made at least three attempts to obtain a suitable contractor for construction of a school house. In May they received two or more proposals. Dunn & Duvall submitted two plans and elevations and four proposals. Only the latter document appears in the collection. One plan envisioned a two-story building, 24' x 35' with 9' ceilings and constructed of either brick or frame. The second plan called for a one-story building, 24' x 60' with two rooms and constructed of either brick or frame. The cost estimates ranged from $1,300 to $1,600. Jeremiah L. Boyd proposed a frame school house, either two-story with dimensions of 32' x 24' or one-story 60' x 24'. Both included ten windows, two outside doors, side desks around the room, and one double desk in the center. He estimated the cost at $850. |
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The trustees obviously found these proposals
unsatisfactory and later that year asked for new bids
based on pre-determined specifications. The building
requirements included 10' setback from the street, brick
construction, 54' x 26' as the outside dimensions,
partition to divide the inside, 14" walls, 12' ceilings,
yellow pine floors, roof with a pitch of 45 degrees and
covered with cypress shingles, four outside panel doors,
one double door in the partition, six windows with movable
lower sashes and venetian shutters, two brick chimneys,
three coats of paint on wooden work, and furnishings of
benches and desks. Separate proposals were
requested for paving between the building and curb, shed to contain 15 cords of firewood, two wooden privies each with an area of 6 sq. ft., and 6' plank fence. In October the trustees received at least four bids for the school house. Boyd set his cost at $1,749 plus an unreadable figure for the fence. Aaron Duvall and Davis S. Caldwell changed the dimensions to 54' x 30', excluded the fence, and submitted an estimate of $1,750. James Dunn bid $1,700 and Elijah Wells $1,350. The trustees must have deemed the construction estimates too high because in December they issued new specifications in which the dimensions were reduced to 40' x 26'. Everything else remained the same. In addition, no bid could exceed $1,200. It is unclear how many new proposals were received. On December 23 Boyd submitted a revised bid at the request of Alexander S. Randall. He reached the figure of $1,200 only by reducing the ceiling height to 10 1/2', shortening the roof rafters, and eliminating the venetian blinds. Some kind of arrangement was reached because on the 26th Boyd executed a bond for building the school house. (continued on Page 2)
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