The rural school was an important part of community life. The Museum Schoolhouse with its recitation bench, pictures of Washington and Lincoln, water pail and dipper, or bubbler fountain and other equipment quite accurately represents a Stephenson County school of the 1920’s.

But over the years the rural school changed. The double desks were replaced by single desks and eventually by moveable adjustable desks. The recitation bench disappeared as individualized instruction replaced the “reciting” of lessons. The sanitary bubbler fountain replaced the pail and dipper. The radio and the WLS School Program and better lighting came to the rural school when the electric lines came to the farm homes. Sanitary indoor toilets replaced the outdoor privies. Library additions, more adequate supplies and longer school terms improved the educational opportunities.

But progress also took its toll! Larger farms, fewer farm families, and a decreasing number of pupils began to close a number of small schools. Better roads replaced the old muddy roads causing parents to look at the graded schools of the nearby villages. Many of the new parents had attended high school in these villages. Consolidations began and the days of the one-room rural school were numbered. By 1956, within the span of a century, the one-room, family-type, all grades in one room neighborhood school disappeared, and with it the old days of spelling bees, ciphering contests, basket socials and the annual school picnics.

Arthur and Evaline Cordes generously presented the Museum Schoolhouse to the Stephenson County Historical Society in memory of Evaline’s mother, Mrs. Elmer Vehmeier. Various items within the building have come from other schools in the county. A School Museum Committee comprised of former schoolteachers attends to the displays and maintains an active interest in the preservation of an important era in the county’s educational life. Within a few years, the last generation of pupils of the one-room rural district will be gone and it will remain for this Museum Schoolhouse to tell the story of the era.

During the decade from 1840 to 1850 Irish immigrants moved into the area northeast of Pearl City and called it New Dublin. This little cabin made of rough oak logs was probably built by John Barron and Philip Hogan. It is known that the Hogan family lived in it for some time. A daughter, Mary Hogan, lived until 1931 when she died at the age of 100. Shortly before her death, relatives brought her back to see the cabin where she lived as a young girl.

The cabin is almost square. It is slightly more than 14 feet in each direction. The height is almost exactly that same. Can you imagine a family with several children living in this cabin? Over the years it has served its owners in many capacities. Probably it was used as a summer kitchen or cookhouse, for storage and as a playhouse for children.

The cabin gives us some understanding and a feeling for the life of the pioneers. It was erected quickly with existing materials to be ready to shelter the family through the first winter. Space for a family would be cramped but it could also be heated during the bitter cold. Much of the families’ time was spent outside at work. Probably the women also worked outside when at all possible.

In 1976, Evelyn Damier became aware of the cabin and knew it would fulfill a need that the Stephenson County Historical Society had felt for some time. Few, if any, original cabins built by pioneer settlers in the county remain. The cabin was donated to the Historical Society by Mr. and Mrs. Carl Schuler and was moved to its present site in 1979. Volunteers who gave many hours to restore it were Joe Spudich, Vincent Labinski and Alvin Toelle. The Asche family of Loran donated logs from their old log house to replace those in poor condition. Robert LaBudde donated windows and floor boards from another old building to help in the restoration.

Furnishings of the cabin are those used by early settlers of Stephenson County in very similar circumstances. The pictures on the wall are those of the table’s owners. Their Bible rests on the table as it once did. The rocking chair is an heirloom donated by another family. The chest was brought to our country from Germany in 1851. The coverlet was made in Maryland in 1839. The cradle was made in New York in 1840 and brought west in 1845. Other items have a similar history. More furnishings of this nature and period of history are still needed and would be greatly appreciated.