A History of the Schools

Nearly as soon as they had settled in Acworth, the town's earliest families turned their attention to schooling their children. At first, parents simply paid a schoolmaster to educate their children at home, while he boarded with the family.  Next, houses or outbuildings were “improved to serve as a schoolhouse”, and neighbors shared the cost of engaging a teacher for a winter term of eight to twelve weeks, later adding a summer term.  Distance between the hillside farms made it necessary to establish schools within a mile or two of each home  The earliest school districts were referred to as the center or middle district, the southwest district (Derry Hill), and the northeast district (Coffin Hill). Soon the emerging districts became identified with the residents who assumed the responsibility for organizing school meetings, collecting the school tax, and paying the teachers. According to the town’s first history, Acworth was divided into nine districts by 1790.  By 1806, the number of districts was expanded from nine to twelve.  

However, Acworth began the twentieth century with about half of its original schools remaining open.  The schools in Acworth Center and South Acworth village no longer had enough pupils to separate primary and upper grades.  The Derry Hill and Grout Hill schools remained open, but by 1904 the number of pupils in the Tracy district had declined from sixteen to only four or five. The school closed briefly, only to reopen in 1908.  Its enrollment rose to twenty pupils in 1916, in part because of growth around Cold Pond and a sawmill.  Often the handful of children living near one of the district schools had to be taught at home or by a neighbor woman because there were too few children to keep the school open. 

(Excerpts from These Acworth Hills by Helen Frink)

In the Gallery photos below are some of those schoolhouses. Click on each picture for more details.