Chapter 5 Education

EDUCATION AND SCHOOLS IN O’LEARY 1890-1992.

EARLY SCHOOLING

In the early days village children trudged off to school in Unionvale, a district to the east of O’Leary. The original school was located just east of the present residence of Keith Paugh.

After this school burned, a new school was built near the home of Arthur Cornish in Unionvale thus moving the site much close to O’Leary. Approximately seventy pupils were crowded into this one- room schoolhouse.

Chiefly through efforts of the teacher, AJ. Matheson, a new two- room school was built in 1896. It was built on the present site of McKenna’s Furniture Store in O’Leary. In the same year O’Leary became a separate school district. The first teachers were AJ. Matheson from Brackley Point and Miss Campbell. In 1898, the school received first-class rating. The teachers at the time were Robert MacFadyen and Mary Irving. Other early teachers were Mary Fyfe (Mrs. A]. Matheson); Harry Balderson, Southport; Daniel Fraser, from Whim Road - later a school inspector; Miss Stewart, later a mission- ary in China; Miss MacKinley; Lulu Wortman (Mrs. James Malcolm MacWilIiam); Walter Darby (Judge Darby); and J. Watson MacNaught, Coleman, later the cabinet minister who turned the first sod for the proposed P.E.I. - N.B. Causeway in 1964.

First School in O’Leury

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