Macedonia School

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Macedonia School, up in Wood County. Now, some schools get built with great fanfare and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Others just appear, quiet and necessary, the way a good thing tends to when people need it badly enough.

Macedonia School was that second kind. It was one of the first one-teacher schools in all of Wood County, and it stood in service of the county's earliest community, a settlement called Macedonia. You'll look for Macedonia on a modern map and come up empty, because in 1900 the community was renamed Redland.

But back before that renaming, Macedonia was there, and its people needed a place to put learning. In 1885, a man named W. M.

McCarroll donated the land so a school could be built. That's the kind of generosity that doesn't ask for much in return, just that somebody show up and teach. And somebody did.

W. M. Harris was among the first teachers to walk through that door and take on the whole operation, one teacher, one school, a community counting on both.

For decades Macedonia School kept at it, quiet and steady, the way a one-room schoolhouse has to be when there's no one else to pick up the slack. Then came 1944, and the school consolidated with the Hawkins Independent District. The doors didn't slam shut so much as they opened wider.

That's the thing about a school built on donated land and a teacher's determination. It doesn't really end. It just keeps going somewhere else.

What the marker says

One of first one-teacher schools in Wood County. Served the county's earliest community -- Macedonia, which was renamed Redland in 1900. Land for school was donated by W. M. McCarroll in 1885. W. M. Harris was one of first teachers. The school consolidated with the Hawkins Independent District in 1944. (1969)