Published: August 24, 2008 11:00 pm      

Union Grove schoolhouse

Building could teach new generation of students

CUMBERLAND — A long neglected 107-year-old one-room schoolhouse northeast of Cumberland is to get a facelift, of sorts, with a state grant and a little help from its friends.

And in a year’s time, it could be used to teach a new generation of students.

Secretary Richard Hall of the Maryland Department of Planning notified Sharon Nealis and the Allegany County Historical Society of the $29,500 grant through the Maryland Historic Trust. The grant will restore and help preserve the former Union Grove one-room schoolhouse on Mason Road, located about three miles off Interstate 68.

Built in 1901 to replace the Wilson Academy of 1874, the Union Grove schoolhouse served the area first as a school, then as the Union Grove Community Center. It was converted into a meeting place for the Union Grove Boys 4-H Club but, for the last 20 years or more, has stood vacant.

Brothers Dick and Doug Heavner both still live within a short drive to the schoolhouse, where they met peers during 4-H meetings for eight years when they were between the ages of 10 and 18. The Heavners served on the building’s board of trustees — Dick does to this day — and, in 2007, decided it was time to ask for a little help in preserving a part of history.

Interested buyers recently approached Dick Heavner about selling the property. Tempted, he just couldn’t strike a deal, he said. Instead, the brothers turned the building over to the Allegany County Historical Society, which will administer the grant and oversee the preservation efforts.

“It’s where it belongs,” Dick Heavner said of the schoolhouse, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. “I felt it deserved better” than to be sold. “It will be treated the way it should be treated.”

The brothers researched doing the restoration work themselves, but with the costs, “it wasn’t practical for us to get involved.”

Doug Heavner, 78, joined 4-H and enjoyed the camaraderie of the club in 1940. Dick Heavner, 10 years younger, also was a member. The boys helped gather and sell scrap metal in order to pay the building’s electric bill, then about $3 a month.

Howard Buchanan, a board member for the local historical society and a member of the Maryland Historic Trust, was instrumental in processing the application and helped steer its favorable review. Buchanan said he knows there’s quite a bit of work needed to restore and preserve the building, but enough of the shell of the building is there to start with.

“We knew what we were getting into,” Buchanan said during a site visit last week with the Heavners. “We knew we’d go through some grief, but if it didn’t need it, (the Heavners) wouldn’t need us.”

While the shell of the building remains largely intact, the building has suffered years of neglect and at least one unfortunate remodeling attempt, which saw much of the interior, time period-specific wainscoting removed, as were the plaster walls. That all will be replaced. A request for proposals will be released in the near future, Buchanan said.

“The first part of the project includes termite treatment and protection, exterior window protection and restoration of electricity to the building,” Nealis wrote in the grant application.

Work is to be completed by August 2009 — in time for the building to become a stop along the county’s driving tour of interesting historical points. Planners also envision field trip opportunities for school children in the building, which will be furnished with authentic student desks, a teacher’s desk and bell, a chalkboard, a pot-bellied stove and the posting of the alphabet around the top of the wall.

The building, situated between Evitts and Rocky Gap creeks, also could be used for community fairs and other special events.

“This restoration could be the catalyst for the development of archaeological digs, the preservation of a rural region of Maryland and several agricultural contributions to Maryland history,” Nealis wrote.

But for the Heavners, there is a smaller but more immediate gratification. They were not compensated for their donation of the building to the Allegany County Historical Society. The satisfaction of seeing it restored and preserved, they agreed, is priceless.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.