Presque Isle’s restored one-room schoolhouse hosted a fitting Fourth of July celebration: a reading of the Declaration of Independence, crafted 249 years ago, which gave birth to the United States of America.
About 20 people filled the James School for the reading, which also included reflections from local historian Larry Park and Kim Smith of the Presque Isle Historical Society.
At a time when administration policies and political polarization divide the country along many lines, Independence Day was a chance to reflect upon the Founding Fathers’ plan for “a more perfect union.” The schoolhouse board started a Declaration of Independence celebration on a whim several years ago and it became an annual event, organizer Michael Gudreau said. The document never loses significance.
“As our country is today and kind of like every year, we’re always trying to fight someone that tries to maybe take us over or do one thing or another,” he said.
Built in 1917, the schoolhouse underwent its own fight. Local Judge Julian Turner, so the story goes, left the barber chair one day in 1985 upon hearing the school would be demolished. He obtained an injunction to stop the tear-down and drew together a band of volunteers to save the building for posterity.
More than 360 people volunteered time, money and materials to restore the small building on the Niles Road, which now hosts community events, tours and student field trips. Along with vintage wooden desks, the main room boasts a blackboard, embossed tin walls and ceiling and remnants of years gone by: books, school bells, cursive handwriting illustrations and more.
Before the reading began, Smith talked about another of Presque Isle’s historic landmarks: the Maysville Grange hall, which the society has restored into a museum.
The Granges were once the social and business strongholds of the agricultural community, and were unique in that they accepted women at a time when many groups did not — decades before women earned the right to vote, Smith said.
Grange members also traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak about legislation that would affect farmers, and introduced many ideas people now take for granted, including rural mail delivery and fire protection, she said.
Next year, as the U.S. marks its 250th birthday, the society and city will team up to host multiple community events.
Park, 95, shared memories of his years in farming and of Presque Isle in wartime. He grew up on farmland that now belongs to the Skyway Industrial Park. In 1941, when the Presque Isle Air Base was being built, the military bought the land and the family moved to the Spragueville Road.
Since the base was the nearest in the country to Europe, it hosted many planes bound for overseas. There were a few crashes, and during one of those, his family’s horses helped haul the wreckage, he said.
Craig Green of Presque Isle, a historical society member and a city councilor, read the Declaration this year. Many people may not realize that there were no two exact copies of the original document, he said.
“Almost every version of the Declaration of Independence printed or written in 1776 was different from the next in terms of punctuation, capitalization or errors,” he said. “And that’s because they were handwritten, and so many copies were made that way.”
The room was silent as Green read. Some people nodded at certain passages, such as details of oppression from England’s king and the need to break free.
“[We] do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states,” Green read.
“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
