The Boreas School - District 9

🏫 Schoolhouses of Minerva
School History - Home   /   District 1 – Alfred White   /   District 1 – Olmstedville    /   District 1 – Minerva Central
District 2 - Minerva Elementary   /   District 3 - Lynch/Mallon   /  District 4 - Irishtown   /   District 5 - Puddin Hollow
District 6 – The Ryan School   /   District 7 - The Gore School   /  Districts 8 & 11 - North River
District 9 - The Boreas School   /  District 10 - Leonardsville   /   District 12: Havron - Kays   /   District 13 – Aiden Lair​​​​
AI restored photograph of District 9 - The Boreas School
AI restored photograph of District 9 - The Boreas School
Original photo of District 9 - The Boreas School
Original photo of District 9 - The Boreas School

🧭Timeline at a Glance

🪵 1842 – Extension of District 3District #3 (Lynch/Mallon) was extended to include the Boreas River region to accommodate new settlers in the area.
🛖 Circa 1853–1870 – School Established on Blue Ridge Road
A school was likely established near the Blue Ridge Road to serve the growing population of Canadian immigrant families. This became the Boreas School, later known as District #9.
🌲 Circa 1860s – 14th Road Log School
A separate log schoolhouse operated briefly at the end of 14th Road, also identified as District #9. The school was closed shortly after opening and absorbed into District #5. Students returned to Puddin’ Hollow School.
🔄 1872 – District Renumbered
The 14th Road school was formally absorbed into District #5. The District #9 designation was reassigned to the Boreas River School.
📜 1892 – Land Use Agreements
Families living on unpurchased land in the Boreas area (often referred to as squatters) signed 25-year agreements allowing them to remain without paying taxes. After 25 years, the land would return to the state.
📬 1922 – Closure of School and Post Office
As families left due to expiring agreements, the Boreas School and local post office closed. Few residents remained.
🏫 1934 – Centralization
District #9 was listed among those absorbed during the centralization of schools. Today, the area is considered part of the Newcomb school district.
• Adirondack Record-Elizabethtown Post – October 14, 1921
Adirondack Record-Elizabethtown Post – October 14, 1921
Sources Consulted
Primary Records and Historical Documents:
  • Minerva Schools Complete Records
  • School Records of 1826
  • 13 Districts
  • Early Minerva Schools – April 1975 Quarterly, Minerva Historical Society
  • Schools
  • Teacher Data 
Oral Histories and Profiles:
  • Lizzie Callahan – A Profile – October 1972 Quarterly, Minerva Historical Society
  • Historian Visits Fourth Grade – July 1992 Quarterly
Newspaper Archive:
  • Adirondack Record-Elizabethtown Post – October 14, 1921
Every district I’ve researched has left behind its own trail of clues—some neat and orderly, others scattered like pages torn from a book. District 9 has been the most elusive of them all. The Boreas School left behind so little—just a few records, a few names, and stories that fade in and out of focus. Yet even in that silence, there’s something deeply human. It’s a story about belonging and loss, about how policies and people can shape, and sometimes erase, the life of a community. This is my attempt to bring together those fragments and let The School That Wasn’t Wanted speak again.

The School That Wasn't Wanted
​In 200 years, will people be pouring through historical record trying to piece together what life was like here in the Adirondacks for its residents. Will a story emerge from those documents? More importantly, will those records reveal the human side, the emotional side, the side we all want to hear.
As I pour through school records, personal narratives and memorabilia from 198 years of Minerva’s educational history I look for that story. I look for the threads that stitch the story through time, that connect the people I know today with those from the past. And I get sucked in, to all the joys and sadness's, to the struggles and successes. When I find this, it brings the story forward in time and I start to see the threads not only through time but through the patterns that persist even today.
I have prefaced District 9’s story with these thoughts because its story has eluded me for quite some time. There are not a lot of records on the Boreas School, just enough to tease you into wanting to know more. And like all historical records, the ambiguity is maddening.

The Lost Log School on 14th Road
Lizzie Callahan mentioned in her profile that there was a school house on the end of 14th Road but it was gone before she lived there. That would have been in the 1860’s. While that tidbit grabbed my interest for a moment, I didn’t think much of it until I stumbled on Noelle Donahue’s report in the October 1992 Quarterly about her visit to the 4th grade at Minerva Central School. Noelle said that there was a log school at the end of 14th Road that was only open for a week. The teacher was paid and let go. The building was purchased at some point by Peter Paul and used as a vacation home.
Here is where District 9’s story begins, on 14th Road sometime before 1860. The adults in the area must have felt a school was needed but the children, they didn’t want it. They were already walking the trail along Deer Creek to Puddin Hollow school on Ridge Street, two miles away. Their friends were at Puddin Hollow and according to Noelle a few sweethearts. District 9 may have been needed, but it wasn’t wanted.
We don’t know when the log school house on 14th Road was built or the dates of that one week of it being open occurred. But we do know that in 1872, District 9 was absorbed into District 5 (Puddin Hollow) and the Number 9 was dropped for a time.

A New District 9 Emerges in Boreas
Meanwhile, back in 1842, District 3, the Lynch Mallon District was extended to the Boreas River to cover the education of children moving into the Boreas area. As that population grew, it was decided to build a new school on the Blue Ridge Road between what we now know as Newcomb and North Hudson. At the time, this area was still part of Minerva. The new school was given the Number 9 and became known as the Boreas School.
​
The Boreas Community was located where the Boreas River crosses under Blue Ridge Road between Newcomb and North Hudson, very close to the Wolf Pond Trailhead.  It would make sense that the school would have been located in or very close to the community.  

A Timeline of Sparse Records
Records indicate that the school may have opened around 1853 but the first record we have of the Boreas School being active is in 1884. Francis Benhem was the teacher and she was paid $74.28 for her services. These dates are a bit confusing as we know that District 9 on 14th Road was not deactivated until 1872. The last record we have that the Boreas School was providing an education to local students was in 1921 when Miss Marjorie Hunter of Tahawus began teaching there.

​Squatters, Land Rights, and a School’s Closure
Many of the families in this area came from Canada and they settled on the land without purchasing it and later became known as squatters. In 1892, the Adirondack Park Commission was formed and much more attention was paid to land ownership.
The squatters were offered a deal that would allow them remain on their land for 25 years. They would pay no taxes and could cut enough wood for their personal use. A precursor to the Forever Wild Policy that was enshrined in the NYS constitution in 1894. Most families signed. That 25 years passed and those families did in fact leave and in 1922 so few children and families were left that the school and the Post Office were closed.¹
There is a notation that District 9 became part of the centralized school district in 1934. This requires further research as this area is now part of Newcomb.

What We Know (and Don’t Know)
​If we assume that District 9 the Boreas School did in fact open in 1853, it operated for 69 years. Between 1884 and 1921, thirty-two plus teachers taught students in this district.
The irony, the sadness, and the connections of District 9 came full circle. It began as a school not wanted by its student and ended as a school not wanted by its state.

​Threads That Remain
And the threads that reach through time and connect the past to the present. Well, here are a few:
  • The population in the Adirondack Park is dropping and schools in the park are feeling the pinch. School districts are combining Athletic Programs, sharing staff and services and in some cases merging in order to continue providing an education to our young people. Our own school, District 1 has recently gone through a merger study and for many years has been practicing the above-mentioned strategies to save money.
  • The “Forever Wild” policy instituted by the Adirondack Park Commission has helped to create a beautiful state park that has become a destination spot for both American and world-wide travelers. While at the same time, this policy has negatively affected the ability of its residents to thrive in many ways. Policy helped to shut down the Boreas School and policy is often not beneficial to the people living in the Park.
  • As in the past, families who came seeking opportunity—many of them migrants—have faced increasing pressure to leave. Their absence is often felt in the communities and economies they helped sustain.  The Boreas School and the Post office were the ties that bound. Once they closed, the unraveling of the surrounding community began.
Time, places, people, they’re all stitched together in this timeless crazy quilt that we get so wrapped up in, we lose sight of the pattern.  The Boreas School is gone but the lessons and patterns remain.  We can learn from District 9’s history.  

Footnotes
¹ A similar land situation occurred in District #12, the Havron/Kayes District located just a few miles south of the Boreas School. That school, also built on donated farmland, closed before 1910 due to a lack of pupils. When the squatters in the area were forced to leave in 1922, the only land still belonging to the original Kays family was the schoolhouse lot they had given from their farm.
The Boreas Community was located where the Boreas River crosses under Blue Ridge Road between Newcomb and North Hudson, very close to the Wolf Pond Trailhead.  It would make sense that the school would have been located in or very close to the community.