1872 Goshen schoolhouse

dogg57

Piney
Jan 22, 2007
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Southern NJ
southjerseyphotos.com
Standing in front of the Goshen schoolhouse, gazing at its peeling paint and boarded up windows, 83-year-old Goshen native Lois Hearon Soffe said this time around, things are going to be different.
This time, she believes, the historic schoolhouse building will be saved.
Soffe is a member of the Save the Goshen Schoolhouse Committee, which formed in early January. Its mission is to help preserve and restore the 140-year-old building, located on Route 47 in the heart of the Goshen section of Middle Township, for use as a community center and a township history museum, focused on Goshen and the schoolhouse.
The schoolhouse was built in 1872, shortly after the New Jersey State Board of Education passed an act to establish a system of free public schools. It was used as a classroom until 1961, serving generations of Goshen children — including Soffe from 1934 through 1943, her father before that, and his father before that, she said.
In the late 1960s, the building was sold for a dollar to the Middle Township Fire District No. 4 in Goshen to use as collateral for its first firetruck. In 1992, the Historical American Building Survey documented the building as part of the National Park Service’s New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail, and talk of fixing it up began to spread throughout the community.
By ELISA LALA Staff Writer

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/...cle_2604fb4a-76f9-11e1-9381-0019bb2963f4.html
 
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