The Cross Keys Schoolhouse, a quaint and potent reminder of early rural education, is tucked away in Medford, New Jersey. This modest but significant structure, run by the Medford Historical Society, transports contemporary tourists to a more straightforward era when a single instructor and a small group of pupils shared a single room.
Around 1857, Samuel Thackara, a farmer and charcoal maker in the Medford region, made the decision to construct a school for his neighborhood. This is when the Cross Keys Schoolhouse story starts. Remarkably, the lumber for the roughly 26-by-22-foot structure only cost nine dollars, and he hired his brother-in-law, Lester Gager, to build it. Children of various ages attended classes there for decades, where they were taught in a multi-grade format common to one-room schools. Indeed, residents began referring to the school as the "Knowledge Box," a moniker that has been used for many generations.
Sallie Davis, one of the teachers, was paid only $35 per month in 1912, a sum that highlights the ease of running the school and the modest lifestyle of teachers at the time. Students were transferred to the then-new Milton H. Allen School when the school closed its doors in 1927. The structure would have several secular uses over the ensuing decades, including a produce stand, a small store, and a private residence.
When the school was threatened by development in 1976, preservation took a drastic turn. The owner chose to donate the schoolhouse to the township rather than have it demolished, and a McDonald's restaurant was constructed on the location of the former school (close to the intersection of Dixontown Road and Stokes Road). The building was relocated to its present site on Mill Street that same year.
Today, the restored schoolhouse is still equipped with wooden desks, a teacher's desk, a chalkboard, and a central pot-bellied stove, exactly as it would have been in the middle of the 1800s. For students in grades two through eight, the Medford Historical Society offers living-history programs in which a "schoolmarm" leads them through lessons from the 19th century. Children also play classic recess games like marbles, hoop rolling, and tossing the Graces during these visits.
