Renaissance Students Tour Historical Montclair

Dr. Felice Harrison provides an imaginative history of the Board of Education's Central Office building to Renaissance seventh graders.

Renaissance seventh graders got a glimpse of Montclair’s historic roots during their Revolutionary Walk through town on Fri., May 11. Parents, teachers and community members acted as tour guides at eight historic sites: Memorial Rock, The Slave House, Evergreens, The Old Stagecoach, The First Schoolhouse and Old Primary School, Old Munn Tavern, 140 Union Street and the Israel Crane House. The walk was a culmination of the students’ study of the colonial period and will be followed-up with a field trip to Philadelphia.

Four groups of students stopped at the Board of Education’s Central Office, originally a schoolhouse built in 1740 and the town’s first public building. Dr. Felice Harrison, Assistant to the Superintendent, described the one-room, one-story building and its contents. “I’ve heard reports that there was a trapdoor that opened into a dungeon for misbehaving students, but I’m sure it’s just a rumor,” she said to giggles and a show of hands that revealed about half of the students believed it just may have existed!