Schoolhouse

The Swamp Road Chronicles^®

"Schoolhouse"

Dear Swamp Road Chronicles Editor,

About 1/4 mile west of the south end of Swamp Road is an old long-abandoned one-room schoolhouse. There is a stone block over the door which reads '1903'. It is in complete ruin now. The floor has caved in and the roof is nearly gone. But the brick main structure is still solid, and the black slate chalkboards are still there and useable too. The attached picture of the schoolhouse is only about 2 years old, so it's fairly current; as you can see, it's in bad shape.

(Editor's Note: The above photo is the one Mr. Kennedy provided)

When I was a kid I lived just down the street from that schoolhouse and I walked past it many times at night but rarely saw anything unusual; however, there were four times during the day when I saw a little boy either running into the building or looking through one of the windows at me. The first time I saw him I was just a kid; the last time I saw him was in 2019, that day he was running into the schoolhouse. I believe he is a ghost. I call him 'Corkey' because he reminds me of a little boy I used to know. Corkey was chock full of energy and just a little mischievous.

'Corkey' appears to be about nine years of age, he's a little chubby, barefoot and he wears dark blue cotton pants and a light blue shirt. He has been dressed the same every time I have seen him, and that's over a span of about 25 years. He hasn't grown up at all; he's still a little boy.

My friend Davy and I had gone into the school to see if we could find anything of value under the rotten, caving-in floorboards. We thought there was a good chance to find an old coin or two that the children may have dropped through the cracks in the floorboards. Any coins we found might have been over a hundred years old and perhaps valuable, we thought.

As we were on our knees looking through the gaping holes in the floor, I happened to look up at one of the windows and I saw a young boy looking at me. I said "Hello!" but he didn't respond, he just ducked down and out of sight. I told Davy someone saw us and we should get out of there because we were trespassing and we might get into trouble. Once we got out, I looked all over for that little boy, but didn't see him anywhere. We ran on over to Davy's house.

I didn't see that little boy again for about 5 years; I was driving by then and was going past the school when I saw him running in through the front door of the school. He still looked the same as he did 5 years earlier; same clothes, even. I didn't stop, but I sure did think a lot about what I saw. I have seen him twice more, both times as he was running into the school.

I really can't bring myself to follow him into the school to investigate; I guess I'll leave him alone and hope he does the same for me. Mr. Editor, I hope you find my experience interesting enough to put on your website so that others can watch for him too.

As submitted by Dennis Kennedy 6-8-21 Etna, Ohio

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