Freedom School

The Freedom School in Heritage Village was one of two schools that replaced Mackinaw City's original log cabin school, built in 1871.  This replacement school, built in 1885, was located in the town of Freedom near Mill Creek Park on what is now US 23 southeast of Mackinaw City. There is a small sign on the north side of the highway that marks the site of the now extinct community. Until the 1930s the Freedom School educated many students in the area. The building was sold in 1949.

The Historical Society discovered the dilapidated school building in the woods, its floor so rotten that it had "melted" into the mud beneath it. After the owners donated it to the MAHS, an architect advised the society, "Any building can be saved; it is only a matter of the amount of work you want to do." That was enough inspiration and encouragement for MAHS members to attempt to restore it.

The building's blackboards on the far wall are worth noting: The district, 
being poor, painted the boards black to simulate "black boards," and on them one can see faint images of the names and scores of students of
100 years ago. The board just to the right of the entry door is charred, indicating that at some point the stove must have been hot enough to threaten the entire structure.

Like the pest house, this structure is another inexpensive building with a shelf chimney, this one suspended on an interior shelf. Robert Frost wrote the following poem about his dislike of a shelf chimney.

 

  The Kitchen Chimney, by Robert Frost  

Builder, in building the little house,
In every way you may please yourself;
But please, please me in the kitchen chimney;
Don't build me a chimney upon a shelf.

However far you must go for bricks,
Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound,
Buy me enough for a full-length chimney,
And build the chimney clear from the ground.

It's not that I'm greatly afraid of fire,
But I never heard of a house that throve
(And I know of one that didn't thrive)
Where the chimney started above the stove.

And I dread the ominous stain of tar
That there always is on the papered walls,
And the smell of fire drowned in rain
That there always is when the chimney's false.

A shelf's for a clock or vase or picture,
But I don't see why it should have to bear
A chimney that only would serve to remind me
Of castles I used to build in air.

 

On Arrival   After Restoration