Mohawk Trail

The old Mohawk Trail School on Hamilton's west
mountain is a prime example of a nineteenth century
one-room Ontario schoolhouse. The school began life
as S.S. # 5 Barton, built in 1882. It continued in
operation serving area students in Hamilton
classroom until as recently as1966. A newer school
called Mohawk Trail School was built beside the
one-room structure in the 1950s. That school has
since been demolished and replaced by housing.
In 1967 the "official" organization of Hamilton's public
elementary teachers, the Hamilton Teachers Council,
undertook to renovate the old school, now also called
Mohawk Trail. For many years thereafter, the
restored schoolhouse, located on Mohawk Road W.
at W. 16th Street in Hamilton, served as a location
for area primary and junior students to visit and to
learn about education from another era. The school,
is a museum today under the auspices of the
Educational Archives and Heritage Centre and is
maintained, in coordination with the HWDSB, by our
hard-working volunteers.

Archives Executive member Diane Cole, and other
Volunteers, have assumed primary responsibility for
the Mohawk Trail site. We have opened the school
for the Hamilton Doors Open event each spring for
the past three years, and we hope to have it open on
other occasions so we may share this wonderful
resource with the public.

Because the school building was officially 125 years old in 2007, we made our Doors Open event an especially
memorable one for 2007.

Diane Cole recalls for us a few of the events at Mohawk Trail's Doors Open event in May of 2007:

For the second year in a row, on May 5 and 6, 2007, Mohawk Trail Museum School was a site for the Doors Open
Hamilton program. Visitors, some with personal connections to the school, others interested and curious, came
to observe displays and artifacts set to represent life in a one-room schoolhouse of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. Visitors of all ages were much in evidence, many who had attended Mohawk Trail in the
mid-twentieth century, as well as their children and grandchildren. The younger visitors (and maybe more than a
couple of the adults) especially enjoyed working at the slates on each desk and pulling the rope ringing the
school bell in the old tower.
One family of former students who had attended Mohawk Trail School in the 1940s gathered together at the site
as a surprise treat for their brother. They left with pictures and copies of attendance register pages that brought
back many fond memories of their days at the school.
Another visitor who had attended the school in the 1940s remembered there was a time of such overcrowding
that some students were taken by bus from Mohawk Road to McIlwraith School on Murray Street in Hamilton's
North End! This meant a long school day indeed.
We were told of times in the one-room schoolhouse when the teacher would warm up the lunches on the
potbellied stove. This often included a pot of soup provided by the teachers, one of the parents or a kindly
neighbour as a special treat. In some cases, the teacher prepared the entire lunch each day. Now that's
lunchroom supervision with a twist.
These and other revealing memories have been shared with us each year at the open house. We hope to have
many more visitors - and their interesting stories -- at Doors Open events in the future.