January 04, 2001 - Remembering 'East Cutchogue'January 4, 2001 • The. Suffolk Times
Remembering
`East Cutchogue'
WHEN WE LEFT OFF THREE WEEKS
ago Barbara had spoken of Mr.
Overton helping the students across
the street to the East Cutchogue
school. She says, "There were other
who came to school through the
back way. The Hortons, Prices,
Swiatochas, Kujawskis, Billards,
Zeneskis, etc.,
walked `cross
Focus lots' (now built
ON THE up with houses)
and up through
PAST the woods to a
by Paul big gate in the
and Barbara fence at the
Stoutenburgh back of the
school. At
recess time
we'd often take our lunch and go
down and play on the bent -over
trees and look for turtles and frogs
there. Then there were students who
came a long distance from the North
Road. Mr. Shalvey, `Sharkey' they
called him, would drive his kids,
Tommy, Bernie and Agnes, and any
of the neighborhood kids who need-
ed a ride from that area. There were
eight grades in the three -room wood-
en school building with three teach-
ers and sliding doors between the
rooms that opened up to make one
large room."
Town records show that the East
Cutchogue school was started in
1815, but which building that was is
hard to figure out. It is said that one
of the real old schools still sits to the
right of the entrance to the Pugliese
Winery showroom. We are still trying
to see if we can find out which school
that was. There were so many school
in the area, public and private, in the
early days: one on the left as you
head north on Bridge Lane where
®I I.
Suffolk Times photo courtesy of Rob
East Cutchogue schoolhouse, shown in 1954.
George Case's house was (later
moved over to the school property);
one on the south side of the road
where the Mapes family owned the
property before Mr. Overton lived
there and where Miss Mapes taught
school, called St. Peter's Hall; one
between the Rysko (or at that time,
Horton) and Robinson houses on the
north side of the road where Lois
and Winnie Billard's grandmother
went to school, probably around the
1850s. In checking on Winnie
Billard's records of schools in the
area, we found a note, "Eel Pot
School. Sits behind the Sayre house."
Don't know any more about it but we
just had to add it.
A meeting was held June 6, 1878,
for the purpose of collecting money
"to erect a monument to Elizabeth
Manes for the appreciation of 30
years of continuous labor in the
interest in education ... so her name
would remain imperishable in the
community." (This was taken from a
newspaper notice town historian Ton
Booth gave us. A tall monument in
the Old Burying Ground in
Cutchogue has engraved on it "Our
Teacher." The article said they had a
list of 300 names and hoped to collec
$300 for the monument. It was to be
sent to "O.B. Goldsmith, Cutchogue,
Treasurer of the Committee, by regis
tered mail." One of those on that
committee was Rhoda Hallock, who
later ran her own school called The
Select School. Mabel Richmond was
one of her students.
Rob and Helen Richmond have
great stories of Mabel's days in
school. Mabel told them she was
born in a big house on Manor Hill
and at one time she attended the lit-
tle school still standing next to
Ruland's barn across from the United
gas station at the corner of
Marratooka Lane in Mattituck. Then
in the 1880s she attended Rhoda
Hallock's school (tuition $3.50 per
quarter), which has been torn down,
but was next door to Helen and
Rob's home just a few houses past
the present East Cutchogue school
site. They told us, "Gramma Mabel
took her lessons at a long table with
other students and if Miss Rhoda
needed to take care of her supper,
she just left and went and stirred the
pot on the stove." Mabel always told
them, "I graduated out the kitchen
door."
Barbara says, "A picture from
about 1918 shows my father and my
aunt when they attended East
Cutchogue School in the original
two -room building before the front
room was added. It appears there
were about 50 students at that time.
My second -grade picture shows we
had eight in the class but that dwin-
dled to four by the time we graduat-
ed from eighth grade in 1943.
Nevertheless, the number of students
in the school didn't change much
from the time my father, Russell P.
Silleck, attended and when I did
years later. Today the new school
building on the grounds has 36 class-
rooms for grades K -6 of the
Mattituck - Cutchogue School
District."
Population and compensation have
changed a lot over the years. Lois
Allen tells us, "My mother, Bertha
Beck from Sag Harbor, taught in the
West Cutchogue school but when she
was offered $50 to move to East
Cutchogue in 1906. she accepted."
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