With September upon us, our Jericho students are returning to classes at our top-rated school district. The roots of education in Jericho began with the early Quaker families, who were then, as now, staunch advocates of education. The famous Quaker, Elias Hicks, believed so strongly in the education of children that he equated it to the “salvation of our own soul.” Education in Jericho ranged from home schooling to various small schools until the first public school was built on Oyster Bay Road in 1870. It was a two-room school house with separate entrances for boys and girls.
A new two-story wooden school house was erected in 1906-07 on Cedar Swamp Road (Route 107) at a cost of $9,145.60. Trustees James Malcolm, Emma Underhill and Robert Seaman raised the money to build the school by selling ten $1,000 bonds at 4 ½ percent interest at the Bank of Hicksville. (A copy of the bond exists in the Jericho Public Library archives.) The third school, built in 1938, was an eight room brick one-story that remains part of the Jericho High School/Middle School today.
The source of this information is the Jericho Public Library publication Jericho: the History of a Long Island Hamlet, written by local history librarian Betsey Murphy. You can pick up a copy of the book at the Circulation Desk for a $20 donation. — Jericho Public LIbrary
