87B-34
Woodville School 21500 Aquasco Road Historic site; built 1934
The Woodville School is a rare and outstanding example of the rural schoolhouses of the county. It is a one-story, three-classroom frame building; built in 1934, it is the largest of the schoolhouses built in that period for the black children of Prince George’s County. The original German lap siding of the schoolhouse is covered by white aluminum siding, and the main west facade is lighted by two banks each of five large windows. The entrance, a double door sheltered by a small gabled canopy, is centered between the two banks of windows. This double door leads into an entry hall, which in turn leads to a small transverse hall which gives access to the kitchen in the rear central space, the single classroom on the north and the two classrooms on the south. Set in each of the north and south planes of the hip roof is a chimney; these chimneys served the stoves that warmed the three classrooms. The Woodville School is the third school built to serve the black children of the Woodville/Aquasco area. The first school building was established in 1867 on the south side of Aquasco. Methodist worship services were held in this building, known first as the John Wesley School, and in the spring of 1868 the Freedmen’s Bureau provided a teacher to begin classes there. When the Freedmen’s Bureau ceased operations in 1872, the administration
194 WOODVILLE/AQUASCO African-American Historic and Cultural Resources
of black schools was taken over by the Board of School Commissioners, and the John Wesley School came to be known as Colored School 1 in Election District 8. In 1877, the Board of School Commissioners authorized construction of a new school for black students on the north side of the village, and after that time the Freedmen’s Bureau building was used exclusively for Methodist services. The new school served until 1934 when the present Woodville School was constructed. In March of that year, after frequent requests from local residents, the County Board of Education (which superseded the Board of School Commissioners) agreed to build a new school. The Rosenwald school program had officially closed in 1932, and the new Woodville School was erected by labor furnished by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, with materials purchased by the County Board of Education. Designed by Washington, D.C., architects Upman & Adams for a considerably larger number of pupils than the average rural school of the period, the new school was the largest and best-equipped school building of its type. After 1954 and the integration of the county’s schools, the Woodville School was closed and sold; it was purchased by the Knights of St. John’s Commandery 373, the black auxiliary of the local Roman Catholic Church. Since that time, the building has been used as a meeting place and social hall for the African-American Roman Catholic population of the Woodville/Aquasco area; it is possibly the best-surviving example of the schoolhouses built before the advent of school integration.