Time for

an adventure

Nestled just south of Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, the Dick Schoolhouse is more than a piece of local history. It is part of our family story.

Built between 1830 and 1832 by our ancestors, the Dick family, this one-room stone schoolhouse began as a grassroots act of commitment. At a time when education wasn’t guaranteed, our relatives and their neighbors hauled stone from nearby farms and hand-split shingles to construct something lasting. Before the state stepped in with public funding, they built it themselves.

Inside, it was simple. A ten-plate stove for warmth, benches carved from slabs, and boards nailed to the walls as desks. In 1834, the school joined Pennsylvania’s newly established public system, but by 1868 it closed its doors as a classroom. From there, the building lived many lives. It became a church, a home, and even a slaughterhouse before the community stepped in to preserve it in 1920. Local residents made repairs, hosted a commemorative picnic, and passed the torch of care from one generation to the next.

Now, nearly 200 years later, the schoolhouse is back in the hands of the family that built it.

We are committed to its next chapter.

The Dick Schoolhouse will be restored as a site of education, community, and public memory. We are pursuing grants, developing long-term plans for programming, and connecting with local schools and historians. Our vision includes field trips, community gatherings, historical exhibitions, and educational partnerships. We also plan to expand the digital side of the project with virtual tours, storytelling, and emerging technologies that help bring the past to life.

This is not just about preserving a building.

It is about honoring legacy and building on it.