History of the Old Quaker Ridge Schoolhouse, prepared by Leona Hall Edwards.

        The Quaker Ridge Schoolhouse was originally called the Friends School and was built by Clark Norton Maxfield about 1849. Mr. Maxfield was the son of one of the first settlers of Quaker Hill or Quakerville, as it was often called.
        The building was erected at the point where the farms of William Hall and Isaiah Gould met, and evidently no deed was given nor did any money change hands; the two men simply gave permission for a school to be erected on that spot.
        We do not know the names of some of the earliest teachers, but we do know that one of them was a son of William Hall, Milton W. Hall, who had attended the Friends’ School in Providence, R.I. (now Moses Brown School) and who later attended Haverford College in Pennsylvania. He later became a doctor practicing in the Boston area for many years.
        Since the school building was only a few feet from the road, for many years the children played in the road or in the woods nearby. When automobiles became fairly plentiful, however, the Halls and the Goulds gave permission for a small area to be taken from the adjoining fields for a playground. The pupils themselves earned money to buy a teachers desk and chair, a clock, watercooler and books for reference.
        About 1920 several changes were made in the building itself; the roof was raised, two windows were put in the rear of the room, and an additional was built on one side providing separate indoor toilet facilities for the boys and girls.
        In the spring of 1920 there were only four or five pupils in the school district. They were transported to the Shadigee School for one term. This was the only time that the school was closed until 1942, when it was closed permanently as consolidation began.
        In 1948 the schoolhouse was sold at auction with several other one-room schoolhouses. This one was purchased for $125 by Charles Gould, who gave it to his sister Ellen because she had been a dedicated teacher there for many years.
        She held an open house at the school in the 1950’s and many former pupils and teachers were present. In 1968 Miss Gould gave the building to Hacker Hall and Leona Hall Edwards.
        In 1971 they, in turn, gave it to the newly-organized Raymond-Casco Historical Society with the hope that it might be restored, thus providing an interesting insight into a way of life now past.
        The schoolhouse was moved to its present site in Casco Village next to the firehouse in the neighborhood with the Town Offices, Junior High, Library and Village Church, in the fall of 1971.
        It is the hope of the Raymond-Casco Historical Society that someday the building will house not only some of the old desks, books and furnishings of a typical one-room school, but also of the records, documents and anecdotes of the settlers of long-ago Raymondtown and its successors, Raymond and Casco.

Raymond-Casco Historical Society, PO Box 1055, Raymond, ME 04071