The schoolhouse, built 147 years ago, was worth restoring, if for no other reason than to show there's a less grandiose, ego-centred alternative to monster homes and all they symbolize.

Published in The Gananoque Reporter

by Cameron Smith

The other day, when I walked into the one-room schoolhouse where Long Point Road meets the county road between Lansdowne and Lyndhurst, I left the age of excess at the doorstep.   

A dozen or fourteen students, sometimes more, occasionally many more, studied here in grades one to eight, until the school was closed in 1960. It’s a place where newer, bigger, faster, louder — and more, more, more — don’t fit.

It was built by Daniel O’Connor. Born in 1796 in Cork, Ireland, he landed in Leeds County early in the 1820s, and settled at Long Point in 1830. He donated 10 acres for the construction of the schoolhouse, and it opened in 1862.

Margaret and Dennis Brennan, who live in Schenectady, N.Y., recently bought the building. They’ve added a small living space behind it, and have been restoring the school. The two major things left to be done are installing the restored belfry, complete with the school’s massive bell, and repairing the small enclosed porch at the front of the building.

Margaret is a direct descendant of Daniel O’Connor. He was her great, great grandfather on her mother’s side, and it’s because of this family connection that she and Dennis have wanted to fix up the schoolhouse.

And what a family connection it is. Daniel and his wife had nine children, and they in turn had 47. Margaret has lost count of how many children the 47 had, and how many more followed them.

But the family names of descendants reads like a roll call of local residents. There are the O’Connors, of course. And then there are the MacDonalds, Floods, Slacks, Griers, Lynchs, Fodeys, McNamees, Lappans, Yeats, Somers, Woolards, Murphys, Giffins, Mooreheads, Shaws, Warrens, Tyes, and many more.

Art Shaw is one of the descendants. He’s the former chair of the municipal heritage committee of the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands, and he’s the one who is restoring the belfry and advising the Brennans on details of the schoolhouse. Art was a student there from 1953 until 1960, when it closed.

A gentle but forceful man, he’s explicit about the need to maintain the schoolhouse. “Heritage and culture are an essential part of any community,” he says. “There can be no sense of permanence in the present without evidence of the past. And no confidence in where we are going without a sense of where we came from.”

I’m a newcomer to the township. I came her 17 years ago, and I’ve come to love its rural character. Now, as I see the arrival of monster homes that look as if they’ve been transplanted from Toronto, and the demands from people who want the same kind of life that they led in Scarborough or Ottawa or Burlington, I see the value of the schoolhouse. It speaks to a different, simpler way of life.

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