A one-room schoolhouse that is more than a century old is tucked away in plain sight at Morningside Nature Park, providing glimpses of what going to school might have been like in Alachua County more than a century ago. 

The tiny building with its whitewashed walls, started out as a school for farm children in the little village of Half Moon between Archer and Newberry nearly 150 years ago. Historical records show it was moved from Newberry to Jonesville to Gainesville over the years. 

“It is part of the African American history of Alachua County that is worthy of note,” said Gary Paul, who was program coordinator at Morningside Park for 13 years before his retirement.  

“That is an aspect of African American lives that programs could be built around.” 

The schoolhouse first served white children beginning in 1886. The first teacher, Birdie Dudley, earned $25 per month for a five-month teaching term that year.  

When the school district built a new school in Jonesville in 1906, the white children went there while the Black community inherited the existing one. The Half-Moon Schoolhouse was in operation until the late 1940s. 

Had preservation efforts not been made as part of a bicentennial project in the 1970s, it might have just crumbled away into the dust of history. But the Future Farmers of America, Alachua County Bicentennial Commission and private individuals came together to save the dilapidated building. It was moved to its current location in 1976 and dedicated on Jan. 29, 1977.  

Paul has not been able to get Morningside out of his blood and still volunteers there, consistently pushing for more to be done to maintain and promote the historic schoolhouse.  

On a recent outing there, Paul pointed out small things that could help, including “a new paint job or patching up some rotting wood.”  

Historian Murray Laurie, who has tracked the tale of this one-room schoolhouse as it made its way across the county, agrees with Paul, although neither knows exactly how the schoolhouse project got bicentennial funding in the 1970s.  

“It’s significant that one of the things they chose was this battered little one-room schoolhouse that had been moved from Half Moon on western fringe of Alachua County to Newberry,” Laurie said. “It is the story of the Black struggle for education.” 

When the Half-Moon Schoolhouse was moved to Morningside Park in 1989, the city of Gainesville provided some funding for relocation and renovations. Which as Laurie believes, is as it should be.  

“Number one, it’s a very historic building. It’s not imposing,” she said. “And two, it’s a useful building. If historic preservation can keep a building standing and being of use to the community, we should. History is full of a lot of things that are important for us to be reminded of and this is a chance to remind people.”  

The schoolhouse is near Morningside’s Living History Farm, which, on the first Saturday of each month, reenacts Florida life in the mid to late 1800s. If there are enough volunteers on hand, the schoolhouse is opened for the public to visit.  

The structure offers an interesting look at what going to school might have been like during that time. The schoolhouse has a potbellied stove that would have been used for heating in the winter months.  

Staff and volunteers are keeping it real with an American flag with the appropriate number of stars for the time and portraits of presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln on the walls.  

“The history of the building is important,” Laurie said. “We need to know where we came from to know where we are now. In a practical sense, this is a good building. This is a building that should not be neglected.”