Then and Now: Conway’s last one-room schoolhouse, 1878-1934

At one time, a total of 20 individual school districts existed in Conway, when “local control” really meant something. Five of those districts existed within the confines of Goshen, as South Conway was called well into the 20th century. The two largest, Districts 16 and 18, paralleled each other on either side of the old road from Conway Center to Goshen Corner.

These districts were organized in the 1830s around convenient walking distances, but they were both fairly long because of the sparse settlement. Each located its school near the longitudinal midpoint, along Conway’s pre-1800 southern boundary, so the one-room schoolhouse for District 16, at Goshen Corner, sat less than half a mile east of the District 16 school.