Schoolhouse nears completion

Lapeer County Land Bank grants remaining funds for Goodland project

 

GOODLAND TWP. — The historic one room schoolhouse, located on property owned by Goodland Township, is nearing completion of an extensive renovation geared towards restoring much of the appeal the building featured in the olden days.

The single classroom structure was originally built in 1869 and eventually transferred to the school district for 99 years, as long as it would be used for education.

It turns out four generations of the Flansburgh family attended the school named after their ancestors

While fundraising efforts have continued over the years, the township knew they were around $18,000 shy of wrapping up the restoration. Enter the Lapeer County Land Bank.

After township officials recently put a halt to any further restoration work being done, due to having less than $100 left for the project, contact was made with the Land Banks’ Dana Miller.

Longtime township resident Gary Roy was among those who believed in the cause. His wife, Mavis, recently passed away and had been a driving force behind fundraising efforts for many years.

“Gary really wanted to see this get done. And so did we,” Supervisor Mike Eckardt said last week. “We didn’t have money left to do any more of the work, even though it was close to being done.”

At recent meetings, residents asked the current board where memorial money, left in memory of Mavis, had gone but no one on the board had an answer to that question.

Once they were made aware of the need, the Land Bank stepped in.

According to minutes from a special meeting held on March 27 of this year, one of the items on the agenda was the schoolhouse.

“Funding is being offered to the township to complete the schoolhouse project through a Land Bank grant,” the minutes read. “Approval of invoices will go through the township board (while) payments of invoices will be handled through the Lapeer County Land Bank.”

A motion was made by Julie Dockham and seconded by Michael Puzzoli to accept $17,730.82 from the Lapeer County Land Bank. The Land Bank has also agreed to provide a plaque for placement on the outside of the school house.

A second plaque, in memory of Mavis Roy, will also be provided by the Land Bank and hung inside the scholhouse.

Back in 2018, property owners Robert and Kathleen Tesch offered to donate the empty schoolhouse to Goodland Township.

Elected officials discussed the issue and eventually decided the building could serve as a museum, along with possible storage.

The Tesch family was excited to be able to maintain the nostalgia and preserve the heritage of the Flansburgh School.

Former Township Supervisor Ron Cischke said at the time, “We (the township) were tickled to death when they gave it to us.”

A Berville company was hired to move the small schoolhouse from the end of Shaw Road at Wheeling to the township property, four miles north of Imlay City.

Following construction of a new township hall, a previous board decided the old wood-frame building would become the “new” township library.

The schoolhouse exterior was painted and a foundation was constructed near the township hall.

However, renovations came to a sudden stop when COVID- 19 reared its ugly head in 2020.

A few township residents had shown up at previous board meetings, protesting the restoration work due to what they considered to be wasteful use of taxpayer dollars.

The township board had been relying solely on donations to improve the historic school. The Lapeer County Land Bank, Four County Community Foundation and others had helped early on with the project.

Knowing there was still a sizeable deficit, Mavis Roy and a few others from the township launched a fundraiser by selling small cards that provide discounts to several local businesses.

At the time, it was felt the project served two purposes. It gave the ability to promote and support participating local merchants and it helped raise funds for the township’s ‘Save the Old School House’ project.

Originally, Native Americans camped in the area and loggers began harvesting great white pines when Lawrence W. Flansburgh and his wife Maria took up 120 acres from the federal government in November of 1854.

The Flansburghs moved to Michigan from New York, where their children were born. They arrived in Almont in 1849 and farmed for five years before pulling up stakes and heading north. They were among the earliest settlers in Goodland Township.

This pioneer family built a crude log cabin for shelter as they cleared their land for farming at Shaw and Wheeling roads in Section 24.

As time went on more settlers arrived and by the late 1860s folks decided the time had come to educate their children.

Hearing this, Lawrence Flansburgh agreed to set aside half an acre on the northwest corner of the family property for a school.

Flansburgh School is believed to be among the last of the one-room country schools to close in Lapeer County. Official classes were last held in the historic building in 1975.

High school students from the neighborhood were then bused to Dryden schools, according to Mavis Roy, who was a township historian and served for decades as the Goodland Township clerk, prior to her passing.

The township intends to have an open house to showcase the improvements in the coming months.