Building date: 1856
Original use: Schoolhouse
Corner structures: Limestone
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Map views October 2022 courtesy Google Maps. Address is Google Earth confirmed; 42.150194,-88.256544 (42°09.00.73"N 88°15'23.44"W).
Town of Dunfree and Kane County Map.
On Algonquin Road, just before you reach Route 25, don't blink otherwise you'll miss one of the oldest buildings in the area - a small, 800 square foot schoolhouse originally built in 1856 known as the Dickinson Daycare. It became a police station in the 1970's, and has since been vacant. The current property owner would like to save a piece of history by offering the building free to anyone willing and able to move it. If no one is interested in relocating the building, it will, unfortunately, be demolished. An article on the history of the building can be found from Barrington Country Magazine. Posted by Barrington Hills on 5/31/2018.
Old School of the Day
Dickinson Schoolhouse, Carpentersville, IL
Algonquin Road (Highway 62) and Highway 25, Carpentersville, Illinois
The Dickinson Schoolhouse at Carpentersville, Kane County, Illinois, a small community that's a few miles west of Chicago along the rural backroads between West Barrington and Algonquin, was built around 30 years before electricity was invented and 70 years before light bulbs were commonly used. It was said to be somewhere on Highway 25 at the Helms Road intersection, near the "fork in [East] Algonquin Road (Highway 62) and Highway 25." From old drawings, it was roughly 24 feet by 40 feet, built of cobblestones, and topped originally with a bell tower cupola over a boxed gable roof. Three tall rectangular windows lined each of the long sides and a tall, narrow doorway bisected the front wall.
Editor's Note: The correct name of the road is Helm Road. The 1860 Kane County map does show a school on the SE corner of that intersection; however, it is not the Dickenson Schoolhouse.
The history of this school that housed 76 years of "readin,' 'ritin,' 'rithmetic,' and'recess" is sparse unfortunately. The two basic known facts are that it was built in the 1850's using cobblestone and mortar, and that it was a schoolhouse in the mid-to-late 1800's and eventually a police station until the early 1970's. Once upon a time, as the story goes, the prairie pioneers west of Barrington wanted to plant the permanent flag of civilization, and they figured no better testament than a stone schoolhouse. It would be sturdy, functional, and more or less permanent as prairie pioneers understood the concept. That was 1855. E.E. Dickinson was reputedly the head of the first school board. So his name adorns the carved stone nameplate above the front door. Mary Theilgaards Watts, in both her books Reading the Landscape of America, in Chapter 7. walkerhomeschoolblog, posted by hameschoolbookreviewblog on 2/19/2022.
 1860 Kane County IL Dickenson Schoolhouse Map.jpg ¹ |  daycare1 4x Restoration.jpg ² |  daycare2 4x Restoration.jpg ³ |  dickinson1 4x Restoration.jpg ² |
 dickinson2 4x Restoration.jpg ² |
¹ 1860 Kane County Map Dickenson Schoolhouse excerpt courtesy Library of Congress.
² Photography courtesy Village of Barrington Hills, 5/31/2018.
³ Photography courtesy walkerhomeschoolblog, posted by hameschoolbookreviewblog on 2/19/2022.
