Building date: 1838, demolished by fire 1/28/1920. Razed shortly after fire, date unknown. Frame schoolhouse built on same site, later moved to Castle St. in Rushville.
Original use: Schoolhouse
Corner structures:
Mortar application and content:
Types and uses of stones: Washed cobblestones
Types and choice of windows:
Structures with similar masonry details: Phe-25 Round Jug School, #20 Dimock District, Mid-2 School District No 1, Phe-26 Schoolhouse District 19
Masons who worked on building:
Unique features: Round cobblestone structure construction.
Map views courtesy Google Maps. Location is Google Earth confirmed; 42°44'19.44"N 77°10'38.37"W.
Town of Potter and Yates County Maps
Potter Rural School District No. 5 was located on West Swamp Road in the town of Potter and was built in 1838. Very few round school houses are known to exist. It replaced an earlier school on the site housed in a log cabin. It was 30 feet in diameter and 11 feet high. Seats were circular. It was heavily damaged beyond repair in a fire on January 28, 1920. At the time there were 10 students and Miss Gertrude Wheeler was the teacher. After being deemed impractical to restore, it was replaced by a wooden structure that was later moved to Castle Street in Rushville after Middlesex Valley Central School was formed. The property reverted to the Underwood family. There were also a similar school house near Rushville and two near Phelps, N.Y. (Phe-25 Round Jug School). Yates County Historical Society, Richard Palmer blog.
Potter District #5 Round Jug Schoolhouse History Sheet, courtesy Karen Crandall.
"Potter District #5 Cobblestone "Round Jug" Schoolhouse", Cobblestone Museum "Cobblestoner newsletter" page 6, Winter 2021/22 Vol. 45 No. 1
"Through The Door", Remembered, researched and written by Sophia Voorhees Emerson, Spring 1986. The publication is a gift given in October 2021 to the Cobblestone Museum by Elaine Hilton and her sister Scarlett Emerson, local Middlesex NY historians. Elaine's and Scarlett's mother wrote this 30-page booklet about her remembrances of the cobblestone round jug Schoolhouse #5 in Potter, N. Y.
Page 13 documentation with a floor plan of the round schoolhouse drawn by former students Maude Ledgerwood Read and Lela Ledgerwood Allen.
The Round Cobblestone School Houses", by Richard Palmer
"Schools Go To Highest Bidder", from Rushville Correspondent and Chronicle Express, c. 11/10/1938.
"People thought school looked like stone jug", by Dick Eisenhart, Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, N.Y., 2/8/1982, p 3B.
Also see Phe-25 Round Jug School, 1176 McIvor Rd., Town of Phelps, Ontario County, N.Y.
"Gateways To Cobblestone Houses of Yates County", by Crooked Lake Yorkers, Penn Yan Academy, page 10, 1967.
"A Brief History of Cobblestone Architecture in Yates County, New York", By Richard F. Palmer.
 Yates County 1865 Map Excerpt B.jpg ¹ |  Potter schoolhouse.jpg ² A teacher and a group of students at Potter School in the early 1900s. |  IMG_0821.jpg ² The round cobblestone school house in Potter lasted 83 years. Colorized photograph circa 1910. (Yates County History Center collection) |  Potter Sch Hse Round POT-1.jpg ³ Postcard Editor's Note: Both of the images, this black and white and the adjacent color, are the same photograph; however, one of the images is flipped, an error positioning the negative emulsion, up or down, for reproduction. |
 JugSH 1920 >fire - 3.jpg 4 Circa 1920 after fire, prior to razing. Additional similar photographs. |  IMG_1558.jpg 4 |
¹ 1865 Yates County Map courtesy Library of Congress
² Image courtesy Richard Palmer Blog. Attribution not provided.
³ Image courtesy Dave Porter, image collector, Cazenovia, New York.
4 Photography courtesy Karen Crandall on behalf of the Middlesex Heritage Group.
