Hurd / Chamberlin School

Oshtemo Township: District No. 3

Charles H. Hurd

Charles Henry Hurd (1811-1898) arrived in Kalamazoo County in 1835, along with brothers Augustus Buell (1808-1888), Alexander Buell (1807-1885), and Austin Buell (1806-1884), all from Connecticut. Alexander Buell settled in the village of Kalamazoo (then Bronson), where he became a register of deeds, a property conveyancer, and a justice of the peace, while Hurd and the remaining Buell brothers bought land in Oshtemo Township and began farming. In September 1837, Austin Buell bought 40 acres in the eastern central portion of Oshtemo Township in Section 14. A year later, Charles Hurd and Augustus Buell jointly purchased 240 acres of land from the federal government, also in Section 14. The Hurd and Buell properties formed the core for the Oshtemo School District No. 3, later known as the Hurd School District.

“The first meeting of the township of Oshtemo was held in a schoolhouse built, after the fashion of the shanties of that early day, with a single sloping roof, and located on the southwest quarter of section 14, on land of Augustus Buell. The date of this township meeting was the first Monday of April 1839.”

– Samuel W. Durant, 1880

First Building (1839-1847)

Oshtemo School District No. 3 was organized on 11 May 1839 at the home of Austin Buell in Section 14 of Oshtemo Township. The first school building was said to be a log shanty with a sloping single roof, built at a cost of $43 “in a hollow east of the present building to protect it from the wintry blasts” (Gazette). The structure stood along the south side of what later became the West Main Road on the land of Charles Hurd and Augustus Buell, midway between 9th and 10th streets, across the road from the present day Meijer store. Both the school district and the schoolhouse were likely named for Charles Hurd, who served as the first Oshtemo Township Clerk (1839-40), a school inspector, a school assessor, and a Kalamazoo County Educational Society vice president. According to Samuel Durant, the original structure “served as both a schoolhouse and a township hall for a number of years.”

“With the presence of settlers came a demand for a building of greater proportions, which was furnished by a few public-spirited citizens…”

– Samuel W. Durant, 1880

Second Building (1847-1867)

In December 1846, Daniel C. Coleman (1817-1895) purchased the west half of the northwest quarter of Section 14 in Oshtemo Township from the U.S. Government. Soon thereafter, Coleman erected (or allowed the school district to erect) a small frame schoolhouse in the southwest corner of his property on the north side of the West Main Road, somewhat west of the original building. The location of the second schoolhouse is clearly identified on the 1861 Geil & Harley map of Kalamazoo County.

“Forty odd years ago, we assisted our grand old teacher, J.A. Beebe, in nailing the first American flag that ever floated over a public school in Michigan to the top of the cupola of the ‘Old Hurd Schoolhouse’.”

– Kalamazoo Gazette, 23 February 1919

Third Building (1867-1924)

Coleman sold his 80-acre parcel to Daniel Chamberlin (1830-1886) in November 1865. Eighteen months later, in April 1867, Chamberlin arranged a 99-year lease with the school district for one acre of land in the southwest corner of his property, where the existing school building stood. At that time the older frame structure was replaced “by a spacious and inviting brick edifice, costing $4000, and boasting an average daily attendance in excess of that of any district in the township” (Samuel Durant). Durant noted as well that the cost figure was most likely overstated.

With a new brick building in place, the schoolhouse became known as the Chamberlin School (or Chamberlain, as the spellings vary). The location of the Chamberlin schoolhouse is clearly identified on the 1873 F.W. Beers & Co. map of Kalamazoo County as a one-acre square in the southwest corner of D. Chamberlin’s property.

“The Hurd schoolhouse, considered one of the finest rural schools in Kalamazoo County when erected in 1867, has been torn down and workmen have begun to erect on the site a modern two-story building, which will be affiliated with the Western State Normal School.”

– Kalamazoo Gazette, 8 June 1924

Fourth Building (built 1924)

The brick Chamberlin schoolhouse stood for more than five decades. According to the Kalamazoo Gazette, a “new cement floor” was completed in November 1905 and the school was “undergoing general repairs” in August 1906. The third (brick) structure was torn down in June 1924 and replaced with the larger frame building that stands today. The 1924 building was used by Western State Teachers College (WMU) for a time as a training school for its rural schoolteacher training program.

By the 1950s Oshtemo Township was on the grow. In fact, the Hurd school district had one of the fastest growing school enrollments in Kalamazoo County. In 1953, the school board reported 33 students and one teacher. Two years later, the number had nearly doubled to 64 students, and up to 85 by 1956.

“New” Hurd School

By 1954 the district had outgrown the old schoolhouse, so a larger two-room building was built on the south side of West Main, slightly west of the existing school. To ease overcrowding, Kindergarten through 3rd graders continued to meet in the “Old Hurd School” building, while 4th through 8th graders attended the “New Hurd School” across the road. When the Hurd School District merged with the Oshtemo School District in 1959, there were 101 students enrolled in the district and three teachers.

In 1965, Oshtemo Community Schools was annexed into the Kalamazoo Public School system and the New Hurd School building was closed, while the Old Hurd School building on the north side of the road became home to the Oshtemo Community Library. In 1967, the newer Hurd building was converted for use by the Tri-County Enrichment Center as a facility for students with disciplinary issues. That program ended in 1971 due to budget cutbacks, but the building was soon repurposed as a new larger home for the Oshtemo Community Library, which became fully part of the Kalamazoo Public Library system as the Oshtemo Branch Library in 1973.

Hurd School souvenir 1916-17
Hurd School class photo 1935
Hurd School class photo 1937

Teachers

First teacher (c.1839): Miss Wilmeth
1878-79: J.A. Beebe
1879-80: Helen Miller
1881-82: James H. McLaughlin
1884-85: James H. McLaughlin
c.1894: Arthur N. DeLong
1916-17: Grace A. White
1921-22: Mrs. R. Smith
1923-24: Lucy Smith
1924-25: Miss Lois Clark
1925-26: Lois M. Clark
1927-28: Lois M. Clark
1929-30: Lois M. Clark
1930-49: Grace L. Butler
1949-52: Harold H. Vannatter
1952-53: Lorna Sibson
1953-54: Iona Lloyd
1954-56: Iona Troyer, Emma Goodell
1956-59: Iona Troyer, Emma Goodell, Keith Stout
1959-60: Not listed

Originally compiled in 1999 by Catherine Larson, Local History Specialist, Kalamazoo Public Library. Additional research and narrative written by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library staff, November 2024.