Peel County Ontario,
S.S. No. 5 Chinguacousy Township,
School Reunion, 1998

BY FRANK CALLEJA
STAFF REPORTER

It was only a one-room school house, but for Joyce Wylie, those four old red brick walls must have soaked up a lot of memories from 1847 to 1962.

S.S. (School Section) No. 5 Ching­ua­cousy with its distinctive bell tower is still a local land­mark at the northwest corner of Queen St. W. and Ching­ua­cousy Rd. in Bramp­ton.

Wylie, a former pupil, figures to unlock many of those nostalgic ruminations and is calling on former students, teachers, trustees and others asso­ci­ated with the school to share their stories at a reunion June 28.

Invitations have been mailed to 250 former pupils, Wylie said yesterday.

"We're getting responses from folks all across Ontario, several provinces, and even a former student who now lives in Chandler, Okla.," Wylie said.

The school, with Grades 1 to 8, served the farming com­mun­ity around the hamlet of Spring­brook in the former Township of Ching­ua­cousy (now Bramp­ton).

It is now part of a Montes­sori School.

After moving several times, the school's present site was bought from William Brown for $150 and a new school was built in 1874 by John Perry and W.A. McCullough.

Perry did the brick work and McCullough the carpentry.

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'There was a well
and a pump in
front of the school'

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Wylie (then Sterritt), her sister, three brothers and her father all received their primary edu­ca­tion there. She attended from 1944 to 1950.

"I started school when I was 5 years old and walked with my brothers two miles every day from our farm at Steeles Ave. and Ching­ua­cousy Rd.

"There was a well and a pump in front of the school. It was wonderful, cold spring water and folks on their way to Hutton­ville would stop all the time and use the tin cup hanging there to have a drink," Wylie said.

The original log school, built in 1847, looked over fields of stumps where settlers were in the process of clearing the land for farming, she said.

After several renovations, addition and improvements, S.S. No. 5 Ching­ua­cousy was closed June 29,1962. In May of that year, the school asso­ci­a­tion hired photographer R.G. Robin­son to take a photo of the last group of students and teachers.

Each child got a copy of the picture to mark the occasion.

Former teachers, students, trustees and others are asked to contact Joyce (Sterritt) Wylie in Brampton or Laraine (Maltby) Smith in Coldwater.