Hart One-Room School House

Built sometime between 1855 and 1860 east of Frankenmuth, the historic Hart School was donated to William "Tiny" Zehnder in 2000. Tiny took possession of the Hart School when Raymond and Martha Hart offered to give away the well-preserved building from the Lovira Hart centennial homestead, on the corner of Frankenmuth and Hart Roads (Hart's Corners). Raymond is the great-grandson of the early pioneer.

Lovira Hart, an 1836 settler in Tuscola County, first erected a log cabin for his family, which included six children. The one-room house was so inadequate that Lovira built a 7-room house in 1852 and the original home would become a temporary schoolhouse. Because this schoolhouse did not have sufficient lighting for the education of the young students, Lovira and his neighbors set out to build a new schoolhouse.

The "new" Hart School was the second built in Tuscola County and was named School District #2. The school was used for approximately 70 years to educate first through eighth grade students. In 1921, the school district was closed and the children were sent to a larger school in neighboring Tuscola.

Tiny Zehnder relocated the Hart School to his Heritage Farm where a group of history buffs went about the task of restoring the school and outfitting it with items of the period, some items are original to the building.

A contractor was hired to gut the interior, replaster the walls and ceiling in a look of "years gone by", paint the interior, add a new roof, chimney and bell tower and restore five of the original windows and replace three. A cast iron stove (complete with stovepipe) was placed in the schoolroom. The original entry door to the schoolhouse remains and to the delight of the work crew, the original floor (although uneven and buckled) only needed a sealer application. Also original to the school are the wooden blackboards, complemented by one slate blackboard given to the Heritage Farm owners and four double-wide desks. The teacher's desk came from neighboring Voorheis Excavating (now closed) and lights of the era were given to the project by the owner of Swartz Graphic from their building on Holland Road the former Hill School District #6 (era 1862-1952).

Other gifts given toward the restoration of the one-room schoolhouse include old maps and an abacus (apparatus with sliding beads for performing calculations).