Lafayette reputedly had the first school in what is now Contra Costa County, although that claim is contested by San Ramon (then known as Limerick) where a school also opened in the early 1850’s. Lafayette’s earliest grammar school was built in the 1850’s by Benjamin Shreve, the town’s first teacher. The building was on Golden Gate Way between First and Second Streets.
On November 14, 1868, local citizens voted a tax levy totaling $1,000.00 to build a new school. (Sixteen residents voted yes and three said no.) As a result, the second school was established on Moraga Road (on the present Methodist Church property) in 1871. The land was purchased from Elam Brown’s son, Laurence, for $410, and the school was built for $825.00.
School number three was erected in 1893 in front of the second school on Moraga Road after an effort to buy a new site was defeated. A special tax of $2000 was levied to finance the structure. The school still exists as the south end and belfry of the Methodist Church which now occupies the old school site. School number two, which was moved to Mt. Diablo Boulevard in 1927, can be seen in the background.
Lafayette’s best known pioneer teacher was Jennie Bickerstaff, who taught in the third school from 1899 to 1902. Here, on her horse, Topsy, she pauses beside the dirt lane which was to become Mt. Diablo Boulevard, en route to her first job at Moraga School in what is now Orinda. Because of the long skirts that women wore, she rode her horse sidesaddle. Passing through the fields of local farmers, it was necessary to dismount and remount several times to open and close gates, no doubt a difficult task in a long skirt.
Jennie is shown in this school photo with a class of her students in the late 1890s.
Jennie and fellow teacher Annie Loucks in their classroom in 1903.
Richard Stanley (age 11) and Alan Stanley (age 4), sons of M.H. Stanley (after whom the middle school is named), stand by a sign showing a list of Happy Valley residents.
