uburb of Cooperstown was burned. Two
additional rooms were then annexed to that of North Bluefield, but
before that could be occupied it was also destroyed in the same way.
The Board of Education then opened a school, in a building used first
as a bar-room, then as a pool-room, and finally as a courthouse.
Thereafter an old store-room was used for four years.

There were then four teachers in Bluefield, Mr. H. Smith, Mr. T. P.
Wright, Mesdames Lane, and E. C. Smith. In time Mr. Wright and Mr.
Smith were replaced by Miss H. W. Booze, Mr. W. A. Saunders and Mr. R.
A. McDonald. Mr. Saunders remained for one year and then was followed
by Mr. G. W. Hatter who was in his turn succeeded by Mr. R. F.
Douglass, who served as principal four years. Mr. Douglass had the
board of education appropriate funds for a six-room building and
increase the corps of teachers to five. By raising funds in the
community through entertainments and the like, the teachers purchased
a library of 100 volumes. In later years Mr. Douglass was followed by
Mr. E. L. Rand, a graduate of Lincoln University.

At Keystone in 1890 Mr. J. A. Brown opened its first Negro school with
an enrolment of about twenty-five. He was a man of fair education, but
could not accomplish very much because the term was only three months
in length. The school was held in one of the private houses belonging
to the coal company and later in the church. In subsequent years
there was very much development in the right direction, which proved
the quality of the teachers employed in the school. Among these were
Rev. J. Whittico, Mrs. Josephine D. Cannady, Mary A. McSwain, and
Maggie Anderson. This school was later combined to form the
Keystone-Eckman graded school, and now has an eight months' term and
well-qualified teachers.[30] A school had been established at Eckman
in 1893 by James Knox Smith.

In November, 1892, one Moses Sanders at Northfork opened a school with
an enrolment of twenty. He had only a rudimentary education. He served
at Northfork for three terms using methods considered fair for that
time, and his work, as a whole, was regarded as successful. He had
there the support of such a useful person as Henry Glenn, now a member
of the board of education.[31] This school has later developed into a
standard elementary graded school and a junior and senior high school
of more than one hundred students. It has done well under the
reorganization and direction of the effici