image

HISTORY

The first schoolhouse on the site was known as the Pohick School #8, and was built around 1900 on land donated by civil war veteran, Barney Deavers (who is buried within view of the schoolhouse at the adjacent Sydenstricker Methodist Cemetery). It replaced another schoolhouse located a mile away (the Barkers School), which was built around 1874. The original schoolhouse on the site burned in July 1928. A new, larger school was constructed in only 4 months, and opened to students in November 1928. The school became known as the Sydenstricker School (for its proximity to the neighboring Sydenstricker Church). On November 23, 1928 the Fairfax Herald reported:
  • The new school is completed and has been turned over to the school board. It will be opened this week, and contains new desks and other equipment. It is a model one-room schoolhouse.
The belfry still contains the original school-bell. The bell was purchased in the 1920s from a Sears store in Alexandria, and survived the fire of 1928 that claimed the original building. In 1934 the school was closed, and the children were sent to the Burke School. The community petitioned to re-open the schoolhouse, and in September 1937 the school was re-opened to the first four grades. The schoolhouse closed for good in June 1939. Despite being closed, the schoolhouse continued to be used regularly for community events, wedding receptions and meetings. In August 1943 the building became home to the Red Cross “Sydenstricker Surgical Dressing Unit”, for the purpose of making bandages for the war. By May 1944 the Fairfax Herald reported that the unit had completed their 10,000th surgical dressing. In 1954 the Upper Pohick Community League (originally the Sydenstricker School & Community League, which was the "PTA" of the schoolhouse) purchased the building from the school district for $550 to use as a community center. For many years it was the center of social activities in our area. During the 1950s the League sponsored a Boy and Girl Scout troop, as well as a “Litter Buggy” which collected trash from local roads. It was a thriving, active group that influenced the development of local roads, bridges and sub-divisions in a time when our area was very rural. The UPCL still owns and maintains the schoolhouse, and is the oldest continually operating community association in Springfield, and among the oldest in Fairfax County.
Founded in 2014, Friends of Sydenstricker Schoolhouse (FSS), a 501(c)(3) non-profit, was organized to work in collaboration with the UPCL to raise funds to protect our historic schoolhouse. The mission of FSS is to make the schoolhouse a place that will continue to serve the community as a meeting place, as a visible reminder of Fairfax County's past, and as a testament to the generations of people who have cared for the building since its construction. The schoolhouse is listed in the Fairfax Inventory of Historic Sites, The Virginia Landmark Register, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
  • 1928
  • 1938
  • 1954
  • 1957
  • 1958
  • 1972
  • Today

sydenstricker

image
christopher sydenstricker
(1846 - 1927)
Born in Greenbrier County, VA (now West Virginia), Reverend Christopher Sydenstricker served in the Civil War before dedicating much of his life to farming and ministry. In the early 1900s, he co-founded what would become Sydenstricker United Methodist Church, initially conducting evangelistic camp meetings in a local picnic grove. In 1906 he also founded the nearby Silverbrook United Methodist Church.
image
pearl sydenstricker buck
(1892 - 1973)
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck was an American author and humanitarian who spent most of her first forty years in China, which deeply inspired her writing. She became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938, for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Good Earth. She was a passionate advocate for civil rights, women's rights, and international adoption, establishing the world's first international, interracial adoption agency.
Named in honor of the Reverend Christopher Sydenstricker—founder of the neighboring Sydenstricker Chapel (1911)—the Sydenstricker Schoolhouse carries a notable literary connection. Reverend Sydenstricker was the uncle of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck (born Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker), whose father, Absalom, was Christopher's brother. Because Pearl spent the majority of her first 40 years living in China with her missionary family, it is unknown whether she and her Virginia uncle ever established a personal relationship.