Sketch of the former Red Cloud School, Cramahe Township

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Cobourg Daily Star, Saturday, September 24, 2004

Red Cloud Schoolhouse
Sketch and text by Barry King

"Until the summer of 1993, Red Cloud Schoolhouse was the oldest of Cramahe Township’s school buildings still standing. Although the date of its construction is uncertain, the will of Charles H. Bull in 1874 provided the land for the school site.

In the early 1900s, the original frame building was covered with concrete bricks which were probably formed in a mould on the site. Classes were carried on regularly until 1940 when the school was closed and the pupils transferred to the Castleton School.

Despite pleas by the local LACAC [Local Architectural Conservancy Advisory Committee] for the preservation of this unique pioneer building, vandals burnt S.S. No. 24 to the ground in 1993. Except for its cemetery, the centre of the historic community was lost.

In the northwest corner of Cramahe Township, the settlement of Red Cloud, sometimes called Dawson’s Pond, grew up around several mills that flourished along the creek, a tributary to Salt Creek. There was no church nearby so services were held in the schoolhouse which, in later years at least, boasted a little reed organ.

In 1993, a remarkable discovery was to create a historic living memorial for the pioneer community. In a visit to the abandoned graveyard, field botanists found a rare remnant of the Rice Lake Plains tallgrass prairie which was believed to have disappeared long ago due to a century of agricultural cultivation. Now one of only two recognized tallgrass prairie cemeteries in Ontario (nearby Russ’ Creek Cemetery is the other), Red Cloud flora is being carefully preserved for future generations. The little community and its prairie have recently been recognized as a part of the tallgrass prairie exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum [Toronto].

One curiosity remains to be explained. Was the little community named in honour of the great Indian Chief Red Cloud or for the biblical journey of the Israelites? “For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and the fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.” Exodus 40, verse 38."

Cramahe Archives does not hold the original item in its archives, but has a digital image.

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