Friends of Onancock School
PO Box 467
Onancock, Virginia  23417

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original High School
 

Onancock High School, circa 1920's
 

This year, Virginians and the Nation celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement. As we look back, we might believe that only people who lived here long ago made history, and that our role is simply to celebrate their accomplishments. Not so.

We all make history – every day and in everything we do. Future generations will someday look back at us and ask “What did you accomplish? What should we thank you for?” and, of course, “What should we blame you for?”

The year 2007 is also a critical year for the Onancock School property, which has a long and distinguished history of its own. This year we, the residents of Onancock, will be called upon to make our own contribution to that history. Will we perform as honorably as those stewards of the property who preceded us?

1859 – Atlantic Female Institution, a college for young women, is established on what is now the Onancock School property by a Baptist minister and operates until 1868. Students from as far away as the western side of the Bay attend.

1893 – The Margaret Academy, chartered in 1786 and founded in Bobtown in 1807, moves to the College Avenue site. It merges with a private school, Onancock Academy, and operates until 1902.

1918 – The townspeople of Onancock pay $12,000 to acquire land from the Margaret Academy trustees as a site for a new public school for Onancock.

1919 – The Town of Onancock floats a $35,000 bond issue for building the new school.

1921 – While children study in the old Margaret Academy buildings, the main building of the present Onancock School is erected.

1927-28 – When high schools in Cashville and Onley close, their students come to Onancock. To accommodate them, wings are added to the southwest and northwest corners of the building. From the original Margaret Academy building in Bobtown, Dr. J. W. Robertson brings a brick, which is installed in the west wall of the new school.

1984 – The last class graduates from Onancock High School and the building and grounds begin to be used by the Accomack County School Board for multiple educational uses.

2006, September – Accomack County returns the building to the Town of Onancock.

2006, December – Local citizens create Friends of Onancock School, whose mission is to preserve and revitalize the school property as public open space to benefit all residents of the Eastern Shore, both now and in the future.

2007, Thursday, February 8^th – Residents, property owners, and business leaders of Onancock and interested Eastern Shore citizens meet to begin writing the next chapter in this history when they make their views known to the Onancock Town Council.