Greenfield Village Open-Air Museum

The same year that Ford re-erected McGuffey's Birth Place in Greenfield Village - 1934 - he used original logs from an 18th century barn on the Holmes property in Washington County, Pennsylvania to build a one room McGuffey School inside the Village as well. Henry Ford replicated what many pioneer country schools looked like during the time of William Holmes McGuffey, and, due to the fact that the McGuffey Readers of the 19th century influenced so many of the era that Ford built this school in full honor of McGuffey. .

Waiting for the children to arrive... The Scotch Settlement School, in which Henry Ford began attending as a youth in 1871 (occupying a back corner seat while in attendance), was purchased in 1923, and is thought to be Ford's first acquisition for what would eventually become Greenfield Village. Built in 1861, it was originally located about one-and-a-half miles from his Dearborn Township home. Even though it was his probable first purchase, the building was not brought to its new location until the summer of 1929, only months away from the Village's October grand opening gala, and well after many other buildings were already in place. The school is furnished as it was when young Henry attended: the bench seats, the gas lighting, the stove in which young boys would gather and chop firewood to help stave off the cold Michigan winters, the slate blackboard... The following is a story taken from the Henry Ford official website: Henry Ford and his friend, Edsel Ruddima...