The Development of Grove City and the Schools - Part 1

(The following was written by Faye and Harold Morland, and is reprinted from “The Epoch of the Park Street School 1853-1964 and Grove City, Ohio”.  Any opinions made in the article are from the author.)The hardy pioneer settlers kept coming. In 1846, William Foster Breck purchased some land from the Hugh Grant estate in Jackson Township and came to live here. The Highlands or HIllsboro Road was built in 1848. The four, and sometimes six horse hack (stage coach) began service on that road.In 1851 and 1852, William Foster Breck, with a commission composed of George Weygandt, William Sibray and Jeremiah Smith laid out and platted land into lots. This was the beginning of Grove City. The plat contained 15.25 acres of land in which William F. Breck had purchased from Hugh Grant, Jr., in 1846, and some other land owned by his father-in-law Jeremiah Smith. The platted land lay east of, and adjacent to, the Highland Road (Hillsboro Road). This road was renamed Broad Street on this plat. This road is now known as the Harrisburg Pike and, in Grove City, as Broadway. This plat of land was located seven miles south of Columbus.The North boundary on the plat was named Franklin Alley and is now known as Cleveland Avenue. The South boundary on the plat was named Sugar Alley and is now known as Civic Drive. The East boundary was an irregular line generally located on the average of three lots east of Alley No. 4 on the plat and now known as Dudley Street. The four alleys north and south, all parallel to Broadway, are now known as First Street, Arbutus Avenue, Third Street, and Dudley Street. Between Sugar Alley and Franklin alley, and parallel to them, were platted three streets: School Street, now known as East Park Street; Jackson alley, still bearing the same name; and Church Street, presently called Columbus Street.The plant contained 78 Lots. Four of them now make up the Park Street Elementary School site. The four lots are numbered 30 through 33 inclusively. They lie together on the north side of East Park Street. Lot number 30 lies along 3rd Street and lot number 33 along Arbutus Avenue.The first lot purchased for the first school house was Lot number 32.  See deed book No. 74, page 475, in the Franklin County Recorder's Office. It was deeded to the Board of Education of Jackson Township by the owner, William Foster Breck, and his wife, Elizabeth Campbell Breck, May 2, 1862.  The recorded deed recites, “The above named lot conveyed to the Board of Education is in compliance to an agreement made in the year of 1853.” The cost of the lot as written in the deed was 1 cent. The first school building in Grove City was built on this lot number 32 in 1853. It was built of logs and slab boards, equipped with rough slab benches supported at either end by a pair of hickory pins inserted in sugar holes and, for the times, was complete with modern “conveniences”. Part of this one-room building was later be used in two residences on Park Street and Arbutus Avenue.(The continuation of this story in the next blog entry.)