The Schoolhouse Museum

Today the museum's artifacts and displays reveal heavy emphasis on the Victorian period of 1840 to tools12X101900 and how people lived their lives. The photograph shows farm and household tools from that era. (Click photo to enlarge.) On display is a large variety of artifacts that illustrate life as it was lived more than a century ago.

Central to the exhibit area is the actual classroom where students sat. Here visitors will find the original teacher's platform, blackboard, an 1850 map of the United States, illustrated reading charts, school desks, potbelly stove, and two kerosene ceiling lamps with tin shades. About 60 pupils attended the school, ranging from 1st to 8th grade.Other areas of the museum, include a replica of a 1900 kitchen plus a wide variety of objects standing in mute testimony to the relative hardships of the times. The museum gradually evolved through the generous donations of artifacts by area families, many of whom were the first families to settle here. Wool and flax wheels, colorful quilts, handcrafted toys, household articles, tools and pre-machine age farm equipment, toilet articles, a home medicine chest, Civil War items, and many other old and interesting objects tell a story of the past. Some of the artifacts date back to the Revolutionary War period.

The schoolhouse is the last in a long line of schools built on the property of the old Paramus Church. This school, however, was built as a public school by the trustees of the then School District 45. Until the borough act of 1894, public schools were organized in geographic areas or districts rather than in specific townships. It was built as Public School District 45. The preceding schools were scattered about the property...one was located across what is now Route 17. None of them ever stood where this one is now located, nor was this school ever operated by the church.