Many people in the community grew up knowing and even attending the Cape George School, which is now operating as the Cape George Heritage Museum. This was the school attended by children who lived in Ballantynes Cove and this part of Cape George (South Side). The first recorded teacher in the area was a Mr. John Hanranhan, who taught at the Cape in the 1816/1817 school year. There was a school house built in 1832 but we are unable to confirm if it was at the location of the present school. When this schoolhouse fell into disrepair, a second schoolhouse was built in 1886 and it ran until 1925. It was built at the location of the present schoolhouse.
In 1925, our schoolhouse was built to replace the one built in 1886. It was a standard one room schoolhouse with two small coat rooms at the front, one for boys and one for the girls. It had a small stove in the middle of the room and a small utility/coat room for the teacher. It was cold in winter and hot in summer but there was always plenty of light through the large windows down the sides. This was an operating schoolhouse that taught all grades, except in years that a teacher could not be hired that had the qualifications to teach the higher grades. The older children often helped with the teaching of the younger ones. In the early days of the school the teacher, usually female, would be hired to come to the community and board at someone’s home during the school year. In those days the teacher had to be single, and if she decided to marry it was understood that she would have to give up her career. It was sometimes hard to get a teacher to come to these small communities so the school saw teachers with varying degrees of education and qualifications – some were very young!
The Cape school ran until the early 1960s when a more centralized school was built in Lakevale. The school was used for community events but eventually fell into disrepair. In 1999 a decision had to be made. Restore the school or tear it down! As it had done so many times before, the community banded together and renovated and restored the school. Through the hard work of many, a basement was added. A washroom and small kitchen were also added. It now serves the community as a museum in the summer months, and is available for small functions and events.