Demolition Begins In Barnegat on the Historic Edwards School

This article hits close to home for me and truly is the end of an era in Southern Ocean County as demolition begins on this historic school in Barnegat Township. Nearly 100 years old, the Elizabeth V Edwards school on Route 9 in Barnegat was a school for thousands who attended classes there since 1930.

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For me, it was my school when I first moved to Southern Ocean County. It was around 1975 and I was going into 4th grade when we moved to Barnegat and I had a new school to go to, it was the Elizabeth V Edwards Elementary School right there on Route 9 in Barnegat.

I still remember the stairs at the end of the building that you had to use to go from the first to the second floor. I remember the baseball fields behind the school where we had activities, and I remember we had our gym on the stage in the theatre lol. Yes, our gymnasium was on the stage in the theatre and the floor was real wood. When we would play basketball or volleyball or dodgeball we would be playing in front of the seating so it was like a mini stadium. The theatre seats were made of wood too. All this must have been original from 1930. When we had gym class you just had to be careful not to fall off the side, I don't think anyone ever did.

The Edwards School was definitely from a different time from today's schools and now it appears the old elementary school's time has come as demolition has begun. According to a recent Patch article, "the historic building is claimed to be haunted, and the crew from the Syfy TV show "Ghost Hunters" spent four chilly days in the school back in 2014." Personally I never saw any ghosts, but I had some tests that scared me lol

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According to the Patch "Demolition began on the rear of the building on Oct. 10, according to a report from The Sandpaper. The report also says that the district plans to preserve artifacts from the school."

I have fun memories at the Edwards School and I will be interested to see what replaces the old school. Have you ever seen ghosts there? Let us know before Halloween!