In the early part of the twentieth century, there was a school at the intersection of Jett Ferry Road and Spalding Drive. It sat up on a hill and was known as Chestnut Ridge School. This Chestnut school is spelled with a “t”, unlike Chesnut Elementary on North Peachtree Road.
Freda Donaldson Williams shared the photograph below of Chestnut Ridge School which she found in her family archives. Freda’s father Fred Donaldson was born at Donaldson-Bannister Farm. Her mother is descended from the Adams and Wade families.
The photo was given to Freda by her grandmother Ellen Adams, who said the school was a one room school house that sat on a hill. Freda’s ancestor, Elizabeth Copeland Donaldson is one of the two teachers in the photograph.
Carolyn Anderson Parker, Jane Anderson Autry, and Ken Anderson’s mother attended Chestnut Ridge School. Their mother’s name was Lucy Carpenter and her family home was where Tilly Mill Road and Mount Vernon Road meet. When Lucy finished at Chestnut Ridge in 1919, her only high school option was Chamblee High School. There were no school buses, so students that didn’t live close by boarded with a family in Chamblee. However, Lucy did not go to Chamblee High School because her mother didn’t want her to live away from home to be able attend.
Another ancestor of the Anderson siblings, Laura Belle Copeland, taught school at Chestnut Ridge. Elizabeth Copeland Donaldson and Laure Belle Copeland were sisters and are both shown on the 1930 census records living with their parents, John and Mary Copeland. The family owned a dairy and lived on County Line Road, today’s Dunwoody Club Drive.
The location of Chestnut Ridge School is Fulton County today, but it was once part of Henry County, Dekalb County, and Milton County before becoming Fulton County. This corridor between the Chattahoochee River and Dunwoody Club Drive was Milton County from 1859 to 1926.
I recently revisted the subject of the Sandy Springs corridor that has been part of four counties. You can read that story in the Dunwoody Crier newspaper here.