According to the writing of John H. P. Adams dated 29 March 1907, a small log school stood about 1 mile west of Chaneysville on a stream of water known as Grubers Creek.  The first schoolteacher was Mr. Ritchy.  Adams also wrote that the next school was built near Shawnee Gap, in about 1808, on land that belonged to his grandfather, Jacob Adams.  Mr. Richard Mood taught there, married Jacob's daughter, Nancy, and was a pioneer in fruit raising in Bedford County. 

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In Beans Cove, school was held in a log church at the foot of Martin Hill.  These first schools were made of chunked logs, with only one door and two windows.  A desk was just a slab of wood attached to the wall, and pupils ranging from ages 6 to 30 sat on backless benches.  Teachers were hired for one year at a time; they usually "boarded out" among different homes in the area.  In addition to teaching, they had to keep the fire burning and fetch water from the nearby spring.  Even as late at 1856, "privies" were rarely found near the schoolhouse.

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Schools were conducted on the tuition plan until 1834, when state law mandated free schools to be established with money from a "Common School Fund" of $200,000.  Each district had to vote to receive its share in proportion to the number of its taxables.  In turn, the township had to raise taxes for school purposes.  Southampton accepted the plan in 1838.  The school directors for our township in 1846 were Truman Tewell, William Lashley, Abel Johnson, Asberry Perdew, Isaac Wilson, and Denton Stevens.  In 1858, when Southampton taxpayers objected to the state's "unreasonable demands" of taxation , teachers' salaries, and the conditions of the school buildings, the whole board of directors resigned and nobody could be found to replace them.  For nine years, all the schools in Southampton Township were closed.  In compliance with a court order in 1867, the schools were reopened.  Appropriations retroactive to 1860 supplied the money needed to replace log schools with new frame buildings.  With the resumption of school taxes, the children of Southampton were back in school again.  According to "The School Register", a small monthly journal published in Everett, Pennsylvania, the school term ending June 5, 1882, had eight male and three females teachers teaching in Southampton Township.  A total of 270 pupils attended school for four months.  The cost of running all eleven schools that year was $1309.15.

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Keep in mind that Southampton is divided in to two imaginary sections: Chaneysville and Hewitt on one side of Tussey Mountain, and Beans Cove and Flintstone Creek on the other side.

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The schools on the Beans Cove side were:

District #1     Flintstone Creek       1871-1945

District #2     Walnut Grove           1872-1954

District #15   Pleasant Valley             ? - 1945

When Flintstone Creek and Pleasant Valley were closed, the students were transferred to Walnut Grove until 1954.

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The schools on the Chaneysville side of Tussey Mountain were:

District #3     Point Pleasant            1873-1955

District #4     Browning School        1870-1946

District #5     Stony Lick                   1846-1941

District #6     Buxton Meeting House   ? - 1943

District #7     Collin                           1874-1941

District #12   Prosperity                    1869-1934

District #13   Blues Gap                      ?  -  ?

District #14   Gordon School            1871-1934

When these schools were closed, the students were bused to the two-room Point Pleasant School.

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Consolidation is not a new word for the citizens of this township.  At a school board meeting held in the old election house on May 18, 1934, the President and Secretary of the Tax League of Southampton demanded that the board "close the small schools and lower school taxes, REGARDLESS of the law"!  A motion was made in 1938 to consolidate the schools and build a 7-room building, not to exceed $40,000.   At that meeting, several citizens from Beans Cove objected to consolidating and bringing their children across Tussey Mountain.  They proposed building a two-room school in Beans Cove and a six-room school near Chaneysville.  They took their plea to Harrisburg where they were told that they would have to send their children to the Chaneysville side.  After a few sites were examined, a piece of land across from the Point Pleasant School was selected for the Chaneysville Elementary School.  The school's general contract was C.B. Murray of Johnstown; Winecoff & Winecoff won the plumbing contract, while A. G. Crunkleton of Greencastle held the electrical contract.

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Chaneysville Elementary School's doors opened on August 30, 1954, with 64 students and three teachers.  (Cove was added to the name on May 11, 1973).  The school stands on 12.08 acres of land once owned by Albert Adams.  It faces Route 326 and is surrounded on the north, south, and west sides by U.S. Government land, leased to the Department of Forest & Waters (now called the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).  That first year, the 7th and 8th graders and their teacher Rhoda H. Clingerman remained at Point Pleasant.  They crossed the road each day to eat lunch in the new school.  Point Pleasant was closed in 1955, and the older pupils were bused to Everett Area High School.  In 2003, Chaneysville-Cove Elementary still had two grades per classroom (except Kindergarten) with an enrollment of 62 in grades K-6th.  Since a schoolbus loaded with children can't cross the steep Tussey Mountain, school vans transport the high school students across the mountain to meet the bus at the elementary school, and transport them on to the Everett Area High School each day.  There are also two vans that transport students to Fort Hill High School and Washington High School in Cumberland, Maryland from the Beans Cove area.

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