Program

NYS Historic

Subject

Education, Site

Location

647 Main St, West Seneca, NY 14224, USA

Lat/Long

42.833837859474, -78.751105917631

Grant Recipient

West Seneca Historical Society and Museum

The land that would become the site of the Ebenezer School and later West Seneca Masonic Lodge No. 1111 once belonged to a German religious sect known as the Community of True Inspiration, which established a faction there known as the Ebenezer colony. Though long gone, imprints of the Community of True Inspiration of Ebenezer can be seen throughout the area: from the name of local businesses, the local Ebenezer cemetery which is steeped in local legend, to the building that houses the West Seneca Historical Society which was first constructed by the Inspirationists. Still, the steady encroachment of a growing Buffalo and Erie County eventually pushed the Community west, and in the 1860s they moved en mass to Iowa.

One of those members of the Inspirationists, George Weber, sold his plot of property to the West Seneca School District Number 1 in 1866. A schoolhouse appears on maps in the following decades, though apparently it fell into either disuse or disrepair—which exactly is unclear—at some point in the subsequent years, and in 1898 the school district began searching for a plot of property or another building for a school. During the next two years the land originally purchased by the district in 1866 was re-acquired (the state of the preexisting school structure or whether it still existed remains unclear) and the West Seneca School District No. 1, or “District No. 1, Ebenezer” as the sign on the school read, was in use by the community shortly after.

The school in Ebenezer operated until circa 1828, at which point the school and students were moved to another location. The building was then sold to the Ebenezer Foundation Society who added a bowling alley to the building, and then in 1933 the building was sold once more to the Masonic Lodge No. 1111, who, as of 2022, still maintains and uses the building.