At first the Monroe church was a part of the circuit under the charge of a pastor and his assistants. This circuit in the early days comprised, besides Monroe, the churches at Highland Mills, Washingtonville, Craigville and Turner. Finally, Monroe and Turner comprised the charge, and this relationship was dissolved in 1895.
In 1875 it was voted to enlarge and repair the church, and the pastor, Rev. David McCartney, and Mr. H. H. Lawrence, were appointed a committee to solicit subscriptions for this purpose. Their efforts were successful and the church was remodeled, and stands to-day practically the same as they left it.
The church has reason to hold the memory of Mr. James Smith, Mrs. James Smith and Sara Smith, their daughter, in lasting remembrance, as they respectively left substantial legacies to the trustees of the church, to the Ladies' Aid Society, and to the Sunday school, said legacies to be held in trust for their use.
The church has a Sunday school and Epworth league. The superintendents of the Sunday school during the last twenty-five years or more have been Franklin Bull and Orville Eichenberg, the latter having held the position for the last nineteen years.
The first available records of the schools of the town of Monroe are dated January 7, 1819. These are receipts given by the trustees of several of the school districts for State moneys received from the commissioners of common schools. These moneys were for the benefit of their respective districts and were in all cases small, the apportionments ranging from eight to twenty-five dollars. At this time the town's educational interests were in the hands of three commissioners of common schools. The incumbents of these offices in the town of Monroe in 1819 were Israel Green, Lewis H. Roe and George Wilks.
In 1843 the office of town superintendent was instituted, thus doing away with the board of three commissioners of common schools. The duties of this officer were probably the same as those exercised by the board which he had taken the place of. The first person to hold this new town office was Joseph R. Andrews, who had been a member of the last board of commissioners of common schools. The office of town superintendent ceased to exist in 1857, when the office of school commissioner was created. The new official assumed the powers of licensing teachers, altering school district boundaries, etc., while the care of the school moneys from the State was given to the supervisor of the town. The office of town superintendent was held for a short time by Morgan Shuit, and afterward for a period of about ten years by Archibald Campbell, whose term was concluded in 1857, when the office was abolished.
In 1819, as they did in subsequent years, the commissioners reported the text-books in use. This list varied little for many years and was given in the following order: Webster's Spelling Book, Murray's Grammar, Johnson's Dictionary, Scott's Lessons, English Reader, American Selections, American Reader, Columbian Orator, Daball's and Dilworth's Arithmetic. Later on a new and inexperienced board of commissioners enumerates the above list with one exception, and concludes with the information, "all of which are American selections."
The commissioners of common schools in 1819 rearranged the boundaries of the school districts of the town, and recorded these boundaries somewhat definitely. The number at that time was thirteen, but since that date the number has been changed many times and their boundaries have frequently been altered.
Of the schools of the former town of Monroe four have become union schools, having high school departments, viz: Central Valley, in February, 1895; Monroe, in December, 1896; Turner, in May, 1902, and Tuxedo, in December, 1902.
District No. 1 is the district that includes the village of Monroe. Though it contains practically the territory of District No. 1, as recorded in 1819, its boundaries have been materially changed. The Rev. D. N. Freeland says, in his history of the town of Monroe, that the first mention of a school in this neighborhood is of one held in the Presbyterian church building at Seamanville. After that a log school-house was built just west of the church. The old stone school-house on the road to Mombasha followed, and this in turn gave way to another built a few rods further south. In 1857 a two-story building near the Presbyterian church was constructed and this was made to answer the purpose until 1884, when the building now in use (1907) was erected at a cost of $10,000. This building has now become too small and the people of the district have purchased, during the past year, a new site just north of the Episcopal chapel, containing nearly seven acres, at a cost of $5,000. They have also appropriated the sum of $40,000 for the erection of a suitable building, the foundations of which are at this time completed.