The Seneca Schoolhouse is the oldest surviving one-room school building in Montgomery County. Before 1866, Seneca children were home-schooled by parents or tutors, or received no formal education. Just as the Civil War was ending, Mr. Upton Darby, a farmer and miller (whose home still stands next to the Poole Store next to Seneca Creek) collected funds from his neighbors to start a one-room school. Families contributed cash and skills. The Darby family provided two acres of land as well as the stone and wood for the building. Others offered to plaster and paint, or to dress the stone. Families with more limited means cut and seasoned oak for the woodstove. Although most of the students were drawn from local farms and settlements, a good number also came from the barge families who plied the C&O Canal. The schoolhouse is constructed from red Seneca Sandstone that was quarried nearby -- this same sandstone was used to construct the distinctive Smithsonian castle on the national mall.
The cache is near the schoolhouse, 16800 River Road, Poolesville, MD. There is a wide gravel shoulder along River Road for parking.