School fires principal suspect
As if sounding its own death knell, firemen arriving on the
scene found the old Adams School bell, toppled and lying on its
side, the cooling metal emitting a dull, throbbing tone. By then,
the blazing rural schoolhouse was all but leveled. The next day,
observers on the scene found only the steel bases of desk chairs
sitting in hot ashes, where tiny orange flames occasionally
flickered. Dozens of students, not hearing the devastating news,
arrived at 9 a.m. for class, only to be sent home.
School fires principal suspect
As if sounding its own death knell, firemen arriving on the scene found the old Adams School bell, toppled and lying on its side, the cooling metal emitting a dull, throbbing tone. By then, the blazing rural schoolhouse was all but leveled. The next day, observers on the scene found only the steel bases of desk chairs sitting in hot ashes, where tiny orange flames occasionally flickered. Dozens of students, not hearing the devastating news, arrived at 9 a.m. for class, only to be sent home.
By the time historic Adams School burned, on Jan. 12, 1956, intense finger-pointing over school policies had been going on for several months. After investigators were called in from the state level, there were even more questions on the fire’s cause. The probe at first focused on a group of parents as suspects, later turning to the school’s principal, Mr. W.A. Smith.
Adams School was founded in 1859 on land donated by Santa Clara County Sheriff John Hicks Adams, a local landowner made famous by his well-publicized capture of bandito Tiburcio Vasquez. The one-room schoolhouse, expanded and enlarged in 1915, sat alongside a rocky outcropping overlooking the Uvas Creek. Today, the school’s former Watsonville Road site forms part of Adams-Chitactac Heritage Park.
Until the suspicious fire leveled their beloved building, students and faculty had been looking forward to observing the little schoolhouse’s upcoming centennial. But hopes of rebuilding were soon doused when money to cover the project was simply not available. In the meantime, 65 students and three faculty members were without a place either to teach, or to learn.
Rumors of problems at the school seemed to coincide with Mr. Smith’s arrival. The new principal and teacher had just assumed the job in September 1955. By early November, problems escalated over 13 year-old Denzil Rubens, a student said to carry a chip on his shoulder. One day, after inciting a tussle in the foyer, he was caught in a second disturbance in the boy’s restroom.
By his own admission, Mr. Smith said he took the boy aside and “scuffed him up a bit,” just to teach him a lesson. When he went to the boy’s house to explain the expulsion, he told Denzil’s parents he’d intended to “kick hell out of him.” After class that afternoon, dozens of students and their parents streamed to Denzil’s home, reporting details of the beating. They said the principal dragged their son into the school kitchen, shook him, then knocked his forehead hard against a cabinet. After the boy fell, he was kicked, once in the head and again in the stomach.
Meantime, deputies were sent out looking for Denzil who, in shock following the drubbing, had left the premises. He was picked up that evening, after walking 18 miles from school to “The Y,” a roadhouse at the San Juan Road and Highway 101 intersection.
The following day, 17 students were kept home, their parents demanding a hearing before the school trustees. The Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools sent County Director of Child Welfare, Gene Arnold, to investigate. While the Adams Mothers Club discussed hiring an attorney to press charges, Mr. Smith adamantly refused all comment, claiming the incident was the school’s business only. As the uproar grew, some parents formed a watchdog committee, trading two-hour shifts on campus and in the classrooms.
At a hearing the following week, 60 people attended, many calling for Smith’s ouster. Denzil’s parents testified. Others claimed Smith used bad language at school in front of the students. But the principal stood his ground. Both teachers, Mrs. Hemme Martin, and Mrs. Mary Kartchner, supported their boss.
In conclusion, whether the beating account was true or not, Harry Fosdick, Secretary of the Ethics Commission of the California Teachers Association, said it would be very difficult to dismiss Smith on the basis of the charges. Since the school had no written corporal punishment policy, he stressed, there was nothing on which to proceed. He suggested the trustees write up a policy as soon as possible. Thus exonerated, an emboldened Smith hotly informed parents he’d tolerate no more of their “guard duty” at Adams School.
For the next two months, things were calm. Then, at 4:45 a.m. on Jan. 12, 1956, a fire alarm was called in. By the time engines pulled up, the building had already collapsed in flames.
With arson suspicions already high, an expert from the Bureau of Fire Underwriters was called to investigate. After sifting through the ashes for several days and interviewing nearly every family in the school district, County Fire Marshall Bruce Wiggins and three experts determined that the fire’s cause could not be resolved.
Finger pointing focused on two factors. The night of the fire, the board of trustees heard requests from several parents to transfer their children to another district. They refused. Then, there was Smith himself: rumors persisted that he was seen at the fire, gesticulating and babbling wildly at the flames.
Within days, Adams students were transferred to Gilroy schools. Mrs. Martin took a position at Jordan School, Mrs. Kartchner resigned. Smith, transferred to Brownell School, supervised the playground and hallways plus did substitute teaching.
Students at Brownell began reporting that Smith was hurling racist insults at non-white students. Some claimed he walked around muttering to himself. One day, in a fit of classroom rage, he knocked a boy down and began to pummel him. At that point, police were called. Mr. Smith was handcuffed and hauled away.
The last anyone heard of Principal Smith was in May 1956, four months after he’d been transferred to Brownell. A brief item in the Gilroy Dispatch noted that on May 17, he was to face a sanity hearing at a state hospital, where his wife had committed him. The man had been despondent, she claimed, ever since uproar over the beating incident at Adams School.
In the end, the question of who torched Adams School was never resolved. But Mr. Smith was on the short list, at least according to the gossip.
