The Town Hall Schoolhouse was originally constructed of brick in 1852 and located on the northwest corner of William Geddes Farm on Morgan and Thomas roads in Pittsfield Township, Washtenaw County. The wood frame structure, currently located on EMU’s campus, was the second schoolhouse built on the Geddes property and replaced the brick structure in 1895. Like many one-room schoolhouses, which were quite common in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the number of schools across the country peaking at 200,000 in 1925, the Town Hall School housed nine grades in a single room with one teacher. By 1900, the grades offered at Town Hall School were decreased to eight and by 1955 the number of grades was reduced to kindergarten through sixth. Amenities were few in the Town Hall Schoolhouse, with heat provided by a wood and subsequent coal burning stove, electricity installed in 1932 at a cost of $32.00, and eventually running water. Indoor bathrooms were never installed and is the supposed reason for the school's closure in 1957 when the school was annexed to Ann Arbor Public School system and closed.

When the Geddes Town Hall Schoolhouse was donated to Eastern in 1987, the University planned to furnish it with contemporary teaching implements and use it as a working classroom. “As EMU was the first teacher education school west of the Allegheny Mountains, the project [was] also intended to serve as a reminder to future area residents, students, and faculty of the beginnings of formal education in Michigan.” The schoolhouse would be a repository for the collection and preservation of educational history.

The Geddes Town Hall Schoolhouse was moved to its present site on Eastern Michigan University’s campus on July 7, 1987, via a flatbed truck, donated by the Geddes family who owned the property upon which it had been built. The Town Hall School was to be a repository and showcase for the history of teaching. Original cost for the school was $677.50, relocating it to EMU cost $181,000. Upon its arrival, the building was largely bare containing only its original bell and piano. Since then, donations from around Washtenaw County have filled in the gaps. Today the schoolhouse is used as an educational facility where students in the College of Education demonstrate early 20th century classroom life for area students, as well as additional instruction space.