About the year 1855 or 1856 he was honored by the the mark of public confidence he ever received from the people, by being elected to the office of school trustee, in which capacity he served for six years. At that time the old log school-house, which had been erected when the country was nearly a wilderness, was found, after the settlement had extended to the west, to be entirely inconvenient and far away from the centre of the section as at that time constituted. The old building stood on the identical site on which Cooper's church now stands. An agitation sprang up in the west end to remove or erect a new building in the centre of the section. Mr. Sanderson espoused the cause of the western ratepayers, and succeeded in carrying a resolution authorizing the trustees to erect a new building during the year, farther to the west. However, before anything had been done, the council undertook to remodel the school sections in the township, so that the buildings would have to be erected mid-way between the concessions on the sideroads. This move of the council was violently opposed by the ratepayers generally, and particularly by those on the upper end of the base line. Public meetings were called to discuss the matter, when argument powerful and emphatic language were hurled from one side to the other by the opposing parties. Mr. Sanderson at one of these meetings was appointed to interview the council, and try to arrive at a solution of the difficult question. This was the first time he had ever been within the doors of the council chamber. The Hansard not having been introduced in Canada at that time, no record has been preserved of the speeches on that occasion. He pointed out to the board, however, that the swamp between the base-line and the site where the buildings would be erected would have to be navigated by a boat, as the water in the fall was usually three or four feet deep. In the winter, when the boat could not be used, there would be no road at all. He also pointed out to the assembled wisdom that no ratepayer would be guilty of such barbarous conduct to his children as to send them into the woods to a school where in the summer they would have the last drop of blood sucked out by mosquito and the last morsel of flesh picked of their little bones by flies. The council sat with that respectful gravity for which the member of the Blanshard board have always been noted when addressed by the people, but admitted the matter had gone too far to stop, and the people would have to make the best of it. This was an easy way to dispose of the question, surely. The people on the 8th concession took action immediately by organizing and letting the contract of building a school-house, the site selected being on the dividing line between the lots owned by Captain John Campbell and Flecher D. Switzer, on the upper side- road. Rhe mechanics were soon at work, and the sound of the axe and the hammer, as it came echoing through the woods to the base-line, was doubtless provoking, but was borne in sullen silence by the opposing party. At last on a calm, still night, when the moon's pale light shone softly o'er hill and dale, and the bullding was nearing completion, there came a mighty crashing sound like the roar of an avalanche, that roused the whole neighborhood from their slumbers, particularly those on the head of the base-line. Next morning people met each other with faces white with fear, asking each other if they had heard the terrible noise. Apparently they all had, but none could assign a cause. As the day advanced, however, it became known that the new school-house had been literally torn to pieces and smashed into kindling wood. The havoc wrought on that calm, still night was looked upon by the base-line people as a special interposition of Providence, and that some superhuman power had been brought into play to assist them in their extremity. The people on the 8th concession were, and always remained, skeptical on this point, arising no doubt from their materialistic tendencies. Be the cause what it may, it stopped forever the insane idea of building our school-houses on the sideroads. In the following year the Board of Trustees on the base-line, composed of Mr. Sanderson, Mr. David Cathcart, and Mr. Gooding, erected in the centre of the section on the base-line the first brick school-house ever erected in the township of Blanshard.

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Another incident which occurred about this time will bear repeating. The old settlers (happily for society) brought with them into the woods a heart- yearning desire for those sacred ordinances and spiritual consolations on the perpetuation of which must ever rest, as on a sure foundation, the structure of civilized life. To their humble homes, and to the rude log buildings here and there erected in various parts of the township, good and self-denying men picked their way through forest and dispensed the bread of life to the little congregations of the early settlers.

At a very early day an Orange hall had been erected on the corner of Mr. David Brethour's farm, on the base-line, and in which religious services were held. If the accommodation was poor it was the best that could be obtained. Planks laid across blocks of wood were used for seats, not only for the congregation, but for the minister as well. On this particular night the little place was crowded; and when the subject of our sketch entered, he was shown to a seat on the platform where a plank had been placed for the minister, and on the centre of which the good man was sitting, preparatory to beginning the service. On the farther end of the plank he had placed his hat, a fairly good plug. Mr. Sanderson reverently took his seat on the other end. On the minister rising to begin the service, down went Mr. Sanderson's end and up went the other, hoisting the plug hat up to the ceiling with great force, and finally landing it back among the congregation. Our friend still stuck to the seat, when the farther end, on which had stood the hat, swung round over the heads of part of the worshippers, who in looking up saw, not the spirit descending on them like a dove, but the swaying end of a two-inch plank. At length order was restored, he was relieved from his position, and the service proceeded.

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