Bakerville Library (1873)

According to the website of the Bakerville Library in New Hartford, the building that houses the library was built in 1834. The building was previously used as the Bakerville School. The volume in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series on New Hartford (by Margaret L. Lavoe, 2002) explains that the Bakerville Academy opened in 1873 (replacing an earlier Bakerville schoolhouse on the site) and that research was underway to determine the origin of the building. According to another book published by Arcadia, Connecticut Schoolhouses Through Time (2017), by Melinda K. Elliott, the school was started in 1824 and for a time the upstairs was used by the school and the downstairs was used for meetings and social events. Eventually, both floors would be used as classroom space. Next door was the Bakerville Methodist Church. The church’s horse sheds were attached to the rear of the school building, but they were eventually removed because children would climb out of the second-floor schoolroom onto the shed’s roof. The church burned down in 1954 (a new church was erected in 1960). The school closed when the Bakerville Consolidated School was built in 1941-1942. The Bakerville Library, started in 1949, moved into the former school building in 1951.