Schools - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Old Seymour High School (1886)

Seymour’s old two-and-a-half story High School, with its imposing bell tower, was built in 1884 to 1886. At one time considered one of the most efficient and well-equipped high schools of its kind, the institution grew over the years and an annex building was constructed next door. Finally outgrowing the available space, a new high school was built in 1916 and the old buildings, known as the Center School and Annex, became an elementary school until 1977. After briefly housing the Seymour Historical Society museum in three of its classrooms, the old high school building has since been converted into offices for private businesses. The Annex building now contains the Seymour Board of Education, Senior Center, and a nursery school and teen center.

Avon School House No. 3 (1823)

The one room Schoolhouse No. 3 was built in 1823 and served West Avon until 1938. In 1981, the building was threatened with demolition to make way for the construction of the new Avon Library. The Avon Historical Society and other local activists arranged to have the school moved to its current address on West Main Street, where it serves as the Living Museum of Avon.

Bacon Academy (1803)

Bacon Academy opened in 1803 in a plain but imposing three-story brick Federal-style building in the center of Colchester. The school was established with a $40,000 donation left in the will of Pierpont Bacon, a prosperous farmer, who died in 1800. It was decided by the new institution’s trustees that the school would focus on preparing young men for college, while local boys could also attend to prepare to enter business careers. The school had its heyday in the first half of the nineteenth century, especially under the leadership of John Adams (1803-1810), who later became principal of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Charles Pomeroy Otis (1827-1837). Famous alumni of Bacon Academy include Stephen F. Austin, known as the Father of Texas, William Alfred Buckingham, Connecticut’s Civil War governor, and Lyman Trumbull, later a senator from Illinois. Bacon Academy’s national reputation declined in the early twentieth century, by which time it had become a more traditional privately endowed high school for the town of Colchester. It eventually passed from exclusive control by trustees to being supported by town tax money. Later additions to the building include the Victorian-era arched doorhood over the main entrance and a small rear ell, added in the early twentieth century. The current cupola is another nineteenth century addition, built over the original bell tower. By 1962, due to the growing student body, the students were moved to a new building. The original structure is still used by the town for school offices.

Prudence Crandall House (1805)

What is today known as the Prudence Crandall House, in Canterbury, was originally built around 1805 for Luther Paine by the architect, Thomas Gibbs. The house, also known as the Elisha Payne House, was built in the “Canterbury type” of the Federal style, so named because there are several similar houses in town. Distinctive features of the Canterbury Style include having a gable atop a hipped roof with twin chimneys and a complex two-and-a-half story entrance composition with a triangular pediment above a Gothic-influenced Palladian window above an elaborate doorway. In 1831, the house became a school for girls, run by Prudence Crandall of Rhode Island, who had been invited by Canterbury residents to head the school. When Crandall accepted Sarah Harris, the daughter of a free African American farmer, to the school, many townspeople objected and began to remove their daughters from the school. In response, Crandall decided attract students from free black communities in New England to her school, who could be trained as teachers. In 1833, the state passed a “Black Law” making it illegal for the school to operate. Crandall was arrested, spent a night in jail, and faced various charges until her case was dismissed in 1834. A dissatisfied mob then attacked the school, which was forced to close. Crandall soon married and left Connecticut. The “Black Law” was repealed in 1838 and years later, in 1886 the Connecticut legislature honored Crandall with an annual pension. She was designated the official state heroine of Connecticut in 1995 and her former house and school is now the Prudence Crandall Museum, operated by the state.

Nathan Hale Schoolhouse, New London (1773)

After teaching at the schoolhouse in East Haddam, Nathan Hale went on to become the schoolmaster at the Union School in New London, teaching there from 1774 until the Revolutionary War began in 1775. Built in 1773, the gambrel-roofed school building was originally located on State Street, was moved to Union and Golden streets in 1830 to serve as a private home and was purchased in 1890 by the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Under their guardianship, the building has been moved several additional times: first to the burial ground on Huntington Street, then, in 1966, to to Crystal Avenue and in 1975 to a spot next to City Hall. In 1988, the town paid to move the school to the Parade, at the foot of State Street. For some time, it has been used as a Visitor Center and museum. The schoolhouse has just been moved a sixth time, to a new plaza adjacent to the Water Street parking garage.

Nathan Hale Schoolhouse, East Haddam (1750)

This Memorial Day, we honor the Connecticut patriot and hero of the Revolutionary War, Nathan Hale. The Nathan Hale Schoolhouse, in East Haddam is a one room school, built in 1750. After his graduation from Yale, Hale taught here as schoolmaster for the Winter session, 1773-1774. The building was later moved from Goodspeed Plaza (a location now marked by a bust of Hale) to serve as a house and around 1900 was moved again to its present site on a hill, overlooking the Connecticut River. It is now a museum, operated by the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Nathan Hale moved on from East Haddam to teach at the Nathan Hale Schoolhouse in New London, where he was working when he joined the Continental Army. He was captured and hanged by the British as a spy on September 22, 1776.

Old Meriden High School (1885)

The former High School in Meriden, which now serves as the Board of Education building, was built in 1885. The building is on Liberty Street, near the Town Hall, and is a good example of the Romanesque style, with a prominent Roman-style rounded arch entrance. The school had actually begun classes in 1881, as the New Central School, which rented the second floor of the German-American School on Liberty Street before the 1885 school building was completed.