Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Exploring the Nutmeg State One Building at a Time

Schools

Old Farm School (1796)

Constructed in Bloomfield in 1796, at the intersection of Park and School Streets, the brick Old Farm School served one of the seven school districts in what was then Windsor’s Wintonbury Parish. Before then, an earlier log building on the site from the 1730s had been used as a school house (it was eventually sold in 1815). Although originally built with two floors, the new brick building’s second floor classroom was only completed in 1829-30. The school closed in 1922, but the building continued to be used by the public, serving as a meeting place for the American Legion and Auxiliary Legion from 1931 to 1971. When the state planned to widen School Street, the Wintonbury Historical Society raised money and supervised the moving of the building to a new location across the street in 1976. In 1987 the first floor was restored and opened to the public as a museum, with the second floor following it in 1989.

North Canton Schoolhouse (1872)

The North Canton School building was built in 1872, near the North Canton Methodist Episcopal Church. It was used as a school from 1872 to 1942. Because its original location was right at a fork along Cherry Brook Road, the schoolhouse was moved in 1927 when the road was widened. It is now located on the church’s property.

East District School (1789)

The brick East District School in Norwich was built in 1789, on land donated to the town by Thomas Leffingwell IV. It was used for about 125 years and its students included Lydia Huntley Sigourney, who attended in 1795. The school was quite progressive, with boys and girls being taught the same subjects. Starting in 1891, the building was used by the School House Club for cultural and social events. Located on Washington Street, it is now a historical museum.

Pine Grove Schoolhouse (1865)

In Avon, on Route 167 (West Avon Road) is a Gothic Revival-style one room school house which served students from 1865 to 1949. Built in 1865 as Avon‘s School Number 7, it was renamed the Pine Grove School in 1927. After 1949, it served as a branch library and a nursery school, eventually being restored by the Avon Historical Society in 1975 and opened as a museum representing an early twentieth century school.

Upper Middletown Academy (1834)

Constructed on Main Street in Cromwell in 1834, when it was still part of Middletown, the Upper Middletown Academy served as a private and a public school from 1834 to 1902. It was originally built as an extension of the Ecclesiastical Society, being right across the street from the old Congregational Church. In 1938, the Academy was acquired by the Belden Library Association (which later moved to a new location on West Street). The Greek Revival building, now used as offices, originally had a bell tower which was later removed.

Moor’s Charity School (1755)

“One hundred years ago, a man of worth,
With a big heart–Old Windham gave him birth–
Started in Lebanon–Columbia now the name–
A little school the forest sons to tame:“

So run four lines from a poem by Dr. O.B. Lyman in honor of Rev. Eleazar Wheelock, the founder of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The origins of that college began in 1754 in a part of Lebanon which is now the town of Columbia. Rev. Wheelock, an important minister of the Great Awakening, founded a school called Moor’s Charity School, which was dedicated to providing a Christian education for Native American Indians who might serve as missionaries to the Indian tribes. A 1755 school building, used by Wheelock, survives in the town of Lebanon today, although it was later altered in the Greek Revival style. Eventually, as Wheelock was having difficulties recruiting Indian students due to the school’s distance from tribal lands and as he also wished to expand his school to include a college for whites, he decided to move the institution. In 1770, the move to New Hampshire was completed, a year after receiving a royal charter, the last to found a college in Colonial America before the Revolution. For this reason, the Moor’s Charity School in Lebanon was described, in a 1969 plaque placed on the side of the building, as “Proudly remembered for two hundred years by generations of Dartmouth men as seeding ground of Dartmouth College and faithful steward of Eleazar Wheelock’s generous and crusading spirit.”

South Center District School #2 (1867)

Built in 1867, the South Center District School #2, on Main Street in Woodbury, was used for classes until 1900. In 1977, the building was acquired by the neighboring King Solomon’s Lodge and presented to the Old Woodbury Historical Society. By 1984, the building was restored and is now a museum, where every year second graders from the Regional School District #14 can experience classes conducted in a nineteenth-century one-room schoolhouse.