During the 1890’s, the schoolhouse in District Three sat at the northwest corner of Old Oak Road and Park Avenue. In 1896, the second reservoir in the Narrows section of town had just been completed and was located only a few yards to the north and east of the tiny schoolhouse that everyone in town called the “Narrows School.”
Despite Easton’s generally declining population throughout the final decade of the nineteenth century, the Narrows School’s enrollment continued to grow, no doubt fueled by the fact that several of the families in that district were young and rather large in size. For several years, the town rented additional space for that school district in Sincerity Lodge 174 of the International Order of the Good Templars – a building that still stands on Flat Rock Road at number 45. By 1893, the lodge’s declining membership resulted in the building to be sold to the Jesse Lee Methodist Church for use as its church hall.
During that era there was not yet a board of education as we know it today. Instead, the town maintained an appointed school committee that was in charge of operating and maintaining the multiple one-room schools that dotted the countryside. By 1897, the committee decided that having two buildings in a single district was too burdensome and too expensive to continue. The older Narrows School had been showing signs of age and was simply too small to remain in service for the district going forward.
The second reservoir had displaced several families that called the Narrows their home. With most of the children now coming from the ridge along Sport Hill Road, it made better sense to build a new, larger schoolhouse closer to where most of the families in that district then resided.
The school committee consisted of three men: George B. Beers, Henry W. Osborn, and George S. Gillette. Together, they negotiated a deal in the summer of 1897 to acquire a lot from farmer Francis Staples who owned most of the land bordering Sport Hill Road directly south of Flat Rock Road. There, they would carve out a one-acre plot at the far northeastern corner of Staples farm; enough land to build a good-sized schoolhouse. The price of the property was $100.
James Johnson Ward was an Easton carpenter whose family was well known for building some of the most significant buildings in town. Ward’s grandfather, who James was named after, had been the craftsman who built the Baptist Church by Union Cemetery in 1831. His two-times great grandfather had been the Reverend James Johnson, the first minister of the Congregational Church in the mid-1700’s. Ward was given a $300 advance to construct the new schoolhouse on Flat Rock Road.
The building was the first “forward’ looking schoolhouse in the town of Easton. Since the state began overseeing the primary education of children and had adopted an eight-grade curriculum in the mid 1880’s, newer schoolhouses were beginning to grow larger, most having at least two rooms where classes could more easily be divided into grades one through four and five through eight. The new school at Flat Rock would be two stories in height instead of just one.
There was a porch over the front door; a chimney at the rear that would accommodate two stove pipes – one for each classroom; and a cupola on the roof that would hold a large bell to announce the beginning of each school day. Each classroom had its own cloakroom. Wood stoves were installed in the front of each classroom with a stovepipe that would rise and then run at a ninety-degree angle to the back of the room where it would connect to the chimney. That pipe would radiate the heat throughout the room, making it at least marginally comfortable in even the coldest of weather.
It was still too early for electricity and the cost of installing a pressurized water system that would have used a gasoline powered pump was much more expensive than the frugal farmers of Easton would have been prepared to pay for. The town thought it wiser to spend five dollars a year in rent to use Francis Staples nearby well as a source for its drinking water. The older male students would be tasked with filling a bucket for each classroom at the beginning of every day. A metal dipper would have been used as a communal drinking cup, making it more probable than not that if one child came to class ill, that many of the others would soon suffer from the same malady.
Sanitary facilities were provided by having a single outhouse that sat just east of the main building. Photos taken as late as 1920 show an outhouse that was shared by both the boys and the girls at a time when as many as 45 children attended the school.
The total cost of the new school would amount to just over $1,000. In addition to James Ward’s $300 advance and the $100 paid for the land, Henry Osborn – who owned what is today’s Greiser’s – sold the town the furniture and painting supplies for $48.00. Lumber was acquired from the Hill & Hubbell Lumber Company at a cost of $400. The stoves and piping were provided by John Benedict for $48.10. James Ward charged an additional $ 60.58 to complete his work and put up the flagpole. Issac Wells collected $5.47 for his work on the blackboard. Finally, the two other school committee members, George Gillette and George Beers provided some additional hardware and labor for a combined total of $47.00.
When the school opened in the autumn of 1897, it was called the Flat Rock School. However, at a town meeting held in October of 1897, the name was changed to the Sport Hill School. Carrie Hall was appointed as teacher/principal with M. Winnifred Jennings as the second teacher. The salary was $23 per month, a sum that was almost on par with that of a male teacher of that era, signifying that female teachers were finally being compensated at a fairer rate than had been case for many, many years.
After the Adams School closed its doors for the final time in 1926, some of the children in District Four were transferred to District Three. The enrollment at Sport Hill increased to the point where students in the seventh and eighth grades were transferred to the old Staples Academy Building that the town had been using since the early 1900’s. By 1929, the town finally realized that the days of the district school were numbered, and voters approved the construction of a consolidated school that would serve the entire community in a single building. In the fall of 1931, the Samuel Staples Elementary School was completed and the remaining district schools such as Sport Hill were finally shuttered and retired for good.
Ironically, when the town decided to sell the Sport Hill School building, it discovered that it had never taken title to the property it sat on. Instead, that title had remained in the names of the three school committee members who had negotiated for the land’s purchase and then overseen the construction of the building. George B. Beers happily released his interest in the property, but both Henry Osborn and George Gillette had passed away. It took some time, but the town finally arranged for their heirs to relinquish their interest in the land and the school was put up for sale.
In 1940, the old school was sold and the title transferred to Vincent Bartosik who then converted the building into a private residence. There was one relic of the old school that remained – the 200-pound bell that had been left in the cupola. On October 19, 1940, Bartosik donated that bell to the Red Cross for the benefit auction it was holding on the green across from the fire house on Center Road. It was sold to George Brett for $37.50!
Today, the old schoolhouse remains in use as a private home at 36 Flat Rock Road. It is one of the five original schoolhouses that remain standing out of the original eight that the town built and maintained as public schools.
The Historical Society of Easton is dedicated to the mission of saving our town’s most significant and endangered historic structures. Founded in 1968 to save the Adams Schoolhouse, the Society has done just that. For over 55 years, we have preserved and maintained the 1850’s school on Westport Road. In the 1980’s we were also able to rescue the old Wilson School by finding it a permanent home to become part of a private residence on Kachele Street. We are currently working with the members of the Congregational Church to assure the preservation of the 1795 Staples Academy Building. Members of the community can help us in our mission through their continued support of our efforts. To learn more about us, please visit us at: Historical Society of Easton Connecticut – Archive Preservation and Research Center (historicalsocietyofeastonct.org)
A special thank you goes out to the late John Broadman for his research that was the basis for this article.
