History
Nearly Two Centuries in One Room
From its first students in 1750 — when this was farm country in the British Colony of Connecticut — to its last class in 1945, the West Street School taught Southington's children in a single room.
1750 — Colonial origins
A school older than the town
The West Street School taught its first students in 1750. There was no Southington yet — the land along West Street was part of the town of Farmington in the British Colony of Connecticut, and the district was one of four schools required by the General Court of Connecticut.
Southington would not incorporate as its own town until 1779. By then the school had already taught a generation — and its earliest students went on to fight in the Revolutionary War.
School days
A pail of water and a pot-bellied stove
Grades 1 through 8 learned together at double desks, with enrollment peaking at 28 pupils. The teachers boarded with the neighborhood's farm families — living among the same households whose children filled the room.
A pot-bellied wood stove was the only heat the building ever had, and it never had running water. Each day, according to the school's National Register nomination, pupils fetched a pail of water from the school spring about 600 feet away, and a communal dipper served everyone until 1944, when paper cups were recommended.
The room keeps its handmade touches: a long wooden table against the east wall was reportedly built by the students themselves in the early 1900s.
The building
Twenty feet by twenty-four
The schoolhouse is a wood-framed clapboard building, 20 feet by 24, set with its gable end to the street on a rough-cut brownstone foundation. Its windows are six-over-six sash, and a gabled entry vestibule was added around 1900.
It has a single side entrance — unusual for its time, when most schools had separate boys' and girls' doors. Inside are beaded wainscot and green chalkboards in wood frames. The building never had running water or plumbing.
Stewardship
From the ecclesiastical society to the National Register
The school was run by the Congregational Church's ecclesiastical society until 1798, then by school societies, and finally by the town's Board of Education.
It taught its last class in 1945, and the town consolidated its district schools after it closed. A 99-year lease arranged in 1947 kept the building in caring hands, and on December 1, 1988 the West Street School was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The road has changed more than the school has: in 1977 West Street was widened and lowered, leaving the schoolhouse about 12 feet above the roadbed.
On the record
Matters of record
- First students
- 1750
- Last class
- 1945
- National Register
- Listed December 1, 1988
- NRHP reference
- #88002689
Building details and school-day life are documented in the school's National Register nomination (National Park Service)(opens in a new tab).
Continue the story
More from the one-room school
Help write the next chapter
Nearly two centuries of teaching deserve more than peeling paint. Your gift — and your family's photographs and stories — keep the West Street School standing.