Peeling paint. Broken windows. A panel missing from the front door, letting in the elements. These are just a few of the issues plaguing a 163-year-old, one-room schoolhouse in Boxford's East Village.
But the Friends of the Little Red Schoolhouse, a Boxford-based nonprofit, hopes to give the aging schoolhouse a second life, eventually turning the building into a museum. The restoration effort gets rolling this Saturday, July 26, with a communitywide cleanup.
The Little Red Schoolhouse, built in 1845 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is on the side lawn of the Harry Lee Cole School for Boxford children in kindergarten through second grade. The two buildings, just feet away from each other, represent Boxford's educational past and present.
The Little Red Schoolhouse held its last class in 1969, and has been used by the town for storage ever since.
Saturday's clean-up effort, organized by the Friends of the Little Red Schoolhouse, will clear the building of old desks, filing cabinets and "beat-up furniture" that have filled the space for decades, said Randell J. Kennedy, a Boxford parent involved with the Friends of the Little Red Schoolhouse.
"It's been greatly neglected," Kennedy said. "We're interested first and foremost that it doesn't fall into disrepair ... The sign (that notes the structure is on the National Register) is very, very old and kind of falling apart. It needs a little TLC. I think getting it cleaned out first is the next step to preserving the building."
The school received a new roof in 2003, thanks to the efforts of the Friends, who have worked for many years to preserve the building in anticipation of a revitalization project, he said. Longtime Boxford residents Nancy Merrill and Virginia Havey, whose children attended the Little Red Schoolhouse, have spearheaded preservation efforts, he said.
The deed to the school states the building always should be used for and by the students of Boxford, said Havey, another Friends of the Little Red Schoolhouse member.
The Friends hope to make the building a museum housing a permanent display of photographs and artifacts of early education in Boxford, which could be used as a resource by the community. It was constructed at 66 Main St. and moved to the Cole School property in 1931.
"Our intention is for it to be used by children," said Havey, whose oldest son, Scott, was a member of the last school's last kindergarten class, in 1969.
"The town has been using it essentially as a storage place. We're just trying to empty it out to get a real idea of what we can do," she said. "It needs to have some restoration, just to keep it standing, essentially."
The Friends are looking into applying for a grant from the Essex National Heritage Foundation, to help with the projects they have planned. At the top of the list are new windows, which have been smashed by vandals and boarded up, and a new door, the bottom of which has been kicked in. The structure also needs a paint job and improved electric, water and sewer lines.
All restoration will be historically accurate, in keeping with the 1845 time period, she noted.
Through the 19th century, Boxford students attended numerous one-room schoolhouses, spread throughout the East and West villages. The 1845 Little Red Schoolhouse is the last surviving one-room schoolhouse from Boxford's history, said Havey.
Looking back, it was pretty neat to drop off her son every day at a building that is a small part of Boxford's history.
"It was cool. At the time I didn't realize," she said with a chuckle. "There was one teacher, one bathroom. It literally is one room, about 18 feet by 18 feet, with 20 or 25 kids in there. Truly not very big."
Saturday's community clean-up is just the tip of the iceberg of what needs to be done, said Kennedy, and a glimpse of what's to come, he hopes.
"We hope parents and other members of the community come to look into the building, and see the promise it represents," he said. "There's a diminishing sense of place around the country. The (schoolhouse restoration) would help solidify a sense of place for Boxford kids. It's the kind the place where grandma and grandpa might have gone to school."
Schoolhouse rock: clean-up day for Boxford's 1845 one-room schoolhouse
r Saturday, July 26, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
r 33 Main St., Boxford, on the side lawn of Cole Elementary School
r Tasks include removing old furniture and items from Little Red Schoolhouse building, used as storage
r Organized by the Friends of the Little Red Schoolhouse, a nonprofit group looking to preserve the last remaining one-room schoolhouse in Boxford, to be used as a youth center and to house a permanent display of early education in Boxford
r For more information, visit www.boxfordschoolhouse.org or e-mail LittleRedSchoolHouseBoxford@yahoo.com
Background: Boxford's Little Red Schoolhouse
r The Little Red Schoolhouse, also known as the Palmer School, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places
r Constructed in 1845, the Little Red Schoolhouse was used as a classroom in Boxford until 1969
r The school was constructed at 66 Main St. In 1931 Mrs. Edna Morse purchased the schoolhouse from Chester Killam, who had bought it at auction from the town and had moved it to its current site for community use
r The Schoolhouse has been well documented and was listed in the National Register on February 20, 1998
r The building's last educational use was as a community kindergarten in 1969. Since then, electrical power was turned off and a main that had provided water to the structure was damaged during a construction project at the nearby Cole School building. There is currently no power or water connected to the building.
r The school house sign above the front door, which provides historical information, has been damaged by the elements, is now barely legible and needs to be preserved. The building's six-over-six window sashes have been removed; windows that had initially replaced them have been broken and the window openings now are boarded up. While a new roof was constructed in 2003, the building's flooring, ceiling, windows, walls and doors need to be replaced or repaired. Bees and squirrels have also made use of the building and have caused some damage externally. The two existing bathrooms are unusable.
r Painting needs to be done inside and outside. Trees and brush that were growing against the outside of the building were recently removed by the Friends of the Little Red Schoolhouse and revealed additional repairs needed to keep the elements from causing further damage to the historic building
Source: Boxford resident Randell J. Kennedy
