New Restoration Effort for West Street Schoolhouse, One of the State’s Oldest
- Philip Thibodeau
- 9 hours ago
- 4 min read
Most drivers on West Street are too focused on the busy road to notice the small white building perched on the slope just south of the intersection with Spring Street.
But for one local resident, Randy Borovsky, the building, an old schoolhouse, often seems to call out to him as he drives by. And for good reason – his parents were educated there in the 1920’s. They were among the last generation of pupils to be taught at the school, which was in continuous use from colonial times to its closure in 1945.
For a building that has sat exposed to the elements for over 275 years, it is in remarkably good shape. In 2011, the Southington Historical Society, with some help from the Calvanese Foundation, arranged to give it a new cedar-shake roof that has done a good job keeping out moisture.
Yet while the building in no imminent danger, it does need work. the exterior coat of white, lead-based paint is flaking off, exposing the underlying wood, parts of which stand in need of repairs. The entryway is a challenge to navigate, and the two outbuildings – a woodshed and an outhouse – are showing the effects of age.
Borovsky decided to see what he could do to address those issues. Recently he founded a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the West Street School Association, and had a website built for it. For the past few months he had been campaigning to grow awareness of this hidden local treasure, which is listed on the Registry of National Historic Places.
His next goal is to raise enough funds to cover the cost of safely removing the old lead paint, putting on a new coat, and tackling repairs to the entrance and the two outbuildings. To perform this work, he has set an initial fundraising goal of $25,000. Once completed, it will give the structure a new lease on life.
While there may be older private homes in town, Southington’s schoolhouses are its oldest surviving public buildings. At one time, the town had nine one-room schoolhouses. Three still stand today: the South End Schoolhouse next to Recreation Park, the Marion Schoolhouse at the corner of Marion and School Street, and the West Street Schoolhouse.
Of the three, the West Street Schoolhouse is by far the oldest. When it was constructed in the 1750’s, Connecticut was a British colony, and the town of Southington did not yet exist – locals were still considered residents of Farmington. By contrast, the South End building was built 60 years later, in 1810, and the Marion school is a relative newcomer, dating to 1900.
In fact, the West Street Schoolhouse is one of the oldest examples of its kind in the entire state. While there is no comprehensive online listing of early Connecticut schoolhouses, a determined search found only two, in New Milford and Hebron, that are clearly older, dating to the 1730’s or 1740’s. West Street must be on any list of the state’s oldest.
Yet just as important as local pride are local memories - especially the first-hand memories of students who attended the school when they were young. Borovsky and other members of the Historical Society have been working hard to preserve as many of those memories as they can. At a recent Historical Society open house, Carol Edele Sheffs, who is 87, shared her recollections of the school and what it was like growing up in the area. She remembered herding cows across Spring Street, where her family lived, before school, and getting a ride to and from school on a neighbor’s horse. She had vivid memories of “the Florian boys,” as she called one neighboring family, who liked to play practical jokes.
“We were so sad when the school closed,” she said. “We didn’t want to have to take a bus and go to a great big school” in Plantsville.
Knowing some history can bring other facts about the schoolhouse to life. “Revolutionary War soldiers probably went to this school,” said Borovsky, “because it opened 30 years before the war began.”
Old handwritten documents, and a little detective work, can also help. “In the 1800’s this main room was renovated," Borovsky said. "I found over in the cabinet a beam that’s painted yellow. I think that they may be the original color.”
“Apparently every student was assigned a certain amount of wood,” he added. “You were going to school in the winter, and all you had was this pot-bellied stove here to keep the room warm. So you had twenty students, and every student’s family had to have an amount of wood delivered before they could attend.”
The small classroom and tight-knit community offered a very special educational experience: “This school gave people a tremendous education. First grade to eighth grade were all here. The youngest kids sat in the front. The teacher would teach the youngest first, and then go through to the back rows. So you heard the same lesson all those years. If you didn’t get it the first time, you’d hear it again next year.”
“Also, there would be three to five kids from the same families here," Borovsky noted. "If you got in trouble, your brother and sister would tell you parents! So the whole the group was like a family.”
Borovsky says that the schoolhouse has not seen any other use since it closed - with one notable exception. “In the early 1950’s, during the Cold War, it was used as a watch station for the Civilian Defense Core. They had a chart on the wall of Russian bombers, and a notice: if you see one of these planes, call it in immediately!”
How can people help? Borovsky was to the point. “People can follow us, come to our events, learn more about the school, and donate. While we appreciate it when handyman volunteer to work on it, we need money for the lead paint removal more than we need hammers and saws.” The website for the West Street School Association is here.
