Closing Little Schoolhouses

The Boston Globe published an article on April 2 about one-room schools in Vermont and the struggle to keep a few of them open. See Little Schoolhouse's end seen as sad and inevitable.

And from Danvers history, thanks to Town Archivist Richard Trask, this quote from the Annual Report for the Danvers School Department for 1950 (p.3-4):

Hathorne School

Much controversy was engendered over the seizure of the land of the Hathorne School for highway purposes by the state and the resulting demand that the building be moved. Two years previously in anticipation of this the town bought a lot for the relocation of the building on Maple Street. However, with the erection of the new building on Pickering Street capable of accommodating the pupils from this district, it seemed inadvisable to expend capital funds to recondition this 100 year-old building. The School Committee, therefore, voted in December to discontinue the use of this building for school purposes.

In 1949 when I entered the Hathorne School for the first time, I was not aware of this controversy. I was just going to our little neighborhood school. My essay about that year is scheduled to be published this week in the Danvers Herald. Look for it in the Opinion section.