Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) A 00 roperty is associated with events that nave nade a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past. C Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. (Expires 5/31/2012) Worcester, MA County and State Areas of Significance (Enter categories from instructions.) ARCHITECTURE COMMUNITY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION Period of Significance Ca.
1827-1960 dates as school & vacation home Significant Dates ca.1827 - school built 1920 - school ceases operation 1936 - building begins use as vacation home Significant Person (Complete only if Criterion B is marked above.) Criteria Considerations (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: A Owned by a religious institution or used for religious purposes removed from its original location. C a birthplace or grave. D a cemetery. E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. F a commemorative property. G less than 50 years old or achieving significance within the past 50 years. Cultural Affiliation Architect/Builder unknown 7 NPS Form 10-900 OMB No.
1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) Period of Significance (justification) For nearly 100 years, the West Brick School (officially known as the West School) was the place where the children of Oakham families, living on the farms that occupied the northwest corner of Oakham, were educated. Built around 1827, the building served as a school until 1920. After ending its career as an educational institution, the West Brick School took on a new life as a rustic vacation residence. This new use, beginning in 1936 and lasting through 2002, extends its period of significance to 1960, the 50-year historic cutoff date.
Criteria Considerations (explanation, if necessary) none Statement of Significance Summary Paragraph (Provide a summary paragraph that includes level of significance and applicable criteria.) As the earliest school building and the best preserved 19t*-century one-room school in Oakham, the West Brick School meets National Register Criteria A and C at the local level. It is significant under Criterion A for its role in 19"- and early 20t-century education in Oakham. It is also a reminder of the changes in education that occurred during the early 20" century, when improvements in transportation and in educational aspirations made one-room rural schools both unnecessary and obsolete.
Together with the nearby West Cemetery, the school also served those living in the rural northwest corner of town during the 19t and early 20"h centuries as a major neighborhood landmark and a visual symbol of community. The use of the West Brick School as a vacation retreat during most of the 20" century corresponds with the changing character of the town, as its population declined and its agricultural economy waned. During the first half of the 20** century, it was not unusual for people living in Worcester to purchase properties in nearby country towns for use as rural vacation retreats. Some towns, such as Princeton, north of Worcester, the home of scenic Mount Wachusett, were known statewide as summer vacation places. Oakham was, however, never identified as a vacation place.
Yet, neither were many other Worcester County country towns where, during the late 19" and early 20* centuries, Worcester people purchased quaint old houses or farms as weekend or summer retreats. Under Criterion C, the West Brick School is significant as an example of Federal-style vernacular architecture and as an unusually well-preserved example of early 19*-century school architecture and of the brick one-room schools built in Massachusetts during the Federal period. Narrative Statement of Significance (Provide at least one paragraph for each area of significance.) HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Oakham and Its Early Schools Although the 1827 West Brick School is Oakham's oldest surviving school, it was certainly not its first.
The land that was incorporated as the town of Oakham in the late 18th century was originally part of the approximately 150-square-mile Naquag Purchase, acquired from native Americans in 1686. In time, Naquag was subdivided to form all or part of several other towns, including Rutland, Barre, Princeton, Hubbardston, and Paxton. The Oakham portion, which was first known as Rutland West Wing, was settled in about the 1740s. Oakham was incorporated as a district in 1762, and as a town in 1775, by act of the Massachusetts colonial legislature. In 1763, the citizens of the Oakham district voted to set aside taxes for schooling. It appears, however, that no money was spent on schools for several more years after that. The first five school districts were laid out in 1768.
They were the Center District in the town center, the Southeasterly District in the southeast corner of town, the South District in the south-central part of town, the southwesterly district (including what was later known as the West District), and the Northerly Plot (north of the Rutland-Hardwick Road, which became the Sixth Massachusetts Turnpike, including the 8 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State populous North Four Corners and later the village of Coldbrook Springs). By Town Meeting vote of that year, local citizens planned for the construction of the first schoolhouses.
Each district was to: build a decent schoolhouse by the last day of December next; that every person in the plot he belongs to shall have the privilege of doing his proportion of the work (that is instead of paying a money tax); or finding stuff if he pleases and such article as must be paid in money shall be equally divided according to their pay in the last year's rates; and if any person shall neglect doing his portion (in the actual work of erecting the building) personally as aforesaid, he shall be assessed by the assessors therefore and each plot shall agree on the 'dimention' and manner of the own house, and in case they cannot, the selectmen shall determine the same? According to the recollections of Charles M.
Packard published in Oakham in My Boyhood Days, the town's first school was built in the town center in 1769, at a location near the present intersection of Maple Street and Ware Corner Road (about 40 feet east of today's public library). The dates of other early schools have not been identified. Although classes may have been taught in Oakham shortly after the completion of that building, or even in private homes at an earlier date, expenditures in the hiring of teachers were not recorded until 1772. Over the years, the number of school districts changed according to demographic fluctuations, economic necessities, and educational goals. Apparently a result of growing populations in certain sections of town, new school districts, including the West District, were established following the Revolutionary War." By 1803, the number had grown to eight.
During the period of 1856 to 1864 there was a further increase to ten school districts. This mid 19t*-century period marked the high point in the number of school districts in Oakham. There came to be fewer districts during the final quarter of the 19" century, as many Oakham citizens moved away to make their futures in other places, and an emphasis was placed upon providing a better education for the town's children through the consolidation of schools. By 1874, only the Center School and three outlying schools, including the West Brick School, were still in operation. The West Brick School and Early 19*-Century Expectations Built as the district school for Oakham's West School District, the West Brick School replaced an earlier wood-frame school building, built around 1791.
To make way for the construction of the current brick structure, the old 1791 school building is said to have been moved "some rods to the east" to become "part of the dwelling house of Ezra Maynard, near the cemetery." It is not known whether an even earlier school might have stood at this location before 1791. The new brick school building was a marked improvement over its predecessor. A former student, Hiram Knight, who attended classes in both school buildings, remembered in 1902 that, even while he attended classes there, "Some of the clapboards were gone from the outside and the interspaces, widened by jack-knife enlargements, admitted a superabundance of fresh air, securing complete ventilation, the vitiated air escaping by the chimney."?
The West Brick School represented an improvement over the old building, not only in its more substantial building materials, but also in heating technology. Knight noted in his recollections of the old building how unsatisfactory was its open fireplace as a method of heating: "In the coldest weather a semi circle of girls and boy [sic] were permitted to stand as near the big fire as they could, shielding their faces with open books or open palms. As individual scholars got sufficiently toasted and went back to their seats; 'Sir, may I go to the fire?' was heard in other parts of the house until the ranks were made full again." (see Illustration #5, showing a late 18th to early 19"-century schoolroom heated by an inefficient fireplace). The new brick school building was provided with a cast-iron woodstove, which radiated heat from all sides, as well as 2Quoted in Wright, H. B.
and Harvey, E. D. The Settlement and Story of Oakham, Massachusetts, vol. I, p. 154, from Oakham Town Clerk's Records, vol. I, p. 89 (1769). 3 Packard Charles M. Oakham in My Boyhood Days. Oakham: Oakham Historical Society, 1920, p. 8. 4 Wright, H. B. and Harvey, E. D. The Settlement and Story of Oakham, Massachusetts, vol. I, p. 156. Knight, Hiram. "West Brick 75 Years Old," newspaper clipping, Oakham Herald, April 16, 1902. 6 ibid. 'ibid. United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Worcester, MA Name of Property County and State from the stovepipe that ran from the stove overhead to the chimney (see Illustration # 6 showing the location within an early-mid-19*-century schoolroom of a woodstove and its overhead stovepipe).
The construction of a new brick schoolhouse to replace the poorly maintained old wood-frame school building was one of the fruits of the period of improvement, so visible in this country after the end of the Revolutionary War. Wright and Harvey's History of Oakham notes improvements, both in the way of life and in the wealth of the town, which were especially obvious during the period between about 1790 and 1830. In New England towns and cities during this era, brick buildings, including dwellings, stores, hotels, schools, and public buildings, were built more frequently than either previously or afterward. This taste for brick buildings during the early years of our nation is material evidence of the culture of "refinement" that became a notable feature of this period.
Although most later Oakham schools were built of wood, the West Brick School must have set an example for the construction of a second brick one-room school (no longer standing) in the town center the following year. That school served as the Oakham Center School from 1828 to 1836, when it was replaced by the East Center and West Center schools. Symbol of Community Surrounded by farmland during the 19t century, the West Brick School was a symbol of "community" to those living far from the town center, on farms scattered throughout the northwest corner of Oakham. Nineteenth-century schoolhouses served as community centers as well as schools. This was especially true in rural areas, where they provided a convenient locale for community gatherings and meetings at times of day when school was not in session.
The West Brick School and the West Cemetery, the latter was established, apparently in the 1790s, east of the school on Old Turnpike Road, formed the cultural heart of the rural community that once existed here. Until the opening of a new street (Schoolhouse Road) between the two (around the turn of the 21"century), the school and the cemetery were partners in the landscape, their combined visual effect being greater than the sum of their parts. The interruption created by the new street has diminished their collaborative effect; yet, individually, both the school and the cemetery remain today as outstanding visual and cultural landmarks of 19t-century rural Oakham. The West Brick School and 19t-Century Education The West Brick School served the children of families living in an area of scattered farms in the northwest corner of Oakham from about 1827 to 1920.
Classes in one-room schools, such as this, included pupils of a wide range of ages, from four or five to sixteen or older, all taught by a single teacher. Nineteenth-century school terms in rural communities like Oakham were short by comparison to today-limited by expectations, funds available to pay the teachers, and the seasonal requirements of agriculture. Children were needed at home at certain busy times during the farming season, to provide additional sets of hands to complete the work to be done. During the years 1856-1864, school sessions were eight, nine, and twelve weeks long.® As the century progressed, more modern requirements for length of the school year were adopted A school report presented at the 1840 annual town meeting gives an idea of the importance of the teacher in conducting a successful one-room school.
That report gave high marks to the teachers and the students of the West School: This school as a general thing made laudable proficiency. There were some exceptions, but they arose from no neglect or incompetency of the master, and from causes entirely beyond the control of the committee... The West School was taught by Miss Clarinda Adams...her first essay at teaching...the ease with which she managed the school, the interest she excited among the scholars, and the smoothness with which everything passed off were convincing evidence to our minds, at least, that better teachers are like angel visits, 'few and far between'...The Winter term was taught by the Hon. James Allen, and of his efforts it was said, The improvement in this school was alike reputable to the teachers and scholars. Most of them made every effort in their power to learn.
While the attention of some was so absorbed in objects foreign from the school that the 8 ibid, p. 168. 10 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State teacher assured us he had to make every effort in his power to stem the current which was setting in so hard not to the injury of a few, but in fact of the whole school.
However aided by his long experience, he so far succeeded as to draw from the Agent (the district representative) the piquant remark 'whoever would do better, would find it as hard as a pickerel to climb a tree." Agricultural Economy, Dispersed Small Schools Oakham's farming economy and small population during the 19t and early 20t centuries encouraged the longevity of small, one-room schools like the West Brick School. In 1840, the town's population was 1,038-up from 772 in 1790. The Gazeteer of Massachusetts reported in 1849 that there were eight public schools and one private school in town to provide for the education of its 296 boys and girls between the ages of four and sixteen." In that year the town's economy was still largely agricultural, although there was an additional production of cloth, straw bonnets, palm-leaf hats, ploughs, leather, boots, and shoes.
Most of these enterprises were cottage industries, which did not later evolve into a manufacturing base for the town. Oakham remained a farming town during the mid and late 19** century, despite the rapid growth of industry in other Central Massachusetts towns and in New England at large during that period. Citizens of Oakham who had aspirations for livelihoods in fields other than agriculture were drawn to places out of town, where they could find jobs in business, industry, or the professions. In 1880, the town's population had fallen to 869, and by 1910 to 552, making Oakham one of the smallest towns in Worcester County. Even today, its population is still only around 2,000. In 1851, the Town of Oakham made provisions for making a high school course available to those who desired it.
Until that time, most Oakham children got their entire educations in one-room schools like the West Brick School. After the completion of Memorial Hall in the town center in 1874, the old district school system was abandoned, with the town taking over responsibilities (previously borne by individual families) of supporting their neighborhood district schools. Students from all sections of town were encouraged to attend the Oakham Center School, making it one of the earliest consolidated schools in the state. In addition to a large meeting hall on the second floor, Memorial Hall contained two schoolrooms on the ground floor, which provided enough classroom space for all school-age children in Oakham.
Yet, despite the town's strong efforts at school consolidation, several outlying schools remained in operation for many years afterward because families in outlying areas preferred the convenience of neighborhood schools. The West Brick Schoolhouse was one such school. It and two others remained open well into the 20t century. The South School (MHC # OKH.48) was closed in 1918, the West School in 1920, and the much more distant Coldbrook School (Illustrations #3& 4) in 1930. The West Brick School After the End of the District System The West Brick School represented the educational norm of the day when it was built. In 1827, all of the schools in Oakham were one-room schools operated by local school districts. Both one-room schools and district schools were then common - both state- and nation-wide - especially in rural towns.
Under the District school system, those living in each individual school district provided the funds to build their neighborhood school buildings, and to pay the teachers needed to educate their children. Later in the century, American educators spoke out against the district system, criticizing the inequalities in both school buildings and teachers that resulted from the often wide variations in wealth among the several school districts in a single town. It was not until 1874 when the district school system was abandoned, that the Town of Oakham became economically responsible for the West School and for all of the town's other district schools. A school committee did exist however, beginning in 1807, coordinating educational efforts among the various town schools.
Due to laxness of attendance in schools across the state, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts instituted a law at the turn of the 20th century requiring every child between the ages of seven and fourteen years to attend school. Yet, despite such regulations, the number of students attending the West Brick School grew smaller over time, as the town's population 9 ibid, p. 163. 10 Hayward, John. A Gazetteer of Massachusetts. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co., 1849, p. 405. 11 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State decreased, and improved transportation made it possible for more students to attend classes in the Center School.
School reports included in Oakham annual Town Reports show that in the 1870s, there were as many as twenty-nine students enrolled in the West Brick School; by 1900, that number had dropped to twelve. In the year of its closing, 1920, ten pupils were registered, with an average daily attendance of only eight. As enrollment in the outlying one-room schools declined, they were gradually closed. By the time the West Brick School ended its service as a school, not only the one-room school concept, but also the school building itself, had become a relic of earlier times. Within twenty years after its construction, the building design was already outmoded as American education underwent a period of reform. This was true even though the school's construction in 1827 had represented notable improvements over its predecessor as an educational facility.
Evidence of built-in benches around the perimeter of the schoolroom indicates that student desks were not used here at first (see Illustration #2). It is likely that built-in benches and desks, each designed for more than one student, were added by the mid 19" century. Beginning in the 1830s and 1840s, education reformers, including Horace Mann of Massachusetts and Henry Barnard of Rhode Island, criticized older school buildings, which, like the West Brick School, had been built with no separate entry for boys and girls, no recitation room for the teacher, and no proper ventilation for a room heated by a woodstove." Reformers also called for comfortable seats and desks for individual students, which could be adjusted to the size of the student, and for the careful orientation of windows in the schoolroom to avoid glare.
To bring the building more closely in line with these later, more modern, requirements, shutters made of battened boards (seen on an 1890s view of the school, Illustration # 1) may have been used at certain times of day at the West Brick School to control the light on the sunny south and west sides of the schoolroom. Under pressure of educational reform, modern manufactured desks designed to better fit the proportions of children (see Illustration #4), must have replaced earlier seating furniture sometime during the mid to late 19* century. It is likely also that the opening in the ceiling in the center of the schoolroom was added during this later period, to provide improved ventilation through an open attic window. The Closing of the West Brick School In the 1920 Oakham Town Report, Superintendent of Schools James R.
Childs commented upon the advantages of closing of the West Brick School: The closing of the West school has been of marked benefit to the children and at a saving of expense to the town. The disadvantages of the small group more than offset the efforts and ability of the best teacher. The problem of suitable transportation, especially in New England, has been so diffficult of solution, it has seemed better to continue the small rural school in many places. But wherever transportation facilities may be made safe and comfortable, the verdict of experience has been decidedly in favor of consolidation. A recent investigation covering more than fifty districts and fourteen thousand rural patrons brought the response that consolidation actually resulted in better attendance and practical elimination of tardiness. There was an increase in land values.
Pupils remained longer in school and a larger percentage went on to high school. It is unclear how the West Brick School was used during the years immediately following its closing in 1920. In 1927, the school building and 1½ acres became the property of Lena R. Adams in a sale from Justin E. Rawson (Book 2483/Page 280). Deed research has not made it clear how Rawson acquired the school property. It seems likely that, no longer serving an educational purpose, the schoolhouse and the lot upon which it stood reverted to Rawson, as the owner "McClintock, Jean and Robert. Henry Barnard's School Architecture. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 1970, pp. 31-37. 12 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No.
1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Worcester, MA Name of Property County and State of the surrounding property from which it was apparently originally taken. Lena Adams sold the schoolhouse property to E.E. Smith in 1933, and Smith sold it in 1936 to Maud Arnold. A Summer Retreat After the end of its life as an educational institution, the West Brick School became a summer retreat in 1936, when it was purchased by Maud Arnold, the wife of Alfred S. Arnold of Worcester. The revised and sympathetic use of the schoolhouse by the Arnolds resulted in the preservation of the building with most of its historic features intact. In adapting the schoolhouse for use as a rustic rural vacation place, the Arnolds made very few changes to the building since they had no intention of converting it to a year-round home.
Son Robert Arnold remembers that the family used the property as a country getaway, going there for the day during the summertime and sometimes overnight during weekends.' The schoolhouse was also a favorite place for family Thanksgiving dinners. The turkey was cooked in the oven at home in Worcester and brought out to Oakham, where multiple generations of family enjoyed the holiday meal in the old schoolroom. For many years after the couple divorced, about 1948, Mrs. Arnold held on to the property. The family used the schoolhouse less often after the 1960s; yet, she never sold it until 2002, when it was purchased by the Town of Oakham. Maud Arnold (1911-2007) was born in Worcester, the daughter of Clark University professor Carey E. Melville and his wife, Maud."Educated in the Worcester Public Schools and graduated from Boston University, she married Alfred S. Arnold of Worcester.
The couple had three sons before their divorce. Mrs. Arnold was active in the Episcopal Church. With her parents, she was a founder of the Chapel of Saint James the Fisherman (1956, MHC # WLF.810) in Wellfleet, Massachusetts "through a gift of land for the site of the Chapel and collaborating on the building design." At various times during her career as a psychiatric social worker, Maud Arnold served on the staffs of Worcester State Hospital, the Worcester Community Action Council, the Worcester Area Age Center, and the Family Service Organization. A member of the faculty of Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, she established the Gerontology Department and was its chairman until her retirement. Alfred S.
Arnold (1909-2007), the son of Thaddeus and Margaret Arnold, grew up in Worcester.' He attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Boston University School of Business. In 1936, he was assistant treasurer of his father's business, B. F. Arnold Company, grocers, on Front Street in Worcester. He went to work for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette newspapers in the 1940s and at the time of his retirement in 1973 was the company's Purchasing Director. Mr. Arnold had no association with the school property after the couple's divorce. ARCHITECTURE Federal Style Photographs of other 19*-century Oakham schools suggest that the West Brick School may have been the first Oakham school built with pretensions of architectural style (compare Photo # 1 with the later, unadorned East Center and South schools, Illustrations #8 & 9).
The next Oakham school to bear elements of a recognized architectural style may have been the ca. 1850s(?) Greek Revival-style Coldbrook School (Illustration #3). The West Brick School is simple in design, with little ornament and no frills. Yet, while its plainness might seem to have been due to low architectural expectations in a rural town, the severity of the building's cubelike form and smooth brick exterior are also evidence of the influence of the Federal style - as are the shallow Classical pediment on the main façade 12 A 1921 deed from Rawson to Adams (Book 2262/Page 206) mentions a parcel of land on Old Turnpike Road from which "the lot of land with the schoolhouse thereon owned by the Town of Oakham" was to be excluded. It is assumed that at some later date, before Rawson's 1927 sale to Adams, the schoolhouse parcel was restored to Rawson the larger parcel.
13 Telephone interview Susan Ceccacci with Robert Arnold, July 19, 2009 14 1930 U.S. Census. Other information about Maud Arnold is taken from her obituary notice, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, August 3, 2007, p. 1920 Census. Other information about Alfred Arnold is taken from his obituary notice, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, July 13, 2007, p. B4. 13 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State and the low-relief Classical detailing at the eaves. High-style examples of the Federal style in brick were severe in both form and surface texture, yet they were often trimmed with much more elaborate carved Classical motifs or columns, which do not appear on vernacular expressions such as this.
The Federal style was popular in the United States from about 1790 through about 1830, during the so-called "Federal" period following the Revolutionary War. Inspired by the Classical architecture of ancient Rome, the style was made popular in England by the work of architect Robert Adam, and disseminated in the United States by men like Boston's Charles Bulfinch, Salem's Samuel Mclntyre, and by architects outside of New England, including Benjamin Latrobe and Robert Mills. While high-style examples of the style in Massachusetts were mostly concentrated in the more wealthy and populous cities, such as Boston and Salem, simplified examples in both wood and brick were soon built even in small rural towns across the Commonwealth. Brick Construction A feature that makes the West Brick School outstanding among Oakham's 19t*-century schools is its brick construction.
There were few, if any, other brick buildings in Oakham in 1827 when the school was built. The source of the brick used to build it has not been documented, yet it seems likely that it came from the Spooner brickyard on New Braintree Road, where the brick for the Center School is said to have been made.' The Oakham Center School (no longer standing), was constructed of brick about a year after the West Brick School. Shortly after the one-story Center School was closed in 1836, the building was enlarged with a brick second story addition, converting it to use as a dignified Federal-style dwelling. Thus, the former school became what was apparently the only brick dwelling to exist in Oakham Center during the 19t century. That building was demolished around the turn of the 21 century, leaving the West Brick School today as a rare example of 19"-century brick construction in Oakham.
Upon its completion, the new solid-brick West Brick School must have seemed an amazing transformation to all who had known the dilapidated schoolhouse that it replaced (see Section 8, page 2 for a description of the earlier building). No documentation has been found to explain the choice of brick for the new school. However, it seems clear that the decision to build in brick and the use of recognizable elements of a known architectural style (probably absent on the earlier school) were part of the general movement toward refinement that was characteristic of the decades following the Revolutionary War.
Richard Bushman, in his book The Refinement of America, notes the greater emphasis on architecture during this period, pointing out that brick houses, built almost solely by members of the upper class during the 18" century, were seen as symbols of refinement." Even in small towns in New England, where brick was less commonly used than in other parts of the country, public buildings, schools, hotels, and the homes of the well-to-do were built more often in brick during this era than ever before or after. One-room schools of brick were built not only in Oakham, but also in other small towns in Central Massachusetts during the Federal period. Brick buildings and brick schools were more unusual in these towns than not. As was true in Oakham, most of the area's schoolhouses were of wood-frame construction.
The rarity of brick meant that brick schools were often called by the name of their building material, just as occurred with the West Brick School. Surviving examples of brick schools in area towns include the much-altered Brick Schoolhouse (1812, NRDIS, MHC #PAX.33), Mill Street, Moore State Park, Paxton; the District # 1 Brick School (1830, NRDIS, MHC # SR W.2), Church Road, Shrewsbury; the hip- roofed District #5 School (1840) on Old North Spencer Road in Spencer; and the District # 6 School (ca. 1820s-1840), Northwest Road also in Spencer. Plan The West Brick School is built on a widely used 19"-century plan. This three-bay, sidehall-entry, gable-front building contains three interior spaces: a long entry hall and a storage area on one side, and an adjoining schoolroom on the other.
Built-in benches along the walls of the schoolroom, the shadows of which can be seen on the wainscot, may have been the 16 225"h Anniversary Oakham Mass: 1762-1987, p. 21 " Bushman, Richard L. The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. New York: Vintage Books, 1992, p. 133. 18 Fiske, Jeffrey H. History of Spencer, Massachusetts, 1875-1975, pp. 303-304. 14 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Worcester, MA Name of Property County and State only furniture for students when it was built. It is supposed that those benches were replaced later in the 19# century, in accordance with the latest educational concepts of the day.
The sidehall-plan, one-room school seems to have been a popular one, both in 19"-century Oakham as well as elsewhere in New England. Some schools in other places are known to have been built on the sidehall plan, but with no storage room attached to the entry hall. Lack of sufficient documentation makes it impossible to say exactly how many other Oakham one-room schools were built on the sidehall plan; exterior photographs suggest that at least two other local schools were built on this same plan. They were the East Center School (1837, no longer standing) and the South School (ca.1840s?, burned in 1894) (Illustrations # 8 & 9). Unlike the West Brick School, these buildings were oriented with their gables on the ends, rather than on the main facade. Both had a large transom above the entrance to illuminate the otherwise windowless entry hall, as does the West Brick School.
The three-bay, side-entry plan was commonly used in other places during the 19'* century, too. For example, the 1791 one-room schoolhouse moved from Candia, New Hampshire to Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, is of this type. Like the two Oakham examples, it has side gables, rather than a gable front. Another example, possibly dating from that same period, appears in the background of the well-known Winslow Homer painting "Snap the Whip," which shows children playing in a New England schoolyard (Illustration #7). Neither the Candia, New Hampshire, school nor the school in the Homer painting has a transom above the entrance. The transom was probably not needed in either of those two examples. The Candia school has a window and a door on the outer wall of the hallway, providing it with light.
It is likely that there was a window at the back of the hall of the school in the Homer painting, since its hallway side has no windows. A contrasting plan was used for Oakham's Coldbrook Schoolhouse (no longer standing) (Illustration #3). Bearing elements of the Greek Revival style and probably dating from the 1850s, it had a gable front with an entry hall that ran across the width of the main façade, rather than along the side as does the hallway at the West Brick School. (Its plan seems to have been similar to that shown in Illustration #6.) Flanking a center window, which provided light to what may have been a recitation room or storage closet behind the teacher's desk, were a door on one side for boys and another door on the other side for girls. It is likely that the separate entry halls served also as cloakrooms, one for boys and the other for girls.
Behind the entry hall was the schoolroom, which was lit by windows on three sides. The Coldbrook School may have been the only example of this plan in Oakham. However, this was a popular plan, widely used in other places. expestation. Iuse ary 1y period it is not a surprise to find grafiti, and the West Brick School does not disappoint that -and 19'"'-century one-room schools, extensive carved graffiti were common. J. Edward Hood, Director of the Department of Research, Collections and Library at Old Sturbridge Village, has identified among a small number of graffiti in the entry hall at the West Brick School a few examples of a symbol taking the form of a pointed ellipse, oriented vertically, with "a point or other pit mark at its center" (Photo #17).
Although Hood has found no documentation of the meaning of the symbol, which he has called the "Candia Glyph," both he and architectural historian Abbot Lowell Cummings agree that it represents the female private parts. Numerous examples of this symbol are found in the 1790 school from Candia, New Hampshire, on view at Old Sturbridge Village. Examples have also been found in a schoolhouse in York, Maine, as well as in the upper galleries of several New England meetinghouses.
According to Hood, Abbot Cummings has said, "you see them all over the place." Hood notes: One of the interesting questions that the pervasive use of an image that has no clear published source raises, is the possibility that it had been known and in use for generations - allowing it to spread through, or even with, the population of New England during the 19h and 18" centuries, and possibly 15 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State earlier.
Certainly it resembles vulval representations going back to Paleolithic times, though at this point I am not positing a direct connection from then to the 19" century." Illustrations of late 18' and early 19t-century classrooms often show a seeming disorder among the pupils that could have permitted freedom for graffiti-making (Illustration #5). Several have written about 19"* - century schoolboys carving up the desks and walls of their schools.
Noah Webster wrote in 1840: When I was a schoolboy the greatest part of the scholars did not employ more than an hour in a day, wither in writing or in reading; while five hours of the school time was spent in idleness, in cutting tables and benches to pieces, in carrying on pin lotteries, or perhaps in some roguish tricks.*20 There was, of course, plenty of opportunity for idleness in a one-room school, where the lone teacher had to devote attention to students of different age groups and levels of study throughout the day. The use of knives for graffiti-making by schoolboys is explained by the fact that penknives and pocketknives were a common tool typically carried by boys and men in the 19" century. The number of graffiti found in the West Brick School is relatively small, including both examples of the Candia Glyph and others.
That small number may result from the fact that the teachers here were, more often than not, of the inspiring kind (described above), who were able to maintain the attention and control of their students. It might also be the result of the fact that the building was constructed not long before the educational reform movement of the mid 19t century, which encouraged greater order and control in the classroom as well as the protection of the modesty of the pupils. Nevertheless, the West Brick School is closely related to other one-room schools of the period through its graffiti. Rare Example of 19t-century School Architecture Two other 19*-century schools still survive in Oakham today, but the West Brick School is both the oldest and the least altered. Memorial Hall (MHC # OKH.22) was built in the town center in 1874.
Although it was constructed for general community use with a meeting hall on the second floor, two classrooms on the ground floor allowed the town to open a consolidated school in the building that year. Today, the schoolrooms of Memorial Hall have been subdivided for use as Town Hall offices. The South School (MHC # OKH.48) was built about 1894 as a rural one-room school to replace an earlier school that burned. It has been adapted for use as a year-round dwelling. By comparison to these two other schools, the West Brick School has undergone few changes, either exterior or interior. See Section 7, "State of Preservation," for a description of the minor changes made to the building for use as a summer retreat.
Not only is the West Brick School unusual in Oakham for its excellent state of preservation, it is also outstandingly well Iges and by comparison to other surviving Massachusetts schoolhouses. Although many small school buildings from the centuries can still be found in Massachusetts towns, almost all have undergone conversions requiring interior changes, adaptations, and additions, which were never made here. 19 Hood, J. Edward and Tebo Jennifer, "Graffiti in the Candia, N.H. Schoolhouse at Old Sturbridge Village and the Identification of a Regional Vernacular Symbol - A Forum." Presented at the annual meeting of the New England Chapter of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Old Sturbridge Village, March 6, 2004, p. 10. 2° Letter, Noah Webster to Henry Barnard, March 10, 1840. Rollins, Richard M.
The Journey of Noah Webster, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980, p.12, quoted in Hood, J. Edward and Tebo, Jennifer, "Graffiti in the Candia, N.H. Schoolhouse at Old Sturbridge Village and the Identification of a Regional Vernacular Symbol - A Forum," a paper presented at the annual meeting of the New England Chapter of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Old Sturbridge Village, March 6, 2004, p.4. 16 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 West Brick School Name of Property (Expires 5/31/2012) Worcester, MA County and State Archaeological Significance Since patterns of ancient Native American occupation in Oakham are poorly understood, any surviving sites could be significant.
Ancient sites in this area may be important by contributing information on the activities and adaptations of Native American people to the Worcester Plateau uplands of Central Massachusetts and the upper reaches and headwaters of the Connecticut River drainage. The entire town of Oakham is drained by the Chicopee River Drainage. Locally, the school property is drained by Burrow Brook and Bell Brook, both tributaries of the Ware River. Ancient sites in the vicinity of the West Brick School may contribute important information that defines patterns of the exploitation of natural resources and adaptation by Native Americans. This information may then help understand similar patterns used by later Europeans. Riverine and nearby upland resources were important to Native Americans for subsistence, trade, transportation, tool technologies, and their social environment.
Native sites in this area should contain lithic and ceramic artifacts that can help identify intra-site activities through time, and the functional importance and variability of sites. The analysis of lithic and ceramic artifacts can also help identify patterns of trade, possibly along riverine transportation routes, and the spread of tool technologies. Ancient sites in this area may also contain information that helps us understanding the importance and relationship between riverine drainage boundaries as social boundaries. Ancient Native American social/political boundaries in the area of the Worcester Plateau/Central Massachusetts Uplands may represent a cultural adaptation to that physiographic region rather than the boundaries of the Connecticut, Thames, Blackstone, and Merrimack Rivers, each of which has its headwaters and tributaries in the region.
Historic archaeological resources described above may contribute important information related to the history of education in Oakham, the architectural characteristics of 18'h and early 19*-century rural school buildings, and the layout of school facilities. Important information may also exist related to 18"* and 19**-century teaching methods, the social, cultural, and economic characteristics of students who attended the school, and change that occurred in the local population as it developed a 20""-century summer recreational community. Additional historical research, combined with archaeological survey and testing, may identify the full range of historic land use for the school property. Historical and archaeological research may contribute evidence that indicates whether or not an earlier school existed on the property prior to the 1791 wood-frame school.
Similar research may also identify the precise site, orientation, and specific architectural characteristics of the 1791 school. Historical and archaeological research, combined with careful mapping, may identify the location and spatial relationship of barns, stables, outbuildings, and occupational-related features (trash pits, privies, wells) associated with each school building. The research identified above may indicate how rural educational facilities changed through time, and their relationship to changes in the community and educational system. Detailed analysis of the type and distribution of artifacts located around school buildings and the contents of occupational- related features may contribute important evidence related to educational methods, teaching aids, and the lives of students and their families.
Artifacts may be present that identify technologies associated with writing, reading, visual aids, and structural characteristics of the school building used to enhance the educational experience (e.g. lighting, seating etc.) Detailed analysis of the contents of occupational-related features may also contribute important evidence that identifies the social, cultural, and economic characteristics of students, their families, and the overall Oakham population. Students' lost or discarded personal property may contribute evidence of the above characteristics. Macro-fossil evidence retrieved from the contents of privies may contribute evidence related to the socio-economic status and overall health, diet, and pathologies that affected the students and their families at the Oakham School.
Detailed analysis of the contents of occupational-related features may also contribute important information related to the use of the West Brick School as a vacation retreat during much of the 20** century, and the changing character of the town as its population and agricultural economy declined. A wall from a collapsed outhouse, reportedly used during the school's occupation as a summer residence, is located at the rear of what was the vehicle shed. Archaeological testing can verify the period(s) of use for the outhouse and whether it represents the adaptive reuse of an earlier outhouse first used during the school's occupancy or new construction associated with a summer retreat. In both situations, the contents of 17 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No.
1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State the outhouse may contribute important information that defines the school and town's use as a rural vacation retreat and a comparative basis for understanding the changing character of the town from the 19* to the 20th century. END Developmental history/additional historic context information (if appropriate) 18 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration Form NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Expires 5/31/2012) West Brick School Name of Property Worcester, MA County and State 9.
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