The Little Red Schoolhouse

(1822. Owned by the Town; maintained by the Historical Society. One-room schoolhouse.)




The Little Red Schoolhouse. October 2014.


THE LITTLE RED SCHOOL HOUSE
By 1845 Jaffrey acquired a total of thirteen school districts. Many had one or two-rooms, much like the one on the Common. On a site about where the present Red School House stands, Jaffrey Center originally had School District No. 7, built in 1795. A new school was built in 1816-17 near the present Wild residence. Old building No. 7 was repaired and moved in 1856 to John Poole's lot (next to the present Oribe Shop). Abandoned in 1864, it was used as a blacksmith shop, then eventually sold to the V.l.S. and demolished.
         School District No. 11 was separated from No. 7 for the convenience of families living near the mountain, and a school house was built in 1796-98 on a road leading to the present residence of Mrs. Karl Compton. A new building was erected in 1822 on the Dublin Road. Attending school one year there were ten Cutter children from one family. The building was sold to Joel H. Poole in 1886 as a memorial to old times.
         In 1960, by public subscription and through the efforts of the Jaffrey Historical Society, No. 11 was moved to the present site on the Common. An account of the rescue effort is given in vol. III, ch. xxix, of the Town History. It was Project No. 1 of the Historical Society, recently organized by Homer Belletete, Ralph Boynton, and Jason Sawyer, Oren Belletete, Charles E. Chamberlain, Clyde Felch, and Fred H. Smith served on the moving committee, under Professor Robert H. George as chairman. The cost of building the school in 1822 was $200; the cost of repairing and moving it over the years 1957-67 was $2,691.35.
         Source: Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire, Portrait of a Village by Coburn Kidd, 1975.



Numerous photographs and images of the Little Red Schoolhouse may be found at https://rs41.smugmug.com/Jaffrey/JHS/Little-Red-Schoolhouse

A short brochure on the Little Red Schoolhouse may be found at http://www.rs41.org/jhs/LRSHbrochure.pdf

A chapter from the Town History on the Little Red Schoolhouse may be found at http://www.rs41.org/jhs/TownHistory/LRSH.pdf