Stowe Schools History
Schools were very important in the development of Stowe as in most Vermont towns. As early as 1797 there were votes designating which Lots were in a school district. the first four districts were geographically identified: District One was in the south, later to become “Mill Village”; Two was center to west, later “West Branch”; Three was north west, later “West Hill” and Four was North East, later “Pucker Street”. Original settlement of the town was near the intersection of Stagecoach Road and Pucker Street. It was in the area that the first school was taught by Dr. Thomas B Downer in his home in District 4. Between 1802 and the closing of the last five district schools in 1954 when the current elementary school was opened, there were as many as 19 district schools in Stowe. four of which came from merging the majority of the town of Mansfield with Stowe in 1848 and about one fourth of the town of Sterling in 1855.
Stowe School Districts c1880’s
Stowe School Districts Map 1980’s
In 1893 the Vermont legislature passed a law that each town must have only one school district and board. That year an inventory and valuation of each school was taken. Each Prudential committee transferred furnishings, wood for the stove and other items used for conducting a school to the town. By the early 1900’s several of the schools closed, merging some and others sending their student to District 6- Village School. In 1934 it was voted at School District annual meeting to sell several of the unused buildings. It was at that time some were dismantled, others became residences and one became a sugar house. As mentioned earlier, the consolidated elementary school opened in 1954. Several additions were added as the school populations grew. In 1973, the District 6/ High School was closed and the “new” middle school/ high school was opened. It contained open classrooms which in style at the time. Subsequently the middle school was enlarged and classrooms were enclosed.
West Branch School before 1878
In the mid-to-late 1800's, Stowe was blessed with 19 different schools comprising the Village School and 18 other "neighborhood" or District Schools, as they were called. Built in 1878, the West Branch Schoolhouse was located at the corner of Luce Hill Road and Mountain Road.
Upon completion of the new Elementary School in 1953-4, the remaining open district schools closed and from that point until 2006, the West Branch School was home to St. John's in the Mountains Episcopal Church.
Today, the building has been relocated to 90 School Street and is the home to the Stowe Historical Society and Museum. The Society was formerly housed, since it charter in 1956, in the Akeley Memorial Building.
District 1
Mill Village (later Lower Village) 1797-1902
At town meeting almost every year until mid 19th century there was a vote to reassign properties from one district to another. The schoolhouse in Mill Village was built approximately 1810. The families in this district circa 1897 were Moody, Douglass, Robinson, Brink, Stebbins, Moulton and Bashaw. Today it is a multifamily house (2021).
District 2
West Branch 1797-1954
The second District 2 schoolhouse replaced the smaller one built c.1811. The earlier one was moved and used as a home for about 130 years. This building was also a community center until 1954 when it and four others were closed in consolidated construction a new elementary school in the village. Until 2006 it was the home of St. Johns in the Mountains Episcopal parish.. It was moved to 90 School Street in 2010 and placed on a new foundation to become the permanent home to the Stowe Historical Society and Museum.
District 3
West Hill 1818-1948
District Three encompassed the area from near the intersection of Weeks Hill and Edson Hill Roads to Percy Hill Road, and then along West Hill and Tamarack Roads to the Morristown boundary. Wade Pasture (District 11) and Bradley (District12) districts were set off due to the increase in school population. When the school closed, the Van Bolen family purchased it and moved it back from the road to get better views of the surrounding mountains. They installed a belfry and a school bell which is still on the private home on West Hill Road.
District 4
North West (later Pucker Street) 1804-1925
Near the intersection of Stagecoach Road and Pucker Street the first classes were taught in the home of Dr. Thomas Downer. After the 1803 schoolhouse burned, Mr. Esty gave land to the district and a brick schoolhouse was built. In 1850, Mr. Churchill dismantled the building and used the bricks to put two wings on the Peter Lovejoy house in Center Village. It became the Mansfield House Hotel. The fourth site of the District 4 school is on Pucker Street and is a multifamily house today. (Photo WM Parrish 1960).
District 5
Hollow School (later North Hollow) c1850-1954
The Hollow School was on the west side of the right angle bend in Hollow Road. The need for a school nearer the farms in the Hollow (as opposed to) the Mill Village school led to a town meeting vote in 1809. It was decided which properties would be set in that school district. In 1935 the need to expand was evident and in the next town meeting it was voted to build a new, larger more modern building. Parts of the first building and parts of the “South Hollow” District 9 (a closed school) were used to build the new schoolhouse on the opposite corner of what we know as Stowe Hollow and North Hollow Roads. It was one of the last five schools to be closed at the opening of the elementary school in 1954. It is a private home (c.2020).
District 6
Center Village 1861- 1973
"Old Yeller" is the nickname given District School #6, built in 1861. The school has seen many changes over the years. It was built in the Greek Revival Temple style. Approximately 1894 the second story east was added with a flat roof. It closed in the 1973-74 school year when the new high school on the Barrows Road was completed.. In 1980, the restored Helen Day Memorial Library and Art Center building opened as the home of Stowe Free Library, and Helen Day Art Center
District 7
Little River/Gale (1838)
District Seven was established 1838. The earliest building was constructed along the Cotton Brook road. The second schoolhouse was at the bottom of Trapp Hill Road opposite the brick house known as the Presson Gale home. It closed in the 1930’s, was dismantled and the lumber used to build the house at 379 Mountain Road.
District 8
Sterling
District 8 was District 3 in the town of Sterling until 1855 when a portion of Sterling was “set to” Stowe. It served as a one room school house until there were no more scolars in the area and it closed C 1940. In the early 1950’s it was moved to Tansy Hill, rehabilitated as a residence by Mr. Dustin.
District 9
South Hollow (18??-1933) District 9 was in Stowe Hollow was built because of the growth of farm families on the southwest side of the Hollow. As happened in other districts it closed when the local scholars progressed to high school or work. In 1935 it was dismantled and used to built the second and larger school in the North Hollow (District 5) school.
District 10
Moscow
The schoolhouse on the corner of Moscow and Adams Mill Road is the third in the district. The first two were on the opposite side of Adams Mill Road, overlooking the mill pond. The second one was moved across the road next to school building 3 and became part of the duplex that is still standing. Moscow was one of the five schools remaining open in 1954. It 1955 it was sold to the Moscow Sunday School Association which subsequently build the Faith Baptist Church.
District 11
Originally Wade Meadow, currently Bloody Brook one room school museum at 90 Pond Street
District 11 was established 1828 and school house was located at the corner of Cape Cod and Weaks’ Hill Roads. In 1908 the school was closed due to no students living in the area. The solution to the overcrowding of the Village school was to move the school from the original location by setting it on logs and rolling it "cross lots" to be set next to the Village school. It was used as grade 1 - 3 class room until 1954 when the elementary school opened - housing grades one through eight. From 1954 to the closing of the "annex" and the high school 1973 it had various classroom uses including a music room. In 1976 it was restored to the look of a turn of the century "one room schoolhouse" and named Bloody Brook because of the copper in the stream that ran next to it on Weeks’ Hill Road. Today it is the main location of the Historical Society's museum.
District 12
Bradley District Weaks Hill
This was one of the shorter lived schoolhouses, having been built approximately 1880 and closed in the 1920’s. It was deconstructed and the lumber was used to build a garage behind the building known as the “Gables”. It is now the northwest section of the apartments near the West Branch Bridge.
District 13
Brownsville District 1836-1954
Named for one of the largest families in the area, it was a remote community on the northeast corner of Stowe. It flourished from about 1836 until the early 1910’s closed several times and was one of the last five to close in 1954. The following autumn it was hauled to the bottom of Moss Glen Road to become one of the buildings in the Stan Marc Wright’s Art School at the corner of Randolph and Moss Glen Falls roads.
District 14
Luce Hill Mansfield District 1
In 1848 most of Mansfield was “set to” Stowe. The school was renamed Luce Hill, name of the hill and because it was settled by members of the Luce family. In the mid 1940’s it was relocated opposite the Mark Poor farm to become the retirement home of Mark Poor.
It is currently Edlewisse.
District 15
Forks School Mansfield Dist. 2
At the foot of Harlow hill where Notch Brook and Ranch Brook meet and become the West Branch of the Waterbury River was the schoolhouse not too far south of the mill. It stood near the road in front of Fiddler’s Green Inn and Manhattan Music Co. It was moved back from the road in 1954 and burned to the ground shortly thereafter.
District 17
Mill’s Mansfield Dist. 4
Between Barrows Road and Lake Mansfield stands the Mill’s school built C 1840. The Aither children came from the Nebraska side of Trapp Hill, and others from the valley were the Adams, Culver, Clair, Cleveland, & Chamberline families.
Currently it is a private home.
District 19
Sterling District 1
In the dissolution of Sterling to Stowe in 1855, Morristown and Johnson, Sterling District 1 was in Morristown and served what became Sterling-Stowe. It stood at the bottom of today’s Moran Loop hill and Sterling Valley Road, nearest Sterling Gorge. By the 1930’s most of the families had moved from Sterling Valley as the lumbering was becoming scarce.