SOUTHEAST DISTRICT SCHOOL, NORTH HAVEN
Also known as the Little Thoroughfare School
The Southeast District School after it was closed in 1904
Hidden away in the growth of trees that now surround it, the roof all but caved in is the Little Thoroughfare Schoolhouse. Fifty or sixty years ago it was a schoolhouse in the midst of a thriving island community.
1933 account of a visit to Little Thoroughfare School, White Schoolhouses on an Island by Seward E. Beacom
It would be hard to make one believe that the houses were so numerous [at the Little Thoroughfare] or that so many scholars went to the little school…The open space around the schoolhouse was an ideal place to play ball…School to most of us meant a chance to play ball and we looked forward to that longing and were no sooner dismissed than there was a great rush for our favorite ball ground and counted out for our turn at the bat.
“North Haven Little Thoroughfare in the Old Days,” Recollection by John Ferdinand Cooper, circa 1920
Nehemiah Stone deeded land for a schoolhouse near the Little Thoroughfare for $11.22 in 1852 and a building was constructed by Warren H. Cooper for $297. Known by many as the Little Thoroughfare School, it held classes until 1904 when the area’s population declined so much that it was no longer viable to keep a school open. The building was sold in 1922 but never utilized and decayed on site over the years.
The Little Thoroughfare School house had such large classes - up to fifty pupils in it at one time…I think they ranged in age from four to eighteen or nineteen, because they went very young then, I know that…Yes, they had just one teacher…But how you managed that many I don’t know! I imagine a lot of the little ones slept through some of it, if they had to stay all day…That little school, that building, stayed there for a great many years; but the trees grew up around it so you couldn’t see it. It was just abandoned -- just went to pieces finally.
Olive Stone Lermond, Interview with Eliot Beveridge, circa 1980
1933 account of a visit to Little Thoroughfare School, White Schoolhouses on an Island by Seward E. Beacom
It would be hard to make one believe that the houses were so numerous [at the Little Thoroughfare] or that so many scholars went to the little school…The open space around the schoolhouse was an ideal place to play ball…School to most of us meant a chance to play ball and we looked forward to that longing and were no sooner dismissed than there was a great rush for our favorite ball ground and counted out for our turn at the bat.
“North Haven Little Thoroughfare in the Old Days,” Recollection by John Ferdinand Cooper, circa 1920
Nehemiah Stone deeded land for a schoolhouse near the Little Thoroughfare for $11.22 in 1852 and a building was constructed by Warren H. Cooper for $297. Known by many as the Little Thoroughfare School, it held classes until 1904 when the area’s population declined so much that it was no longer viable to keep a school open. The building was sold in 1922 but never utilized and decayed on site over the years.
The Little Thoroughfare School house had such large classes - up to fifty pupils in it at one time…I think they ranged in age from four to eighteen or nineteen, because they went very young then, I know that…Yes, they had just one teacher…But how you managed that many I don’t know! I imagine a lot of the little ones slept through some of it, if they had to stay all day…That little school, that building, stayed there for a great many years; but the trees grew up around it so you couldn’t see it. It was just abandoned -- just went to pieces finally.
Olive Stone Lermond, Interview with Eliot Beveridge, circa 1980
Students with teacher Eva Grant, seated at center, at the Southeast District or Little Thoroughfare School in 1898