The icehouse on the west side of Hopedale Pond. When the icehouse was razed, the pump house (below the windmill) was brought across the pond on the ice and set up behind the Durgin home at 120 Dutcher Street where it became The Little Red Schoolhouse.
The icehouse on the west side of Hopedale Pond. When the icehouse was razed, the pump house (below the windmill) was brought across the pond on the ice and set up behind the Durgin home at 120 Dutcher Street where it became The Little Red Schoolhouse.
Thanks to Debbie (Grillo) Robbins for sending this Milford News clipping. Here’s what the caption says, for anyone who has trouble reading it above.
Hopedale, Dec 24.- Christmas exercises were held by pupils of the Little Red Schoolhouse Nursery school in the Town Hall. Donald Keniston of Upton was Santa Claus and there were many guests present and some of these young folks had their pictures taken with the pupils.
Front row: James Robert Wood of Milford, Paula Ann Tellier of Milford, David Calarese of Hopedale, Carolyn Thompson of Upton, Dorothy Robbins of Mendon, Philip LaBastie of Mendon, Alice Wilson of Hopedale, Arlene Kirsner of Milford, Richard Moore of Hopedale, Nancy Ann Newton of Upton, Sally Newton of Upton, Nancy Dudley of Mendon, Evelyn Dautrich of Mendon, “Jackie” Evans of Milford.
Second row: Patricia Mosso of Upton, Bernadette Sooley of Hopedale, Celine Wood of Milford, Daniel Nicholson of Milford, Dolores Comastra of Milford, Paul F. Biedrzycki of Mendon, James Lovejoy of Hopedale, Kathryn Sails of Milford, Karen Caufield of Hopedale, Margaret Wilson of Hopedale, James Kennelly of Mendon.
Back row: Benjamin Barnes of Hopedale, Stanley Barker of Milford, Jesse Cox of Mendon, Karen Jacques of Milford, John Melanson of Milford, Howard Sears of Milford, James Webber of Milford, Chester Benoit of Upton, Carol Ann Hickmott of Mendon, Donald Washburn of Hopedale, Charles Smith of Mendon, Barry Williams of Upton, Susan Clifford of Milford and Henry Bouchard, Jr., of Mendon.
Thanks to Ron Kimball for the diploma.
Herb Durgin by the Red Schoolhouse in 1985
The Little Red Schoolhouse
The building that became the Little Red Schoolhouse originally stood off of Freedom Street where the Gannetts’ tennis courts now stand. The construction date is unknown. At first the building served as a pump house for the icehouse that once stood on that site.
In the early 1940s, after the razing of the icehouse, the pump house was moved across the pond to Dutcher Street. It was then that it became known as “The Little RedSchoolhouse.” Old Bill Taylor of Milford moved it with a team of horses. It took approximately five hours to reach its present location.
Ethel Durgin set up a nursery school in the old pump house, and taught there. A fire bell was donated by the fire department when the school opened. The bell came from a 1914 Hopedale ladder truck.
The school eventually closed and the building was converted into a workshop. The interior still contains some blackboards and other reminders that for some years it had been a school. From a paper written for the Hopedale Community Historical Society, which noted, “Information provided by Herbert Durgin.” Photos and articles on this page are from the Milford Daily News clippings at the Bancroft Library in Hopedale.