EARLY SCHOOL BUILDINGS IN CHELSEA
1833 to 1860

The education of all children through a public school system was a primary concern to the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts. The Puritans believed all children should have the ability to read the bible in order to participate in religious services. Laws were enacted making it the responsibility of the parents to perform the education in the home. The first public school of any type for Winnisimmet, began on February 7, 1709 when Reverend Thomas Cheever was hired to teach in his home in the Centre {Revere}, four days a week. Over the next one hundred years schools were held in church vestries, private halls and homes.     In 1830, the United States began to experience an influx of European immigration, especially in the Northeast. The population of the Town of Chelsea in 1830 was 770, by 1860 it had risen to 13,395, Revere and Winthrop had been set off in 1846. The problem of schooling had to be solved. The first schoolhouse built in the Ferry Village {Chelsea}, was a one room, one story, wooden building, with a sloping roof, located on Washington Avenue and Chestnut Street. The front door faced Washington Avenue through a small porch. The building was approximately twenty-five feet square, surrounded by trees and with a large wood shed in the rear. It was plainly furnished with each row of desks a little higher than the other. The backside of each desk acted as the backside of the seat in front all facing the teacher whose desk was set on a platform. Blackboards were on three sides of the room. Narrow windows were set up high from the floor. Pupils brought their own lunches. Wednesdays and Saturdays were half days. The school was erected in 1833, remained at this location until 1840, when it was moved to Central Avenue, opposite Garden Cemetery. The building was used as a primary school at this site until 1860. The following year the building housing the school was sold. In 1837, a two story schoolhouse with four rooms was erected on Park Street {present day Police Station}. The building was used as a school until 1873. A primary school was started in Prattville in 1839. The school seats were once tree stumps with a board on top and no backs. The school was closed in 1846, for lack of students; seven students at time of closing. A two story wooden building was erected on Maverick Street, corner Shurtleff Street, in 1843. The building was used for a boys' grammar school. Also in 1843, a primary schoolhouse was built near 100 Broadway. In 1853, the school was moved to Mulberry Street opposite Pine Street. The building continued as a primary school until closed in 1873. In 1850, a two story, eight room, brick building was erected on Second and Walnut Streets; the first high school building to be built in Chelsea. Only four of the rooms were used for the high school and the rest, used for primary school.   By 1871, the primary classes had been moved out and all the rooms were used for the high school. A new high school building was built in 1872 on Bellingham Street. The school building on Second Street was heightened to three stories and enlarged, and became solely a primary school. Known as the Cary School, the building was demolished in the early 1940's. In 1853, the town hall was constructed on Central Avenue corner Shurtleff Street, with six rooms designated as a schoolhouse. The rooms formed a giris' grammar school.   A two story wooden schoolhouse was erected in 1855, on Shawmut Street corner of Middlesex Street {Congress Avenue}, and known as the Shawmut School. In 1857, the city purchased the old Marine Hospital building on Essex Street {Quigley playground) The building was made a grammar school, and called the Shurtleff School. The school was destroyed in the Chelsea Fire of 1908.   A four story brick building was erected on Walnut Street near Fourth Street in 1860. The building contained fourteen spacious rooms with a large 500 seat hall on the fourth floor. Originally called the Walnut Street School, a grammar school for boys, it became known as the Williams School.   Ten school buildings were built from 1833 to 1860, housing secondary / grammar school classes and one high school. Beside the school buildings, twenty-two primary school classes were organized in church vestries, private halls, or temporarily vacant school building rooms. Schooling of the children of Chelsea was always a high priority from the early days of the Puritans to the school administrators of the present day. Return to main page