Morewood School

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Morewood School
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Location S. Mountain Rd., Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°25′48″N73°15′38″W / 42.43012°N 73.26066°W / 42.43012; -73.26066 Coordinates: 42°25′48″N73°15′38″W / 42.43012°N 73.26066°W / 42.43012; -73.26066
Area 0.4 acres (0.16 ha)
Built 1843
Architectural style Greek Revival
NRHP reference # 84002084 [1]
Added to NRHP May 31, 1984

The Morewood School is a historic one-room schoolhouse at 30 South Mountain Road in Pittsfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Built in 1843, it was converted to a vacation cottage in the 1980s after serving for 130 years as a schoolhouse. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Originally located on 4 acres (1.6 ha) around 1825, the lot has been reduced to 1 acre (0.40 ha).

Pittsfield, Massachusetts City in Massachusetts

Pittsfield is the largest city and the historic county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. The population was 44,737 at the 2010 census. Although the population has declined in recent decades, Pittsfield remains the third largest municipality in western Massachusetts, behind only Springfield and Chicopee.

Massachusetts State of the United States of America

Massachusetts, officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It borders on the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named after the Massachusett tribe, which once inhabited the east side of the area, and is one of the original thirteen states. The capital of Massachusetts is Boston, which is also the most populous city in New England. Over 80% of Massachusetts's population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution. During the 20th century, Massachusetts's economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a global leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance, and maritime trade.

National Register of Historic Places federal list of historic sites in the United States

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.

Contents

History

Named after the Morewood family who owned "Broad Hall", the current Pittsfield Country Club, the schoolhouse was built around 1843. According to a record book retained by the Berkshire County Historical Society kept by Jesse Oliver Howard, who attended the school in 1865, the original school house burned in June 1841 when several classmates started a fire in the playground during the noon time recess. When Jesse Howard attended the school, the pupils ranged in age from 4–16 years old sitting in benches with no backs. Until 1925, water was drawn from the Howard brook in the wood next to the school. Morewood educated the children of the local early families such as the Howards, Luces and Melvilles. Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick and three other novels while living with his family in the nearby Arrowhead farm from 1850-1863.[ citation needed ]

Herman Melville American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best known works are Typee (1846), a romantic account of his experiences of Polynesian life, and his whaling novel Moby-Dick (1851).

The school in 1919 Morewood 1919.jpg
The school in 1919

Horace Mann accepted the position of First Secretary of the State Board of Education in Massachusetts in 1837 when Edward Everett was governor. He took office at a time when glaring weaknesses existed in public education in Massachusetts. He went to Pittsfield in the Berkshire Hills, in western Massachusetts to hold a "teachers’ institute," or convention. He reached the town, in the morning, only to find that no arrangements had been made, and that the little red schoolhouse in which the institute was to be held was in no presentable condition.

Horace Mann American politician

Horace Mann was an American educational reformer inspired by the work of the Whig dedicated to promoting public education. A central theme of his life was that "it is the law of our nature to desire happiness. This law is not local, but universal; not temporary, but eternal. It is not a law to be proved by exceptions, for it knows no exception." He served in the Massachusetts State legislature (1827–1837). In 1848, after public service as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, Mann was elected to the United States House of Representatives (1848–1853). From September 1852 to his death, he served as President of Antioch College.

Edward Everett American politician, orator, statesman

Edward Everett was an American politician, pastor, educator, diplomat, and orator from Massachusetts. Everett, a Whig, served as U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, the 15th Governor of Massachusetts, Minister to Great Britain, and United States Secretary of State. He also taught at Harvard University and served as its president.

When Governor Everett saw the condition of the schoolhouse, both he and Mr. Mann were determined to conquer what the secretary called "the arctic regions of Pittsfield" (because of its lack of interest); so, while the secretary was "putting things to rights", the governor made a raid on the nearest dwelling house, borrowed two brooms, and when the aroused and curious inhabitants strolled into the schoolhouse, they stood open-eyed with wonder to see the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the secretary of the State Board of Education sweeping and dusting the schoolroom, so that everything might be presentable when the hour for the institute arrived.[ citation needed ]

Several of the schools that he[ who? ] established still remain standing today in Berkshire County. It is very likely the Morewood School, the only surviving one room "red school" house, is the same school used for Horace Mann's historical teacher's institute.[ citation needed ]

The school house has the longest continuous use as a school in New England, seeing continuous use for 130 years.[ citation needed ] It was used as Pittsfield's USA Bicentennial Headquarters in 1975. The building was sold to Bob and Karen Clydesdale in 1984 and modernized while retaining the unique Greek revival exterior design features.[ citation needed ] It is now used as a vacation rental cottage. [2]

New England Region of the United States

New England is a region composed of six states of the northeastern United States: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north, respectively. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the south. Boston is New England's largest city as well as the capital of Massachusetts. The largest metropolitan area is Greater Boston with nearly a third of the entire region's population, which also includes Worcester, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island.

See also

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Sarah Morewood was a poet and literary figure who developed a close relationship in the 1850s with her nearest neighbor in the Berkshires, the novelist Herman Melville. In 1983 Professor Michael Rogin of the University of California, Berkeley, was the first to suggest that Morewood was a model for the character of Isabel in Melville's dark novel of romance and ambition Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852). Thirty-three years later biographer Michael Shelden argued in Melville in Love (2016) that Morewood influenced Melville's work not only in Pierre, but also in Moby-Dick (1851), and that for much of the 1850s the two were lovers.

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