The Beacon School

In 1889 the Norwood School Committee, made up of George Hill, Thomas Brown and J.A. Crocker stated their concerns about the overcrowding at the Everett school in their annual report. 

“At the opening of the school, there were thirty-seven applicants, with room and desks for only thirty-two. Three gave up the idea of taking the course, and two older pupils studied at home, reciting only in special studies. A course of study was laid out, and the work of teaching begun. Very good work was done, but with his assistant a half a mile away, and the school building entirely unsuited to first-class work, Mr. Sheldon felt so cramped and so dissatisfied that at the end of the summer term he resigned.

But he was persuaded to withdraw his resignation, on the promise of better quarters next term, and the strong probability of a new and suitable building another year.

During the summer vacation the recitation room in the Everett building was fitted up, furnished with thirty-six desks, all that could be crowded into it, and the Water Commissioners’ office obtained for a recitation room. This was an improvement upon the previous accommodations, but with seven new scholars added it was too small, and only by the exercise of patience and forbearance have the teachers been able to do their work and, without the assurance of better accommodations soon, it is doubtful whether they can be induced to continue. This is known to be the position and feeling of Mr. Sheldon.

Your Committee have persuaded themselves that the town would certainly meet this difficulty in a liberal and enlightened spirit, and be willing to grant, at the coming town meeting, a sum sufficient to build and equip a High School edifice of sufficient capacity and accommodations for a generation to come.

We do not believe that an expensively ornamental edifice is needed now. What is called for is a substantial, commodious school building, suited to our present and immediately prospective wants. Such a building can be had for eight or nine thousand dollars, including furnishing. It should, of course, be two stories high, and on the upper floor contain a general school room, a recitation room, and an apparatus room, with two anterooms. The lower floor may be used for a primary school, or for other school purposes, as the Building Committee may decide. This can be done for the above-named sum, giving the town a handsome and convenient building.

The school committee recommended an appropriation of $9000 for this new High School building, which was to be ready by August 1st, 1889. The 1890 School Committee report below explains some of the complications that occurred on the project, which ran the cost to $14,000.

In 1890, town meeting voted to accept a new street between Walpole and Bullard Street on Beacon Hill, to be known as Beacon Street.

High School Building.

Our long needed and long hoped for High Schoolhouse is built and nearly ready for occupancy. At our last March town meeting an appropriation of $14,000 was voted for this purpose, and a Building Committee, with full powers, consisting of F. O. Winslow, Tyler Thayer, K. B. Morse, E. J. Shattuck, and T. J. Casey, was appointed, with the understanding that the house should he finished in time for the fall term. An excellent site was secured on central land near the Congregational church, but long and unexpected difficulty in the selection of a plan delayed the commencement of the work until the last of October. The building contract was awarded to Walker & Goodwin.

The new High Schoolhouse is fitted with the Smead system of heating and ventilation, and will accommodate seventy-five pupils, having, besides main schoolroom, three recitation rooms and laboratory ; also dressing rooms and basement closets. It is an ornament to the town and a credit to the committee and the builders. How long it will be sufficient for the needs of the High School will depend on the town’s rate of growth.”

The school was constructed on the open land at the corner of Bullard and Beacon Streets and opened in the spring of 1890. 

The 1890 School Committee Report outlined the challenges the students were facing while waiting for the new school. It also warned that when the school had 4 full classes of students the following year, overcrowding in the brand new school was already a possibility.

“Owing to the close quarters, bad ventilation and general inconvenience to which the High School has been subjected while waiting for the new building, the pupils of the first class have been allowed to study their lessons at home, meeting their teachers only at recitation hours. The progress they have made under this plan has been all that could be expected, and probably more than would have been realized il’ the arrangement of the previous year had continued, with the Principal and his Assistant at telephone distance apart, and the scholars migrating from one to the other five or six times a dav.

The establishment of the school in the new building will increase its facilities for work, and be like a birth into a new existence. Hitherto the studies in the sciences have been forced into the background for lack of space to set up and use apparatus ; no 3development has been possible in the rhetorical department: and all general exercises, as well as most experiments and object-lesson work, have been crowded out. The change to a better state of things cannot fail to awaken new interest in the mind of every pupil, and give a healthy impetus to study and the formation of scholarly habits.

The High School now has forty members. These, in two classes, represent its one-half growth. In the fall, according to present indications, another class of twenty will enter, making a two-thirds grown High School. Whether, when the fourth class enters, in September, 1891, the full sized school will crowd the new building as the old ones have been crowded, remains to he seen when that time comes.

Removal from the town has taken away two of the pupils since the enrollment last tall, but only one has dropped out from inability to keep up with the class work.”

In 1898 The Morrill Memorial Library was built between the High school and Walpole Street. The school was later enlarged and became a dedicated High School. You can see the addition and the school’s proximity to the library in the postcard above.

When the combination Norwood Junior/Senior High School building was built at the corner of Washington and Bond St in 1919, the Beacon building was converted into a grade school and renamed the Beacon School. 

After serving the pupils of the town for over 50 years, the Beacon School was demolished in 1942. In 1952 a residence was built on part of the site, and the library used the rest for a rear parking lot.